ReadingAnimals

I’m very much looking forward to the arrival of a book I have just ordered, A four letter word edited by Knelman and Porter.

Four letter word is a collection of fictional love letters/essays/etc. What caught my eye was the letter from a “lovelorn chimpanzee” to the primatologist who has come to his group’s territory and thus become (largely by fiat I suppose) part of his world. It comes courtesy of Sam Lipsyte.

“Thing is, I shouldn’t be telling you this, literally shouldn’t, as I haven’t acquired the capacity for language, let alone writing, none of us have, but to hell with language. I must speak,” it writes. “If I do not return, I want you to know that I, your faithful Ari, will miss our afternoons by the river. Who cares that my name is actually Mike?”

The blurb made me think of many things primate: the romanticized notion of field work, which is often anything but in practice, the relationships that can occur between humans and other animals in such a setting, the oration of Kafka’s Red Peter, the very messy “split” between human and chimp lines that involved some 5 million years of mating - and presumably other aspects of such relationships.

Lipsyte opens his correspondence with: “dear Miss Primatologist Lady in the Bushes…”

I can’t wait to read it all. I’m also looking forward to the contributions of Atwood and Winterson.

And with that, my own imagined correspondence inspired by Lipsyte

[Dear Ms Red-bellied Lemur Woman up in the trees...I miss our afternoons by the river, in the rain and mud, and in the speckled sunlight that would sometimes sneak into the forest. I've saved the many pages about our days and your life. Wavy from being waterlogged, they are safe in a box downstairs. Where are you? 381]