The Woman and the Ape (Paperback)

A love story, a comic satire and a fable about the relations between human civilization and the rest of the world, "The Woman And The Ape" centers on two characters who could scarcely appear more hopeless and helpless.

Erasmus, the ape, opens the book with a daring escape from hardened animal smugglers, only to be captured by scientists after numerous run-ins with the city of London prove almost fatal. He is secretly installed at the home of rich and distinguished animal behaviorist, Adam Burden, who sees in this possible new species the fruition of his most ambitious dreams.

There, Erasmus arouses a mild curiosity and pity in the book's other main character, Adam's 30-year-old Danish wife, Madelene, an alcoholic beauty with a lousy self-image.

"Each morning Madelene was resurrected." At her mirror, "she did the one thing she knew herself to be truly good at: she re-created the myth which said that Madelene looks gorgeous." Her next task is to replenish her carafe of ethyl alcohol so she can float through her day being gorgeous and amiable and walling off the terrors of daily life.

In so doing she comes across the ape in his new quarters. "With some effort Madelene succeeded in coming up with a sketchy log of the past two days. The ape had arrived the day before yesterday. She had spent yesterday in bed with her carafe and that dreadful migraine. The bulk of the setup in front of her must have been erected in less than a day."

In her second encounter, "Madelene was overcome by a prickling sense of unease, as though she had sat on an anthill." Certain small truths home in on her along with the ape's "incalculable" gaze. These she quickly drowns, but something in her has been awakened.

She embarks on her own mission to discover what she can about the ape and her husband's activities, launching "new" selves (well fueled with alcohol) to accomplish the necessary daring subterfuges.

Hoeg keeps up a madcap energy, as humorous and cheering as it is biting and outlandish. Madelene takes on people she would ordinarily be too frightened to speak to, and in the process of amassing facts about the "impossible" existence of Erasmus, begins to free herself.

This she cannot actually do until she "saw her own weakness, saw it clearly, saw herself as the ape had seen her and then she gave up....She gave up drinking."

She organizes a daring, hilarious plan of escape for herself and Erasmus and the novel veers off in another direction - that of love story. This developing love is as lucid and erotic as the fog of alcohol was erratic and prickly.

By the end Erasmus has come fully into his own, a larger-than-life ape with a mission and a big surprise for the human race.

Hoeg's writing is pure pleasure - vivid and playful, earnest and rich, mocking and touching. His condemnation of animal exploitation is hardly new but his presentation is totally refreshing.

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