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Summary
Summary
After the extraordinary success of Water for Elephants, with 3 million copies shipped, Sara Gruen returns with another immensely charming, endlessly surprising, and engaging novel in which a family of apes teaches us what it means to be human.
Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants has become one of the most beloved and bestselling novels of our time. Now Gruen has moved from a circus elephant to family of bonobo apes. When the apes are kidnapped from a language laboratory, their mysterious appearance on a reality TV show calls into question our assumptions about these animals who share 99.4% of our DNA.
A devoted animal lover, Gruen has had a life-long fascination with human-ape discourse, and a particular interest in Bonobo apes, who share 99.4% of our DNA. She has studied linguistics and a system of lexigrams in order to communicate with apes, and is one of the few visitors who has been allowed access to the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, where the apes have come to love her. In bringing her experience and research to bear on this novel, she opens the animal world to us as few novelists have done.
Ape House is a riveting, funny, compassionate, and, finally, deeply moving new novel that secures Sara Gruen's place as a master storyteller who allows us to see ourselves as we never have before.
Author Notes
Sara Gruen was born in Vancouver, Canada in 1969. Before becoming a full-time fiction author, she worked as a technical writer. She has written several novels including At the Water's Edge, Ape House, Riding Lessons, and Flying Changes. Her novel, Water for Elephants, appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List for more than 4 years and was adapted into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon, Rob Pattinson, and Christoph Waltz in 2011.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Gruen enjoys minimal luck in trying to recapture the magic of her enormously successful Water for Elephants in this clumsy outing that begins with the bombing of the Great Ape Language Lab, a university research center dedicated to the study of the communicative behavior of bonobo apes. The blast, which terrorizes the apes and severely injures scientist Isabel Duncan, occurs one day after Philadelphia Inquirer reporter John Thigpen visits the lab and speaks to the bonobos, who answer his questions in sign language. After a series of personal setbacks, Thigpen pursues the story of the apes and the explosions for a Los Angeles tabloid, encountering green-haired vegan protesters and taking in a burned-out meth lab's guard dog. Meanwhile, as Isabel recovers from her injuries, the bonobos are sold and moved to New Mexico, where they become a media sensation as the stars of a reality TV show. Unfortunately, the best characters in this overwrought novel don't have the power of speech, and while Thigpen is mildly amusing, Isabel is mostly inert. In Elephants, Gruen used the human-animal connection to conjure bigger themes; this is essentially an overblown story about people and animals, with explosions added for effect. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Gruen's respect and love for animals fuel her fiction, most famously her best-selling novel Water for Elephants (2006). Her fourth ensnaring tale features our close relatives, bonobos exceptionally intelligent and casually sensual great apes. When we first meet the mischievous Bonzi, Sam, Mbongo, Makena, Lola, and Jelani, they are happily ensconced in a cheerful research facility where they request their favorite foods, romp, use computers, watch movies, and converse with humans using American Sign Language. Scientist Isabel considers the bonobos her family and would do anything for them, even after she is nearly when the lab is bombed. The fate of the bonobos is a brilliantly satirical surprise. Suffice it to say that Isabel's harrowing battle to rescue the apes involves a porn king and is interlaced with the hilarious misadventures of a once A-list newspaper reporter now reduced to working for a tabloid, while his thwarted novelist wife endures insulting inanities as she attempts to launch a sitcom. Rooted in true horror stories of the abuse of research animals and the astonishing discoveries made at the real-life Great Ape Trust, Gruen's astute, wildly entertaining tale of interspecies connection is a novel of verve and conscience.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
EARLY in Sara Gruen's new novel, "Ape House," one of the characters gives a mini-lesson on American Sign Language, which, she instructs, "is not simply signed English - it's a unique language, with a unique syntax." Instead of saying, "Yesterday I ate cherries," for example, this character explains that in A.S.L. you might sign, "Day-past eat cherries me." A few pages later, that same character is described as using spoken English and A.S.L. "simultaneously." It shouldn't take a linguist to recognize that such a task is well nigh impossible. Any careful reader might guess that expressing oneself in two languages at the same time, when each employs different word order, simply wouldn't work. In fact, it does not. (Disclosure: I've worked as an A.S.L. interpreter.) A minor quibble, yet it raises questions about the author's relationship to the other research-based aspects of the story. And in a book that asks us to care about complex ethical and scientific concerns, such questions matter. Gruen, the author of three other novels, including "Water for Elephants," turns her attention here to the world of six bonobos and the humans who conduct language studies with them at the fictional Great Ape Language Lab in Kansas (evidently based on the real-life Great Ape Trust in Iowa, which Gruen visited). The first several chapters give a taste of the vast sweep of issues the novel will address: the potential for and implications of interspecies communication; the varieties and uses of sexual contact, both among humans and among the other primates; family dynamics and dysfunction; the abduction and enslavement of animals for scientific research; the crass obtuseness of pop culture; the very notion of what constitutes humanity and the humane. Gruen heaps her topical platter high and wastes no time digging in. There is a voracious quality to her storytelling, a dogged delight in excess, and whatever a more contemplative thinker or a sharper satirist might have done with the subject matter, their methods are not hers. "Ape House" is a busy book, crammed with locations, characters, character types, and the kind of Amazing Coincidences and Surprise Twists that would do Dickens proud. Gruen, subscribing to the moreis-more theory, appears never to have met a plot point she didn't like, the more outrageous the better, and a glittering plethora of these pile up to keep the novel pitching forward. The main characters are Isabel Duncan, a scientist working with the bonobos, and John Thigpen, a down-on-hisluck journalist. Initially sent to report on work being done at the language lab, John winds up covering the increasingly bizarre series of events that unfold when the lab is bombed and the animals disappear - only to resurface on a reality TV show called "Ape House" (on which subtitles allow viewers to understand what the bonobos are signing). Isabel, badly injured in the bombing and frantic to reunite with her research subjects, whom she thinks of as "family," teams with John to find out whodunit and try to rescue the apes. Along the way they are variously helped or hindered by a foulmouthed, eyebrow-pierced, tattooed intern; a catty rival journalist named Cat; a wife with a rapidly ticking biological clock; two quirky computer hackers; a megalomaniacal porn king; the foppish publisher of a tabloid magazine; a bashful forklift driver; and a Mace-wielding Sunday school teacher. Oh, and a threesome of Russian strippers. Oh, and a green-haired vegan eco-feminist. And an interfering mother-in-law. Also some gun-toting thugs in a meth lab. And a pit bull named Booger. You get the idea. GRUEN is clearly enjoying herself here. Publicity material for the book suggests that the reading experience could be expressed in a single word: "fun." And it is fun, in an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink way: headlong and over-the-top. Much of the humor amounts to sight gags and saw-it-coming punch lines. But the conceit of a household of language-endowed apes as the ne plus ultra of reality TV - leering humans greedy for profits and naughty thrills (bonobos have frequent sexual interactions with both opposite- and same-sex partners), apes who are at once innocent and more compassionate and dignified than the producers and the viewers - is terrific: an incisive piece of social commentary. Which left me wondering why Gruen affords relatively little narrative space to her simian characters. The scenes where she takes us inside the Ape House are some of the most affecting. When the humans, in an effort to boost ratings, deliver sex toys to the house, the bonobos merely spin the vibrator like a top and cover the blow-up doll with a blanket. Later, one of them rescues a dazed bird and helps it fly away, beyond their fenced enclosure. And when a pregnant bonobo goes into labor, the others gather around her, inadvertently blocking the mounted cameras and thus giving privacy to the birth. These scenes have a simplicity and integrity that feel at odds with the rest of the novel. In an author's note, Gruen describes her experience of meeting real bonobos as "astonishing," and implies that she came away from it "changed." The novel includes scenes illuminating the horrors of some scientific research, and indirectly raises the question of what bonobos might teach us about our own capacity for empathy. At such moments, "Ape House" seems to want to be a different kind of book, one that would seek unabashedly to move us, to leave us changed. Leah Hager Cohen, a frequent contributor to the Book Review, teaches at the College of the Holy Cross. Her books include "Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World."
Guardian Review
Twenty-three pages into Sara Gruen's new novel, the facility where the main character, Isabel Duncan, studies and cares for a group of bonobos is mysteriously blown up. Isabel herself is gravely injured, and the bonobos escape. At this point, Ape House looks as though it is going to be a fairly straightforward thriller - the villains seem most likely to be members of a radical animal liberation group - and Gruen has set herself something of a political puzzle: how is she going to take sides in what is a highly complex and very sensitive issue, that of great ape capture, research and training? Dogs, horses and other human companions were domesticated so long ago, and have been so changed in the process, that they seem to be our benign and almost natural companions, but it is only in the past two generations that apes have joined us, and all aspects of those connections have been fraught with philosophical complications. Forty years ago, we knew so little about chimps and other apes (we did not even know that bonobos existed) that the average person could be fascinated by tricks and sign language; our blissful ignorance of the killings, kidnappings, habitat destruction and animal cruelty that allowed those activities is now gone. Ape House attempts to address some of these issues, but ends up so burdened by its plot that it misses their deeper and more fascinating implications. Part of the problem is that Gruen's secondary characters have more personality than her main ones. Celia, Isabel's lab assistant, is a cheerfully tattooed anarchist who knows the difference between regulations and righteousness, but Isabel herself is passive and easily intimidated. John Thigpen, Gruen's journalist hero, takes weeks to find a way to sort through his domestic dilemmas and get himself to the scene of the crime; his ruthless rival at the newspaper and the lap dancers he meets in the process are livelier than he is. And then there is the villain. He is a mere walk on, practically non-existent as a character. The fate of the bonobos is neither to escape nor to be killed, but to be put on TV to become a pop-culture phenomenon - not only do they get great ratings, they attract picketers and activists of all sorts, including a familiar anti-gay hate group from a church in Kansas. It is the bonobos who could save this plot, if Gruen had a stronger feel for the uniqueness of each ape personality, but she doesn't spend enough time characterising them as a group or as contrasting personalities within the group. The matriarch, the pregnant female and the males are given a certain type of modern American freedom - to consume, to hang out, and to make a mess - but since there is no sense of them as individual personalities, the reader ends up having no more feeling for them than those who watch them on television do. Which is not to say that Gruen has not done her research; she has, and it is evident. As in her previous - bestselling - book Water for Elephants, she not only seems to have her facts straight, she enjoys being informative. The material about how the bonobos communicate, especially on the grammar of their sign language, is enlightening and believable; as is their use of resources (one thing they are allowed to do on their reality TV show is order whatever they want on the internet). Gruen sometimes plays these motifs for laughs, though, which muddies the novel's tone. Ape House is an ambitious novel in several ways, for which it is to be admired, and it is certainly an easy read, but because Gruen is not quite prepared for the philosophical implications of her subject, it is not as deeply involving emotionally or as interesting thematically as it could be. If Isabel, for example, were given an occasion to contrast bonobos in captivity with ones she has known in the wild, or to describe in greater detail the small society she cares for, Ape House would be more rewarding. But when Isabel is blown up on page 23, her knowledge and personality are sacrificed to melodrama, also a feature of Water for Elephants. It is always better for the plot if the main character is blown up at the end of act one, not the beginning. Jane Smiley's Private Life is published by Faber. To order Ape House for pounds 15.19 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop - Jane Smiley Twenty-three pages into Sara Gruen's new novel, the facility where the main character, Isabel Duncan, studies and cares for a group of bonobos is mysteriously blown up. Isabel herself is gravely injured, and the bonobos escape. At this point, Ape House looks as though it is going to be a fairly straightforward thriller - the villains seem most likely to be members of a radical animal liberation group - and Gruen has set herself something of a political puzzle: how is she going to take sides in what is a highly complex and very sensitive issue, that of great ape capture, research and training? Part of the problem is that Gruen's secondary characters have more personality than her main ones. Celia, Isabel's lab assistant, is a cheerfully tattooed anarchist who knows the difference between regulations and righteousness, but Isabel herself is passive and easily intimidated. John Thigpen, Gruen's journalist hero, takes weeks to find a way to sort through his domestic dilemmas and get himself to the scene of the crime; his ruthless rival at the newspaper and the lap dancers he meets in the process are livelier than he is. And then there is the villain. He is a mere walk on, practically non-existent as a character. - Jane Smiley.
Kirkus Review
In this novel about a researcher's devotion to a family of bonobo apes, the author ofWater for Elephants(2006) turns her attention to another mistreated mammal whose intellectual capacity has been undervalued by humans.Aspergerish Isabel Duncan has found joy studying the advanced language development of bonobo apes that have been raised to communicate in English and sign language. At the research lab where she works, the bonobosmatriarch Bonzi, outgoing Sam, adolescent Jelani, pregnant Makena, sensitive male Mbongo and baby Lolaare treated with respect and love, but animal-rights activists constantly protest the facility. Shortly afterPhiladelphia Inquirerreporter John Thigpen interviews Isabel, watches her play with the bonobos as an equal and experiences one-on-one communication with Bonzi, the Language Lab is bombed by masked intruders, and the Earth Liberation League, an animal-rights extremist group, claims responsibility. Isabel is seriously wounded. The apes are not physically hurt, but the university funding Isabel's research quickly sells them to a secret buyer to avoid further problems. Isabel's fianc and boss Dr. Peter Benton's nonchalance horrifies her, and she throws him out even before she finds out he's slept with her assistant. (Gruen conveys to the reader loud and clear early on that Benton is a baddy.) The apes have ended up in New Mexico starring in a hit reality show produced by a porno magnate that emphasizes their sex lives over their language skills. Isabel vows to save the bonobos even if it means working with former enemies. Meanwhile John is fired from the Inquirerand moves to Los Angeles when his wife, a discouraged novelist, gets a TV job. When a sleazy tabloid hires John to check out the reality show in New Mexico, he and Isabel work separately and together to save the bonobos.The factual information Gruen presents about bonobos and their language acquisition is compelling; unfortunately, the humans, who get far more page space, are a drag.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
The result of extensive research at the Great Ape Trust research facility in Des Moines, this fourth novel from Gruen (following the phenomenal Water for Elephants) has the dramatic tension of a crime thriller. Isabel Duncan is both scientist and den mother to six bonobos, outgoing, intelligent, and mischievous great apes who use American Sign Language and graphic symbols to communicate. Without warning, an explosion shatters their orderly existence. Were the animal rights protesters, an annoying presence outside the lab, behind this vicious act? Isabel spends weeks in the hospital and then can barely function when she learns that her six much loved bonobos have been stolen. With the help of lab intern Celia and two computer hacker friends, a sympathetic tabloid reporter, and an unforgettable Russian prostitute, Isabel wins out over a porn producer with the hottest reality show idea ever. Twists and turns, lies, and treachery abound in this funny, clever, and perceptive story. VERDICT Although the book is somewhat flawed by an abundance of stock characters, Gruen's achievement is nevertheless significant not only in illuminating the darkest corners of animal research but also in showing the depth of human-animal relationships. This will draw both confirmed and new devotees of Gruen's fiction. A perfectly plotted good read. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 4/15/10.]-Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Grand Junction, CO (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Chapter One The plane had yet to take off, but Osgood, the photographer, was already snoring softly. He was in the center seat, wedged between John Thigpen and a woman in coffee-colored stockings and sensible shoes. He listed heavily toward the latter, who, having already made a great point of lowering the armrest, was progressively becoming one with the wall. Osgood was blissfully unaware. John glanced at him with a pang of envy; their editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer was loath to spring for hotels and had insisted that they complete their visit to the Great Ape Language Lab in a single day. And so, despite seeing in the New Year the night before, John, Cat, and Osgood had all been on the 6 a.m. flight to Kansas City that same morning. John would have loved to close his eyes for a few minutes, even at the risk of accidentally cozying up to Osgood, but he needed to expand his notes while the details were fresh. John's knees did not fit within his allotted space, so he turned them outward into the aisle. Because Cat was behind him, reclining his seat was not an option. He was well aware of her mood. She had an entire row to herself--an unbelievable stroke of luck--but she had just asked the flight attendant for two gins and a tonic. Apparently having three seats to herself was not enough to offset the trauma of having spent her day poring over linguistics texts when she had been expecting to meet six great apes. Although she'd tried to disguise the symptoms of her cold ahead of time and explain away the residual as allergies, Isabel Duncan, the scientist who had greeted them, sussed her out immediately and banished her to the Linguistics Department. Cat had turned on her legendary charm, which she reserved for only the most dire of circumstances, but Isabel had been like Teflon. Bonobos and humans share 98.7 percent of their DNA, she'd said, which makes them susceptible to the same viruses. She couldn't risk exposing them, particularly as one was pregnant. Besides, the Linguistics Department had fascinating new data on the bonobos' vocalizations. And so a disappointed, sick, and frustrated Cat spent the afternoon at Blake Hall hearing about the dynamic shape and movement of tongues while John and Osgood visited the apes. "You were behind glass anyway, right?" Cat complained in the taxi afterward. She was crammed between John and Osgood, both of whom kept their heads turned toward their respective windows in a futile attempt to avoid germs. "I don't see how I could have given them anything from behind glass. I would have stood at the back of the room if she'd asked me. Hell, I'd have worn a gas mask." She paused to snort Afrin up both nostrils and then honked mightily into a tissue. "Do you have any idea what I went through today?" she continued. "Their lingo is completely incomprehensible. I was already in trouble at 'discourse.' Next thing I knew it was 'declarative illocutionary point' this, 'deontic modality' that, blah blah blah." She emphasized the "blahs" with her hands, waving the Afrin bottle in one and the crumpled tissue in the other. "I almost lost it on 'rank lexical relation.' Sounds like a smelly, overly chatty uncle, doesn't it? How on earth do they think I'm going to be able to work that into a newspaper piece?" John and Osgood exchanged a silent, relieved glance when they got their seat assignments for the trip home. John didn't know Osgood's take on today's experience--they hadn't had a moment alone--but for John, something massive had shifted. He'd had a two-way conversation with great apes. He'd spoken to them in English, and they'd responded using American Sign Language, all the more remarkable because it meant they were competent in two human languages. One of the apes, Bonzi, arguably knew three: she was able to communicate by computer using a specially designed set of lexigrams. John also hadn't realized the complexity of their native tongue--during the visit, the bonobos had clearly demonstrated their ability to vocalize specific information, such as flavors of yogurt and locations of hidden objects, even when unable to see each other. He'd looked into their eyes and recognized without a shadow of a doubt that sentient, intelligent beings were looking back. It was entirely different from peering into a zoo enclosure, and it changed his comprehension of the world in such a profound way he could not yet articulate it. Being cleared by Isabel Duncan was only the first step in getting inside the apes' living quarters. After Cat's banishment to Blake Hall, Osgood and John were taken into an administrative office to wait while the apes were consulted. John had been told ahead of time that the bonobos had final say over who came into their home, and also that they'd been known to be fickle: over the past two years, they'd allowed in only about half of their would-be visitors. Knowing this, John had stacked his odds as much as possible. He researched the bonobos' tastes online and bought a backpack for each, which he stuffed with favorite foods and toys--bouncy balls, fleece blankets, xylophones, Mr. Potato Heads, snacks, and anything else he thought they might find amusing. Then he emailed Isabel Duncan and asked her to tell the bonobos he was bringing surprises. Despite his efforts, John found that his forehead was beaded with sweat by the time Isabel returned from the consultation and informed him that not only were the apes allowing Osgood and him to come in, they were insisting. She led them into the observation area, which was separated from the apes by a glass partition. She took the backpacks, disappeared into a hallway, reappeared on the other side of the glass, and handed them to the apes. John and Osgood stood watching as the bonobos unpacked their gifts. John was so close to the partition his nose and forehead were touching it. He'd almost forgotten it was there, so when the M&M's surfaced and Bonzi leapt up to kiss him through the glass, he nearly fell backward. Although John already knew that the bonobos' preferences varied (for example, he knew Mbongo's favorite food was green onions and that Sam loved pears), he was surprised by how distinct, how differentiated, how almost human, they were: Bonzi, the matriarch and undisputed leader, was calm, assured, and thoughtful, if unnervingly fond of M&M's. Sam, the oldest male, was outgoing and charismatic, and entirely certain of his own magnetism. Jelani, an adolescent male, was an unabashed show-off with boundless energy and a particular love of leaping up walls and then flipping over backward. Makena, the pregnant one, was Jelani's biggest fan, but was also exceedingly fond of Bonzi and spent long periods grooming her, sitting quietly and picking through her hair, with the result that Bonzi was balder than the others. The infant, Lola, was indescribably cute and also a stitch--John witnessed her yank a blanket out from under Sam's head while he was resting and then come barreling over to Bonzi for protection, signing, bad surprise! bad surprise! (According to Isabel, messing with another bonobo's nest was a major transgression, but there was another rule that trumped it: in their mothers' eyes, bonobo babies could do no wrong.) Mbongo, the other adult male, was smaller than Sam and of a more sensitive nature: he opted out of further conversations with John after John unwittingly misinterpreted a game called Monster Chase. Mbongo put on a gorilla mask, which was John's cue to act terrified and let Mbongo chase him. Unfortunately, nobody had told John, who didn't even realize Mbongo was wearing a mask until the ape gave up and pulled it off, at which point John laughed. This was so devastating that Mbongo turned his back and flatly refused to acknowledge John from that point forward. Isabel eventually cheered him up by playing the game properly, but he declined to interact with John for the rest of the visit, which left John feeling as if he'd slapped a baby. "Excuse me." John looked up to find a man standing in the aisle, unable to move past John's legs. John shifted sideways and wrangled them into Osgood's space, which elicited a grunt. When the man passed, John returned his legs to the aisle and as he did so caught sight of a woman three rows up holding a book whose familiar cover shot a jolt of adrenaline through him. It was his wife's debut novel, although she had recently forbidden him from using that particular phrase since it was beginning to look as though her debut novel was also going to be her last. Back when The River Wars first came out and John and Amanda were still feeling hopeful, they had coined the phrase "a sighting in the wild" to describe finding some random person in the act of reading it. Until this moment it had been theoretical. John wished Amanda had been the one to experience it. She was in desperate need of cheering up, and he'd very nearly concluded that he was helpless in that department. John checked for the location of the flight attendant. She was in the galley, so he whipped out his cell phone, rose slightly out of his seat, and snapped a picture. The drinks cart returned; Cat bought more gin, John ordered coffee, and Osgood continued to rumble subterraneously while his human cushion glowered. John got out his laptop and started a new file: Similar to chimpanzees in appearance but with slimmer build, longer limbs, flatter brow ridge. Black or dusky gray faces, pink lips. Black hair parted down the center. Expressive eyes and faces. High-pitched and frequent vocalizations. Matriarchal, egalitarian, peaceful. Extremely amorous. Intense female bonding. Although John had known something of the bonobos' demonstrative nature, he had been initially caught off-guard at the frequency of their sexual contact, particularly between females. A quick genital rub seemed as casual as a handshake. There were predictable occurrences, such as immediately before sharing food, but mostly there was no rhyme or reason that John could ascertain. John sipped his coffee and considered. What he really needed to do was transcribe the interview with Isabel while he could still recall and annotate the non-aural details: her expressions and gestures, and the moment--unexpected and lovely--when she'd broken into ASL. He plugged his earphones into his voice recorder, and began: ID:So this is the part where we talk about me? JT:Yes. ID:[nervous laugh] Great. Can we talk about someone else instead? JT:Nope. Sorry. ID:I was afraid of that. JT:So what made you get into this type of work? ID:I was taking a class with Richard Hughes--he's the one who founded the lab--and he talked a little about the work he was doing. I was utterly fascinated. JT:He passed away recently, didn't he? ID:Yes. [pause] Pancreatic cancer. JT:I'm sorry. ID:Thank you. JT:So anyway, this class. Was it linguistics? Zoology? ID:Psychology. Behavioral psychology. JT:Is that what your degree is in? ID:My first one. I think originally I thought it might help me understand my family--wait, can you please scratch that? JT:Scratch what? ID:That bit about my family. Can you take it out? JT:Sure. No problem. ID:[makes gesture of relief] Whew. Thanks. Okay, so basically I was this aimless first-year kid taking a psychology class, and I heard about the ape project and I went, and after I met the apes I couldn't imagine doing anything else with my life. I can't really describe it adequately. I begged and pleaded with Dr. Hughes to be allowed to do something, anything. I would mop floors, clean toilets, do laundry, just to be near them. They just . . . [long pause, faraway look] . . . I don't know if I can say what it is. It just . . . is. I felt very strongly that this was where I belonged. JT:So he let you. ID:Not quite. [laughs] He told me that if I took a comprehensive linguistics course over the summer, read all his work, and came back to him fluent in ASL he'd think about it. JT:And did you? ID:[seems surprised] Yeah. I did. It was the hardest summer of my life. That's like telling someone to go off and become fluent in Japanese over four months. ASL is not simply signed English--it's a unique language, with a unique syntax. It's usually time-topic-comment-oriented, although like English, there's variability. For instance, you could say [starts signing], "Day-past me eat cherries," or you could say, "Day-past eat cherries me." But that is not to say that ASL doesn't also use the subject-verb-?object structure; it simply doesn't use "state-of-being" verbs. Excerpted from Ape House by Sara Gruen All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
