07 March 2006
God's Grace
God's Grace
is an odd little novel I’ve had on my ‘active shelf’ for a while. I no longer remember why I picked it up, if it was due to a chance encounter or from a review.
The shortest possible review is Lord of the Flies with apes. A nuclear exchange and resulting flood again kills humanity for God, but He misses one. A Jewish research scientist deep under the Pacific in a submersible during the exchange survives (What about the rest of the underwater denizens? Oh well…) When he comes up, God speaks to Calvin and apologizes for the error but refuses to reconsider. This time humanity is done in for good, no rainbows, or olive branches. The only other living entity on the vessel is a colleague’s pet chimp. It comes about that the chimp can talk, and they find an island on which to wash ashore. More chimps show up, and a gorilla. The other chimps also learn to talk. There is one breeding-age female to go with all the males, so of course she is the major point of contention. The Jewish guy attempts to educate the chimps on where humanity went wrong, trying to reinvent and perfect man via chimp. When the female first comes into estrus, she hides from all the pursuing males, waiting for her Romeo, who turns out to be the human (He had read Romeo and Juliet to the chimps). He convinces himself he is reinventing men in more ways than one. The other chimps turn on him, killing a half-breed infant and eventually sacrificing the man as Isaac, Abraham’s son: an offering to God. Thus imperfection continues.
As with my earlier review of Moby Dick, the trick for this reader is to feel moved by the author while willing to grant the central premise, that absent civilization, we humans are mere nasty little brutes. Using chimpanzees to help illustrate the point is a nifty move. I think the greatest error Malamud makes is that chimps are even nastier than we are, and Calvin the human would not have lasted nearly as long as he does in the novel.
is an odd little novel I’ve had on my ‘active shelf’ for a while. I no longer remember why I picked it up, if it was due to a chance encounter or from a review.The shortest possible review is Lord of the Flies
with apes. A nuclear exchange and resulting flood again kills humanity for God, but He misses one. A Jewish research scientist deep under the Pacific in a submersible during the exchange survives (What about the rest of the underwater denizens? Oh well…) When he comes up, God speaks to Calvin and apologizes for the error but refuses to reconsider. This time humanity is done in for good, no rainbows, or olive branches. The only other living entity on the vessel is a colleague’s pet chimp. It comes about that the chimp can talk, and they find an island on which to wash ashore. More chimps show up, and a gorilla. The other chimps also learn to talk. There is one breeding-age female to go with all the males, so of course she is the major point of contention. The Jewish guy attempts to educate the chimps on where humanity went wrong, trying to reinvent and perfect man via chimp. When the female first comes into estrus, she hides from all the pursuing males, waiting for her Romeo, who turns out to be the human (He had read Romeo and Juliet to the chimps). He convinces himself he is reinventing men in more ways than one. The other chimps turn on him, killing a half-breed infant and eventually sacrificing the man as Isaac, Abraham’s son: an offering to God. Thus imperfection continues.As with my earlier review of Moby Dick, the trick for this reader is to feel moved by the author while willing to grant the central premise, that absent civilization, we humans are mere nasty little brutes. Using chimpanzees to help illustrate the point is a nifty move. I think the greatest error Malamud makes is that chimps are even nastier than we are, and Calvin the human would not have lasted nearly as long as he does in the novel.
