- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Macmillan Distribution Limited (Aug 1 1997)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0747529876
- ISBN-13: 978-0747529873
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 15 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 703 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,439,380 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Library Journal
Like Kafka's Gregor Samsa, London artist Simon Dykes has suffered a surprising transformation?he's become a chimpanzee. So has everyone else around him, but he doesn't realize it. Dumped in a mental hospital for his delusional thinking, Simon comes under the care of Dr. Busner (an alpha male) and tries to understand the strange new world around him. Chimpanzees are indeed the ascendant primates; humans are a fading offshoot that have simply failed to learn how to sign or vocalize properly. As one might expect from Self (Cock & Bull, LJ 3/1/93), this situation provides ample opportunity for a lacerating send-up of contemporary human society, and Self can be very funny. But as a whole it doesn't really work. The alternative chimp society is not persuasive, and Self is too busy with bad-boy langauge and obsessive sex to get at deeper issues. Buy where Self is popular.?Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Simon Dykes is a successful London painter who arrives at a point where he ponders the futility of life: he's in the throes of serious angst, particularly his corporeal self is weighing him down. His latest apocalyptic paintings are disturbing and reflect his narcissistic fixation on the body. So he decides to forgo drugs on the fateful evening that he is to meet his lady, the lovely Sarah Peasenhulme, and the rest of their clique; but then the evening assumes its own momentum and drugs flow bountifully. After a night of halting lovemaking, Simon awakens to find himself in bed with an ape, a chimpanzee. Soon he discovers he is in a world dominated by chimpanzees. Despite appearances, Simon maintains that he is a human and hovers on the brink of madness until Dr. Zack Busner, clinical psychologist, maverick drug researcher, former television personality, and alpha male at the top of his reign, decides to take on the case and bring Simon to an understanding of his "chimpunity." Self creates a fully realized chimp world with this Kafkaesque, or Swiftian, satire that hypnotizes with its comic romps, existential posturings, and Shakespearean intrigues. Certain to find a readership beyond Self loyalists. Bonnie Smothers
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
brilliant,
By Lizzie D (Wellington New Zealand) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Great Apes (Paperback)
There really isn't too much to add to what others have said in reviewing the book. This is a world weary cynical satire of human life which is one of the funniest things I have read in years. Having said that boy oh boy does it make you think. As I read about life through the eyes of a chimp that which is initially hysterically funny becomes less so when you realise what you are reading parallels aspects of your own life.Despite my review seeming somewhat contradictory in its 'effulgence' of this book I would recommend it to anyone and all my friends have had it for Christmas or a birthday and now they are passing it on to others.
4.0 out of 5 stars
beneath the planet of the humans,
By
This review is from: Great Apes (Paperback)
A wicked view of humanity and its hypocrisies. A great novel to make you think about humans, their genetic programming and their place in the world. It also satirises the contemporary art scene in London and the academic world ruthlessly.A substantial and important work, even if it is extremely seamy and seedy. It reminded me of visions like Anthony Burgess's Clockwork Orange and seems to sit well in the British tradition of satire going back to Swift.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Alternative reality?,
By
This review is from: Great Apes (Paperback)
For those who've journeyed before into Will Self's London, there's bound to be lots that's familiar in "Great Apes": the themes of drug abuse, psychiatry, obsession with sex and so on. Indeed, you could view "Great Apes" as a mere variation on the stories in "The Quantity Theory of Insanity" and "Grey Area" (the characters will ring lots of bells).The plot centres on the chimpanzee artist Simon Dykes, who imagines he's really a human, and finds help in the shape of the eminent psychiatrist/academic/TV personality Dr Zack Busner. Part of Busner's therapy is to take Dykes to meet real humans at London Zoo, in the hope that when confronted with humanity, Dykes will recover his real (chimp) nature. Will Busner succeed? The big attraction of "Great Apes" is its sheer imaginativeness: the London is this novel is a chimpanzee-based society. The interest and sheer fun of the novel derive from that - it's great to be carried along on Self's outrageous imagination, enjoying his identification of differences between the real world and his imagined "chimpworld" (but far more enjoyable than that is spotting where things are pretty much the same!). Great fun. G Rodgers
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