the evolution of bruno littlemore by benjamin hale

But presented from the point of view of a self-educated, reflective chimpanzee, allusions to the Westermarck effect and ruminations on the existential nature of consciousness force the reader to accept Bruno’s humanity.Īs Bruno’s emotions and mental faculties grow more human-like with the years, his outside appearance comes to mirror his inner ‘evolution.’ He eventually loses all his hair and undergoes rhinoplasty to obtain a human nose. Hale throws out obscure topics and descriptions that, in the context of another novel, would be pretentious and unnecessary. His father even uses violence as an outlet for the post-traumatic stress disorder he developed after witnessing his parents’ murder in Zaire. As Bruno recalls about his mother, “She was born in the ghetto, a zoo-child of zoo-parents.” In contrast, his Zaire-born father knew the freedom of the wild before his forceful introduction to captivity. Hale’s descriptions of ape life brim with metaphors for the human condition. His raw memoir, as Hale imagines it, explores the overlooked but central aspects of humanity that people take for granted-and one infinitely curious ape cannot.

Bruno’s descriptions range from shockingly crude to heartbreakingly honest.

When sudden tragedy forces Bruno to live independently, he continues to explore the human condition from the unique perspective of an outsider. Raised by Lydia as an emotional replacement for her own stillborn son and dead husband, the two develop a deeply emotional, and eventually sexual, relationship. Lydia Littlemore, a unorthodox primatologist who questions conventional scientific methods and soon brings Bruno home with her. He immediately falls in love with the young Dr. He arrives at the University of Chicago to undergo years of exhibition and learning, all part of a series of experiments to test the limits of chimpanzee intelligence. Researchers single out Bruno, born in the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, Ill., for his uniquely human personality. He narrates his story from confinement, yet Hale’s intensely descriptive and ostentatious prose gives Bruno the only right he ever sought: humanity. Written as a sprawling memoir, the novel chronicles 25 years in the life of Bruno Littlemore, a talking chimpanzee-educated, artistic and a convicted murderer. “The least I can do,” famed primatologist Jane Goodall once said about her work with animals, “is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.” Benjamin Hale’s debut novel seems to have the same goal, with a twist-rather than speaking for the mute, Hale allows the mute to speak in his own words.

The evolution of bruno littlemore by benjamin hale