Read This: The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore

My latest Shelf Awareness review ran yesterday, for the much-anticipated The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore, Benjamin Hale’s story of a chimpanzee who, after a combination of behavorial experiments and immersion into a human lifestyle, eventually develops the capacity to not just understand but use language… which brings with it the bittersweet gift of human intelligence. (And I do mean much-anticipated: The publisher backed this novel heavily at last year’s Book Expo America, making sure that booksellers and media alike were prepared to receive this as the literary find of 2011.)

I’m not 100% sold on this novel; as an unreliable narrator, Bruno so overwhelms the narrative that his blind spots when it comes to human nature can threaten to make other characters seem like little more than elaborate foils for his identity-forming adventures—and in a story that hinges so heavily on Bruno entering into the most human of human relationships, the character imbalances can be a serious problem. But there’s so much to enjoy in Hale’s telling—including sly allusions to everything from Shakespeare to Curious George—that I would encourage you, as I often do, to not simply take my word for it but read the novel for yourself and see if you even share my reservations.

8 February 2011 | read this |