We’ve met Hammond three chapters earlier, and his surname will also serve as the title of Chapter 56 in the ‘7th Iteration’ towards the close of the book. Donald Gennaro, who works for InGen’s counsel, prepares to skip his daughter’s birthday party to join the emergency ‘safety audit’ of the park and is debriefed by John Hammond about what to expect. The chapter takes place in the InGen offices and on the flight to Choteau.

Crichton has an elaborate and thorough back story for InGen, the funds they’ve raised, the holes in their business plan, and the deceptive practices used to procure funding. Hammond uses a miniature elephant (a miniature dinosaur is used in a similar fashion as an homage to Crichton by Zebrowski in 1994’s The Killing Star) as a marketing tool. Crichton bombards the reader with specifics to make the story real from the get go. Behind every fact lies pages of documentation. Every turn of the car leads to a boulevard, we find no dead-ends, no cul-de-sacs.

The reader is still in the ‘team-building’ phase of the book, the trope we’re following is “Avengers Assemble.”

Best Writing, Quotes

“Hammond also concealed from prospective investors the fact that the elephant’s behavior had changed substantially in the process of miniaturization.”

Crichton’s Jurassic Park Page 69

Investors assume that because it looks like an elephant, that it acts like an elephant, which Hammond doesn’t correct. Hammond allows a lie of omission – one of at least three that Crichton uses to show his slippery behavior. However, by changing the form of the beast, the animals temperament is also different.

Page by Page Highlights, Quotes

“Saturday was Amanda’s birthday, and Elizabeth had invited twenty screaming four-year-olds to share it, as well as Cappy the Clown and a Magician. His wife hadn’t been happy to hearthat Gennaro was going out of town. Neither had Amanda.” – Page 67, wherein Crichton tells us of the mundane, but wealthy life of Gennaro and his family’s names

“.. But if there’s a problem on that island, burn it to the ground.” Ross says to Gennaro on Page 67 – again foreshadowing that everyone realizes this could be a real problem with big consequences. Crichton is also showing us the over confidence that humanity has, that we believe the genie can be put back in the bottle, when this will no longer be an option for the characters in this Jurassic Universe – not in this first book, nor in any of the subsequent written stories or films.

“Hammond was flamboyant, a born showman, and back in 1983 he had an elephant that he carried around with him in a little cage. The elephant was nine inches high and a foot long, and perfectly formed, except his tusks were stunted.” Page 68

“The elephant was always a rousing success; its tiny body, hardly bigger htan a cat’s, promiseduntold wonders to come from the laboratoyr of Norman Atherton, the Stanford geneticist who was Hammond’s partner in the new venture.” Page 68 – Norman, not Hammond, is the genius

“For example, Hammond was starting a genetics company, but the tiny elephant hadn’t been made by any genetic procedure; Atherton had simply taken a dwarf-elephant embryo and raised it in an artificial womb with hormonal modificaitons.” Page 68

“Also, Atherton hadn’t been able to duplicate his miniature elephant, and he’d tried.” Page 69 – Atherton can’t repeat the trick!

“Hammond also concealed from prospective investors the fact that the elephant’s behavior had changed substantially in the process of miniaturization.” Page 69 – everyone assumes that because it looks like an elephant, that it acts like an elephant, which Hammond doesn’t correct. It’s a lie of omission. However, by changing the form of the beast, he’s also changed its temperment.

“Between September of 1983 and November of 1985, John Alfred Haymond and his “Pachyderm Portfolio” raised $870 million in venture capital to ifnance his proposed corporation, International Genetic Technologies, Inc.” Page 69

“Two hundred and thirty-eight… How many species?”
“Fifteen different species, Donald.”
Page 70 – Donald Gennaro and Hammond discuss what to expect on the island, and foreshadow how specific numbers foreshadow the problems they will encounter.

“And the secret to making money in a park,” Hammond said, “is to limit your personnel costs. The food handlers, ticket takers, cleanup crews, repair teams. To make a park that runs on minimal staff. That was why we invested in all the computer technology – we automated wherever we could.” – Page 71, Hammond foreshadows how the computers which are to help with Jurassic Park will actually create the enterprise’s downfall.

“Yes, there were several accidents,” Hammond said. “And a total of three deaths.” Page 72