invasion of the body snatchers by jack finney

As they try to figure out what to do about it, Theodora screams that it is Jack. The body is not just unformed, but doesn’t even possess fingerprints. Seems that the Belicecs are not busy cheating at football, but are instead trying to figure out what is the deal with a half-formed body on their billiards table. Mile Bennell thinks so until, one night he and his one-time girlfriend Becky Driscoll are called to visit their friends Jack and Theodora Belicec. Oh, sure, they may look like the people they know, but they aren’t the people they know. What is described as a “contagious neurosis” has several townspeople behaving strangely with their insistence that loved ones and friends are not really their loved ones and friends.

A few short months later, something strange seems to be happening to some of the town’s residents. From the skies over Santa Mira, California drift pods from outer space. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. By making it about the “everyman,” the horror and terror of everyone around them being replaced by emotionless beings is much more relatable on a visceral level.Ī timeless pulp classic, I give The Body Snatchers 4.0 stars out of 5.These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.

Still, it’s a fun story, and even decades later it’s clear why The Body Snatchers is a timeless classic, even if it’s not “on par” with more significant literary titans. Sure, there’s the weaker section or two, and the more upbeat ending didn’t have much explanation other than the aliens’ annoyance of humanity’s persistence. In the end, The Body Snatchers has plenty of strong moments in its plot.

I would have preferred better integration of this information into the plot, but sometimes the characters just need to sit down and explore these ideas in depth. While the full explanation of the aliens’ presence and purpose is relegated to an enormous information dump more than half-way through the book, it nevertheless contains some interesting ideas and concepts that could be plausible given the circumstances. Simple in its execution, but brilliant in its reveal, The Body Snatchers builds up an inherent distrust of the people surrounding the main characters as they investigate why everyone seems “off” in this small, California town. While the source material is inherently pulpy, a result of the genre and the era in which it was published, there is an entertaining quality to the story that has allowed it to survive for so long. In fact, I like to think that many facets of this story have become a part of popular culture, including the replication “pods” and Donald Sutherland’s scream in the 1978 film version. Most people know this book by its numerous film adaptations, including Invasion of the Body Snatchers (19), Body Snatchers (1993), and The Invasion (2007).

Invasion of the body snatchers by jack finney