The Lost World - Michael Crichton

  

Not even the best book with its title (Arthur Conan Doyle wins hands down, unsurpisingly), but I have to admit that this novel was what I believe people label - rightfully - a page turner. 

The pace is quick, the chapters short, the actions packed over the span of 24 hours (or maybe 48 or thereabouts? I've read it a while ago and don't quite remember) and dinosaurs remain fascinating creatures (though this isn't quite a Crichton invention). 

The prose is terrible, the vocabulary limited and the science (or science fiction) feels a bit too accessible for someone who only ever did a bit of basic biology and chemistry in school, but the book is ultimately a good couple of hours of pretty good low-maintenance entertainment.

The Lost World – Arthur Conan Doyle

When I was a kid I read some of Sherlock Holmes’s stories and kind of liked them, but to me The Lost World was of an entirely different calibre.

Maybe it’s because this week I’ll be going to Crystal Palace to check out the 19^th century dinosaur sculptures, or maybe because the novel reminded me of my youthful love for those creatures, but I loved The Lost World with passion. Sure, the characters are all so representative of authentic 19^th century English values (something with which I am still very much struggling in post-referendum Britain), and many of these features are just offensive by today’s standards (nowadays you don’t quite assert your masculinity by firing guns, at least in theory, and women are allowed on adventurous expeditions, at least at times), but the four heroes all remain charming in their own ways.

I suspect that the book falls into the “young adults” category – and I’m sadly out of it now! – but one thing that really surprised me is that, at the end of the day, it’s really not dated…