Brazzaville Beach
Once again I find that my factoid is far from complete - I`m absolutely sure that I`ve read another of Boyd`s novels - "The New Confessions" - when my factoid was already online, yet I can`t seem to find a trace of that book anywhere around here. Probably it was one of the books I read before my computer broke down and it somehow got lost when I tried to recapture everything that was missing. Anyhow now it`s too late... no, maybe not - I eventually will add that book to the factoid although I remember very little from it. But enough about Boyd, it`s time to talk about Boyd. There was one fellow named Boyd who played for the Scottish national football team, Tom Boyd, if I`m not mistaken, yet he has absolutely nothing to do with this book.
This is a book about two kinds of apes - first, there are chimps, second - there are Homo Erectus. Ok, technically they are Sapiens but what goes for their behaviour calling them Homo Erectus would do them justice. The story is centered around a woman named Hope Clearwater that has split with her husband - a serious mathematicician - some time ago and who is now working somewhere in Africa where she is observing chimps for some ape observing organization. Everything would be fine for her, were the country where the apes dwell not having a civil war. And to make things worse - Hope starts noticing something happening between the chimps that makes matters only worse - a war begins between a group of chimps in the South and chimps in the North. She tries to inform her bosses about that but nobody is willing to believe her for Mallabar (or what`s his name), the leader of the organization has written several books about chimp as the humane ape and facts about chimps killing each other and feeding upon each others` children doesn`t diverge with his theories pretty well. When Hope encounters members of the army at the civil war she finds out that in some ways they are more humane than the scientists she`s been working with - although I guess the best description for this book can be found on the back cover of it and it`s written by some book critic: "An odyssey through the darkest of all continents - the human heart." It`s not really my kind of book, but if I`m not raving happy about it`s not because of the quality of the book but because I prefer somewhat different kind of literature.
This is a book about two kinds of apes - first, there are chimps, second - there are Homo Erectus. Ok, technically they are Sapiens but what goes for their behaviour calling them Homo Erectus would do them justice. The story is centered around a woman named Hope Clearwater that has split with her husband - a serious mathematicician - some time ago and who is now working somewhere in Africa where she is observing chimps for some ape observing organization. Everything would be fine for her, were the country where the apes dwell not having a civil war. And to make things worse - Hope starts noticing something happening between the chimps that makes matters only worse - a war begins between a group of chimps in the South and chimps in the North. She tries to inform her bosses about that but nobody is willing to believe her for Mallabar (or what`s his name), the leader of the organization has written several books about chimp as the humane ape and facts about chimps killing each other and feeding upon each others` children doesn`t diverge with his theories pretty well. When Hope encounters members of the army at the civil war she finds out that in some ways they are more humane than the scientists she`s been working with - although I guess the best description for this book can be found on the back cover of it and it`s written by some book critic: "An odyssey through the darkest of all continents - the human heart." It`s not really my kind of book, but if I`m not raving happy about it`s not because of the quality of the book but because I prefer somewhat different kind of literature.
2006-02-03
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