The Long Lonely Leap

HOEG, PETER: WOMAN AND THE APE, New York Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1996
ISBN: 0-374-29203-5 As New

ABOUT THE BOOK Woman and the Ape FROM THE PUBLISHER From the internationally acclaimed author of Smilla's Sense of Snow comes a dazzling leap of imagination-a tale as sensitive as it is suspenseful, as profound as it is provocative. Madelene, the beautiful, lonely, alcoholic wife of behavioral scientist Adam Burden, is pacing the confines of their opulent London home when she comes upon her husband's secret captive. Erasmus is a 300-pound ape who, if rigorous tests prove him a hitherto unknown superhominid, will be the ruthless Adam's ultimate trophy. But Madelene, intoxicated by their encounter, sets out to unravel the web of corruption that ensnares this intelligent creature. And together, blurring the boundary between human and animal, she and Erasmus venture into an Eden of freedom and love...only to find their future endangered by a species who would let greed and ambition destroy their fragile world. Witty, erotic, magical, The Woman and the Ape is a tour de force, one that offers daring new insight into out times, our illusions, and our hearts. FROM THE CRITICS Publishers Weekly No one will ever be able to claim that Heg doesn't know how to hook a reader. The newest ecothriller by the author of Smilla's Sense of Snow opens with the deceptively simple sentence: "An ape was approaching London." What the vague syntax and flat affect omit could (and does) fill a book. For instance, the "ape"-who's dubbed Erasmus-turns out not to be "some sort of dwarf chimpanzee" as eminent zoologist Adam Burden claims, but a brand new species of ape that just might have the potential for language and higher cognitive functions. The opening line gives little indication of the hubbub Erasmus will raise in a few short paragraphs when he causes the Ark, the ship that has carried him captive to London, to lose its crew and plow mast-first into busy St. Katharine's Dock. Or, a few pages later, when he leads Dr. Burden and his minions on a merry chase through the streets of London. Or, a couple of chapters down the road, when Erasmus seduces Madelene, who just happens to be Burden's beautiful alcoholic wife, and takes her away for a week-long lovefest at a wild animal park. The first line gives no indication of all this because the story and its characters are mere window-dressing for Heg. While he's a fluid writer who is competent at telling stories, it's in the realm of ideas that he excels. There are long passages in which he analyzes Erasmus and human emotions and London itself in terms that are by turns mechanistic and organic. On one page, London is a "gigantic mycelium," a fungus. On a later page, we discover that London is a worn-out machine," full of blind spots and flat points." At the end of this fine and diverting novel, Madelene explains how she's always pictured angels, and her definition could as easily stand for Erasmus or London or even the Earth. "It's one third god, one third animal, and one third human." 100,000 first printing; major ad/promo. (Dec.) FYI: <P> The movie version of Smilla's Sense of Snow, starring Julia Ormond and Gabriel Byrne, is scheduled for release in March 1997. Library Journal From Smilla's Sense of Snow to Borderliners to A History of Danish Dreams, Danish novelist Heg has maintained a sharp sense of social critique that, refreshingly, is not wittily dismisive but earnest without being heavy-handed. And what better way to show up human heartlessness and pretension, particularly of the ruling classes, than in our treatment of animals? In this swift-paced, lacerating new work, an ape brought illegally to England ends up at the home of Madelene, a Danish woman married to Adam Burden, director of the Institute of Animal Behavioral Research. Madelene is young, fresh, and deeply alcoholic, but through the glassy haze that Heg describes so effectivelyfrom the inside out, not simply for dramatic effect but almost as an aesthetic experience, like being in a crystal cageshe can tell the ape is in danger. Madelene sets out to rescue the ape from her coldly calculating husband and his even more frigid Hardcover 6 x 9 in

[SW: Human-animal relationships -- Fiction, Apes -- Fiction, London (England) -- Fiction, Fables]

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