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Michael Crichton: Travels by Markus Ehrenfried
Sun, as film director (Coma, The Great Train Robbery), as producer (Twister) and as creator of the television series Emergency Room, but comparatively few people have read his autobiographical book Travels. It's one of the books you'll almost never find in the shelfs of bookshops. At least I never saw it there. They usually only have the fiction books by Michael Crichton in stock. After reading almost all of his novels I wondered about Travels and ordered it from Amazon. Travels is an extraordinary book. It's basically a loose collection of stories from Crichtons life, starting with his years of study at Harvard Medical School (1965-1969). Afterwards he recounts from his extensive travels including such extreme destinations as e.g. ascending Mount Kilimanjaro, swimming with sharks and joining expeditions into the jungle. Crichtons gripping style makes it hard to put this book down. Certainly not a boring book. If you've already read some of his novels you'll start to understand from where he got many of his ideas. Quite interesting I found the chapter about the making of the film The Great Train Robbery, which he directed in 1978/79 in Ireland. (Crichton is also the director of the medical horror thriller Coma, based on a book by Robin Cook). During the second half of this book, Crichtons travels change more and more from 'outer' travels to 'inner' travels. Crichton openly states that he consulted psychiatrists for decades, using their perspective on his problems as assistence for self reflection. Over the years he became more interested in psychic phenomena, consulting a lot of psychics and gurus of all sorts ('inner travel agents', as he calls them). Normally that would be the point for me to put a book away because I don't believe at all in auras and astral blah. Crichton's book certainly didn't change my opinion concerning phenomena like that (which I'm convinced doesn't exist) but I must admit that I found the way he writes about it to my own surprise rather fascinating. At least I have to say to his credit that he approached these things very openly -- in a value free sense: not overcredulous but also not (like me) a priori discarding them. He just tried everything out and was open to whatever might happen. Certainly he drew different conclusions than I would have in his stead but at least he tried and I didn't (and never will). Sometimes it get's really weird, e.g. his chapter about an encounter with 'An Entity'. But reading about his 'journey towards his inner self' made me think and wonder about many things I never thought about before. To cut a long story short: I couldn't disagree more with most of his conclusions but nevertheless think his book is absolutely worth reading. In the last chapter, entitled 'Direct Experience' he sumarizes his conclusions drawn from all his experiences over the years. It's interesting to read how clear, differentiated and sophisticated he sees the phenomena he studied. It's easy for a hardcore scientist to dismiss everything lock, stock and barrel but in all fairness one has to admit that his thoughts are probably a lot more sophisticated and in a certain sense established because he at least tried to understand psychic phenomena. And who could seriously argue against his point that he encourages his readers to always seek direct experience and first hand knowledge -- in matters of everything -- instead of simply trusting indirect experience which is so much easier to get through magazines, television and internet! All he says in the end is: 'Find out yourself.' He tried and found certain answers for himself, if I would try I'm certain I would end up with different answers. Crichton never tries throughout his descriptions to convince the reader that he is right. He just said: look, I tried, and that's what happend to me. Now go and try yourself. I guess I agree with that. The book contains a postscript, a speech adressed to the 'Skeptics at Cal Tech'. His line of argumentation is quite interesting. (At the very end he remarks, that he was never invited to Cal Tech, so he never gave this speech.)
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Michael Crichton's official webpage, containing a biography and a text about his book Travels. Crichton's filmography at IMDb Two articles about Michael Crichton on Forbes.com can be found here and here. Here is an CNN article about Michael Crichton. Cliff Corder collected some information about Michael Crichton on his webpage.
Some other books by Michael Crichton: A Case of Need (1968, writing as Jeffery Hudson) -- I wouldn't count this as one of his best books, but it's a well written medical thriller. The Andromeda Strain (1969) -- One of his early science thrillers. Science fiction in the best sense, i.e. fiction with a scientific background. The story is about the first biological crisis, caused by an espionage satellite which brings back an infection from outer space. The real science behind that is, that indeed that NASA was worrying during this time how to disinfect spacecrafts when they get back to earth. There is indeed a research field called astrobiology! As far as I know this was the first script Crichton sold to Hollywood. There is a film directed by Robert Wise. The Great Train Robbery (1973) -- Based on a true story which shocked Victorian England in 1855 Crichton wrote this exciting novel in 1973 and directed the movie (starring Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland and Lesley-Anne Down) in 1979. In Travels you'll find an interesting chapter about the making of this film. Eaters of the Death (1976) -- One of his less readable books in my opinion. He also produced and partly directed a movie based on this book, The 13th Warrior. I didn't like the movie. Congo (1980) -- fairly good book, really bad movie. Sphere (1987) -- good story and I actually even liked the movie directed by Barry Levinson, although everyone else seems to pan this film. Rising Sun (1991) -- excellent story, one of his best books - but a really, really bad film.
Disclosure (1993) -- mediocre book, mediocre motion picture. Airframe (1996) -- A book about a plane crash and its investigation. Mediocre story. Timeline (1998) -- This is really his worst book so far. An idiotic story about time traveling into the Middle Ages. I remember buying this book in Los Angeles and reading it on a flight to Paris. Air France didn't allow me to open a window at 30,000ft to throw it out. According to Forbes he sold the movie rights for $1 and 15% of the gross to Universal and they turned it into a motion picture which disappeared from the cinemas in Germany after one week or so.
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In January 2003 Michael Crichton was invited to Caltech and gave a lecture with the strange title 'Aliens Cause Global Warming'. Here is a second link to another copy of the same text in case the first one should be removed. Is Science Fiction Science? -- A discussion (Closer to Truth) in which Michael Crichton participated. Click on 'Transcript' to download it as pdf. A dinosaur was named after Michael Crichton. | ||||||
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