To bylo fakt hodně divný.

Starting From Scratch(ing)

“There is no Man without his Other.” This aphorism of the American philosopher Edgar A. Singer could be the theme (or running joke) of Bernard Malamud’s last novel. Malamud’s technique involves setting up a series of problematic situations in what is essentially a new Genesis as, effectively, a test of Singer’s maxim.

Adonai, HaShem, the Lord, the Creator allows mankind to annihilate itself in a brief but comprehensively decisive nuclear war. The divine intention was the entire eradication of mankind and all other animal life. But divine attention to detail was not all it should have been. Because he is in a deep submersible somewhere under the Pacific Ocean, the interestingly named Calvin Cohn, former rabbinical student turned scientist, son and grandson of a rabbi, accidentally survives.

This unauthorised Noah pleads for life with HaShem who is unsympathetic but fails to take further immediate action except to allow Calvin to drift to a tropical island. This divine indecisiveness produces yet another worry: “On good days Cohn told himself stories, saying the Lord would let him live if he spoke the right words. Or lived the right life. But how was that possible without another human life around?” Thus endeth the first day with the first question.

Turns out there is Another. But it’s a chimpanzee, a rather talented chimpanzee to be sure, but still and all an ape. Can a human-chimp duo constitute a life for either? Particularly if the chimp has been brought up Christian and the man a pious Jew. Can such a mixed family survive the strain of such cultural diversity? There are of course limits to inter-species communication, certainly physical, probably emotional and possibly mental. Nonetheless communication does take place. Is it enough for either party? Thus endeth the second day.

But just as the reader expects a linguistic breakthrough twixt man and beast, his mind is boggled by HaShem’s sense of humour in his operation of the devastated world. The Creator/Destroyer (blessed be his name) has also ‘forgotten’ to destroy a 500 lb. gorilla (the only authentic cliché, I think, in the book). The gorilla has an ear for devotional Yiddish music and so is attracted to the cosy island cave of chimp and man. Three is an awkward problem of course: the perpetual threat of jealousy, or two against one for starters. Does this new social melange inhibit meaningful bonding? Thus endeth day three.

So Buz the chimp, and George the gorilla, and Calvin the human settle down and try to find a social equilibrium. But, another surprise: before the nuclear oven, Buz’s scientist-keeper had fit him up with an artificial larynx. He can talk, with a heavy German accent and a limited vocabulary and no capacity for metaphor, but certainly sufficient to disturb the silence over the breakfast table. Trouble is, the table-talk is, if not intentionally anti-Semitic, then certainly biased toward the New Testament. And yet another, more fundamental problem pops up: if the chimp can use language so facilely, just what distinguishes homo sapiens in the order of creation? Thus endeth the fourth day.

Having suffered trauma as a youngster at the hands of a research scientist, George the gorilla is shy of intimacy. In any case Buz the chimp doesn’t like the “fot, smelly onimal”. George becomes even more skittish with the discovery of a troupe of five more chimps, with no human language ability of course, but Buz takes the role of translator. The situation is now highly complicated indeed. Economics quickly becomes the most pressing issue: How can the food resources of the island be shared and preserved with the growing population? Thus endeth the fifth day.

As the social organisation of the island becomes more stable, Calvin proceeds first with a Passover Seder and then a school(tree) to instruct the other primates, primarily in biblical lore but not neglecting science, particularly Darwinian and Freudian theory. This is where things get….well, weird in the extreme. Calvin decides that it’s his duty to mate with one of the newly mature chimps, Mary Madelyn, in order to speed up the evolutionary re-development of the world. The resulting offspring, a female, is of course chimp not human according to halachic law. But would the chimps see things the same way, particularly since they had in the meantime learned the joy of inter-species homicide with a group of newly arrived baboons? Thus endeth the sixth day.

On the seventh day Calvin rested. And who could blame him? It does not end well for Calvin of course. How could it? He must be sacrificed like Isaac. Or is it like Christ? The new creation goes on without him. Only George the gorilla is there to recite Kadesh, the prayer for the dead.

I cannot do more in understanding, much less interpreting, this novel. Is it a complex allegory of Jewish-Christian relations? Or a gnostic parable of inherent evil in creation? A post-modernist commentary on language or animal rights? Or merely an old man’s parting Jewish joke? Certainly it has similarities with fiction created decades in the future. One thinks particularly of James Morrow and his Blameless in Abaddon and Towing Jehovah. There are even possible echoes in China Mieville’s Embassytown. But ultimately God’s Grace is…well God’s Grace, whatever that may be.

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Postscript: A kind GR reader has pointed toward the solution, as far as I'm concerned definitive, here:
http://politicsandculture.org/2010/04...

Odd subject matter, but an excellent read.

-Ένας πίθηκος που μιλάει μπορεί να είναι ισάξιος με έναν άνθρωπο;
-Αρκεί η απόλυτη καταστροφή του πλανήτη για να ξεριζωθούν αντιλήψεις αιώνων;
-Τι συμβολίζει ο Τζωρτζ ο γορίλας;
-Σε ένα ενδεχομενο reset με πολύ λίγους επιζήσαντες, είναι άραγε πιο πιθανό να γίνουν προσπάθειες προς τη δημιουργία μιας κοινωνίας της οποίας τα μέλη θα έχουν ίση μεταχείριση ή θα επικρατήσει ο πιο δυνατός ;
Ένα αριστούργημα και όχι δε θα μπω στη διαδικασία να το συγκρίνω με τον άρχοντα των μυγών γιατί ούτως ή άλλως ο Malamud έχει τη δική του υπόσταση

Themes:
> Language as essential to morality.
The chimps' full descent into unrestrained bestiality follows on the heels of their loss of capacity for language. Was language all along a tether to humanity, and to humaneness?

> Evolution as a matter of free will.
Admonition #7: "Aspiration may improve natural selection." Evolution isn't something that happens to you, but something you can actively participate in/enact, should you choose. Moreover, you can evolve yourself morally - you can choose to be morally better. You can make yourself selectable.

> Failure to recognize intentionality of others as the marker of human morality.
Cohn tries time and again to get chimps to view their actions from the other's perspective, but to no avail. Recognizing intentionality of others prompts empathy, imposing constraints on behavior which we may call moral.

> Does education prevent or conduce to immorality?
The more educated the chimps get, the more the community descends into anarchy. Is complex thought destined for its own destruction?

Quotes:
> "From the beginning, when I gave them the gift of life, they were perversely greedy for death."
> "How bleak experience, when only one experienced."
> "He could not separate experience from what might have been."
> "We're alone on this island and can't be said to speak to each other. We may indicate certain things but there's no direct personal communication. I'm not referring to existential loneliness, you understand--what might be called awareness of one's essentially subjective being,
not without some sense of death-in-life, if you know what I mean. I'm talking, rather, about the loneliness one feels when he lacks companionship, or that sense of company that derives from community."
> "What you don't say means something too."
> "It's through language that a man becomes more finely and subtly man--a sensitive, principled, civilized human being --as he opens himself to other men-by comprehending, describing, and communicating his experiences, aspirations, and nature--such as it is. Or was."
> "To be human was to be responsive to and protective of life and civilization."
> "Which was the first story? God inventing himself."


Language:
unspoiled; imbibed; fouled himself disgracefully; apparatus (scrotum); with all due regard for services rendered; she was hard of hearing; my purpose is to slip it to MM as soon as she learns the facts of life; hard-hearted beast.

Reminiscences:
- Lord of the Flies
- Robinson Crusoe
- Life of Pi

Dit boek las ik voor school. Het werd mooier naarmate ik er meer over las en de onderliggende betekenissen begreep.

Ook al interesseerde het onderwerp me niet zo, dit boek is verfrissend omwille van z'n humor.

one of the most devastating books i have ever read.

Calvin Cohn, a Rabbi’s son, is the last man left alive after God wipes out mankind with a second Flood. There are other simians on the planet however, and Cohn starts a new civilization with some chimps (who soon learn to talk), a quiet gorilla and feral baboons on an island. His attempts to play God with the apes, however, go awry after he fathers a hybrid baby with the female chimp.

I first read this in high school; I’m not entirely sure I understand it any more than I did 17 years ago. I believe that Cohn represents the Jewish tradition, and the original chimp he adopts, Boz, represents Christianity. In the end, Boz turns on Cohn, and the human and baby are killed; what might that mean? I must admit I’m not entirely sure what Malamud is implying with this entertaining but rather oblique allegory.
[Read twice]

This is a very quick read, I would give it 3.5 if I could. Not typical Malamud at all, and I believe it was his last book - very different, fantastical but with the Malamud wit.

A strange and moving reflection on the relationship between man and God. I don't know if my inability to understand the deeper questions underlying this book made me rate it 2 stars instead of 3, but it was more of a curiosity than a joy. Any one looking for a fresh take on the problem of evil should at least pick it up

God breaks his promise to the human race and decides to flood the world and destroy everyone again due to us engaging in a nuclear war, but forget about Calvin Cohn, who is diving off a boat when it happens. Consequently, Cohn then has to deal with God, who makes further promises to him which turn out to be completely empty. There is a chimp called Buz on the boat who becomes capable of speech but turns out to be Christian, unlike Cohn who is Jewish. They later find an island with other chimps. In the end, Cohn destroys the voice box which gave Buz the power of speech and Buz kills him by cutting his throat. As he dies, Cohn becomes an old man in order that God's promise that he would die an old man be fulfilled.

God is not shown in a good light by this novel. It makes me think of the old saying, "If God lived on Earth, he would have all his windows broken".

2.8