Evolution Of Bruno Littlemore (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
This is sometimes an excellent book, and other times it's an awful one. There are fantastic descriptive passages that are riveting, then there are pages spent on turn-by-turn directions or the exact layout of an apartment, neither of which ever become important. There are flashes of intelligence in Bruno when he denies trichotillomania or interprets Caliban with startling insight, but then he fails to recognize marijuana and calls it something childish. Lush moments abruptly run aground in minutiae. Exquisite moments of anguish dissipate into travel by train. This book was exasperatingly inconsistent. Next layer of annoyance: this is so obviously straining in every direction to be Lolita that it's laughable. If you're going to try to make a monkey out of a narrator, aim lower than Humbert Humbert. Arms too short to box with Nabokov. But this is Humbert the Homonculus, in love with Lydia rather than Lolita, coming home to kill Quilty nonetheless. If the author thinks any well-read reader is fooled, he is mistaken. Fascinating moments are lifted from the lives of Kanzi, Koko, and a nod is given to Clever Hans. The research is solid and the speculation is solid. But the construction is flawed, derivative, and rough. This was a disappointment. What an odd book. It is a memoir of a chimp who learns to speak (in a rather overblown pompous style) and has to negotiate what it means to be an animal that is no longer able to live as an animal now that his consciousness has been sparked and he is more human than animal. He has a human girlfriend (that made me pause a little because the idea of a chimp and a human as equal lovers was hard for me to swallow), and attempts to live as normal a life as possible. If Brian Griffin (the dog in Family Guy) had ever finished a novel or a memoir, it would likely have been similar to this (in that people treated him as normal for being a talking dog).
What do You think about Evolution Of Bruno Littlemore (2011)?
Interesting, bizarre, ultimately worth a read, but not spectacular.
—mnichols117
