In this new novel, Will Self turns his wicked gift for satire on a favorite victim--his fellow man. After a night of routine, pedestrian debauchery, a successful, middle-aged London painter, wakes up to find that his girlfriend has turned into a chimpanzee.
Great Apes (Will Self)
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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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First Sentence
Simon Dykes, the artist, stood, rented glass in hand, and watched as a rowing eight emerged from the brown brick wall of one building, slid across a band of grey-green water, and then eased into the grey concrete of another building. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Simon Dykes, the artist, stood, rented glass in hand, and watched as a rowing eight emerged from the brown brick wall of one building, slid across a band of grey-green water, and then eased into the grey concrete of another building. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
By Lizzie D
Format: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.
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.
Format: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.
Format: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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3.8 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hoooo'Graah
This is one of the funniest books I have ever read and I've been reading since 1964. What it lacks in profundity if makes up in snobery. Read more
Published on Feb 27 2003 by Alex
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Clever Kafkaesque Fantasy With a Shot of Gary Larson
First of all, I am biased. I am a big fan of chimpanzees. I also love to jokingly compare people (most notably in a corporate setting) to primate groups. Read more
Published on Feb 24 2003 by E. Richards
4.0 out of 5 stars
clever and entertaining
My wife bought this book for me because she liked the cover. I like it too, and think it looks rather like a simian Duane Gish (of the Institute for Creation Research)--do a... Read more
Published on Dec 19 2002 by James J. Lippard
4.0 out of 5 stars
extrodinarily odd, but entertaining
This is my first experience with Will Self and I must say it is unique. I really enjoy Chuck Pahlniuk's work and was recomended to this author. Read more
Published on Dec 17 2002 by M. Hickman
5.0 out of 5 stars
HooohGraah!! - Four Thumbs up for Will Self
I have never been inparted with 'Grnn' any of Will Self's previous books. So I can't sign much about the 'euch-euch' cuffing he has received from critics in the past. Read more
Published on July 14 2002 by Michael Bowen
5.0 out of 5 stars
Go to the zoo, read this book, then go to the zoo again
The 1st 2 chapters seem hard work as you're reading them, I almost gave up too, but their importance becomes clear as you read on. Read more
Published on May 28 2002 by Hominid
5.0 out of 5 stars
Kafka and a Half
This book is so surreal that, by the end, you will honestly begin to wonder about the reality you inhabit. Read more
Published on April 25 2002
4.0 out of 5 stars
Self's Opus
I just finished "Great Apes" after putting it off for 3 years or so after a friend recommended it highly. Read more
Published on Jan 3 2002 by Richard Cunningham
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sex, drugs and chimpanzees
One day, the artist Simon Dykes, a member of London's artistic elite, awakes after one of his a usual nights of sniffing cocaine and drinking large quantities of alcohol,... Read more
Published on Nov 1 2001 by Emma Husar-memmer
4.0 out of 5 stars
Cheeky Monkey Business
When you pick up a book that weighs in at somewhere around the region of 500 pages it had better be good. Read more
Published on Sep 16 2001 by William B
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