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The Love Song of Monkey
“Imaginative, intelligent narrative...Twin ideas of forgiveness and mercy twist through this strange, moving, patiently wrought novel, making for a trippy but charming read.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A strange but wonderful book…like nothing I’ve ever read before. A very short book, but the scope is epic in detail…an easy, thought-provoking read…I enjoyed the heck out of this book.”
—Geekscribe
“Mindful of Spielberg’s A.I., this is a fascinating dreamlike character study that insists the power of love enable people to do extraordinary deeds...A whimsical parable that focuses on the strengths and weakens of humanity with the message of ‘To err is human; to forgive is divine’ by Alexander Pope running throughout the deep story line.”
—Midwest Book Review
In a surreal exile on the floor of the Atlantic, a terminally ill young man faces his own death and his wife’s infidelity. With a deepening understanding of himself and his place in the world, “Monkey” travels a path through the most important landscape of all — the inner landscape of the soul. Whether exploring a sunken ship, climbing the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, or discussing love with the statue of the Venus de Milo to which his wife’s lover has chained his body (“Venus, put a sock in it. What do you know about love anyway?”), “Monkey” stirs the reader to laugh, ache, mourn and hope by turns in this emotionally tumultuous yet ultimately calming tale. At the book’s heart is a meditation on the simple, inexplicable and lasting power of love, cast in the metaphor of a journey — to the depths of the ocean floor, across volcanic eruptions and along the ledges of skyscrapers.
—Publishers Weekly
“A strange but wonderful book…like nothing I’ve ever read before. A very short book, but the scope is epic in detail…an easy, thought-provoking read…I enjoyed the heck out of this book.”
—Geekscribe
“Mindful of Spielberg’s A.I., this is a fascinating dreamlike character study that insists the power of love enable people to do extraordinary deeds...A whimsical parable that focuses on the strengths and weakens of humanity with the message of ‘To err is human; to forgive is divine’ by Alexander Pope running throughout the deep story line.”
—Midwest Book Review
In a surreal exile on the floor of the Atlantic, a terminally ill young man faces his own death and his wife’s infidelity. With a deepening understanding of himself and his place in the world, “Monkey” travels a path through the most important landscape of all — the inner landscape of the soul. Whether exploring a sunken ship, climbing the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, or discussing love with the statue of the Venus de Milo to which his wife’s lover has chained his body (“Venus, put a sock in it. What do you know about love anyway?”), “Monkey” stirs the reader to laugh, ache, mourn and hope by turns in this emotionally tumultuous yet ultimately calming tale. At the book’s heart is a meditation on the simple, inexplicable and lasting power of love, cast in the metaphor of a journey — to the depths of the ocean floor, across volcanic eruptions and along the ledges of skyscrapers.
157 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 2008
11 people are currently reading
372 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
March 3, 2014
An experimental treatment cures a young man of AIDS and leaves him immortal, which is fortunate because his wife and doctor, both convinced that he is dead, dump his body in the Atlantic and go off to resume their affair. As it turns out, an eternity at the bottom of the ocean with nothing but a weighted statue of Venus to talk to isn't such a bad fate. Gives a man time to think.
I found Gaziano's novel The Divine Farce at the bookstore on a day I didn't feel like buying anything (the horror!), but my library didn't have it and I had to try this one instead. No regrets. Nice little story, and (I hope) one of many good works from Leapfrog Press. Feels like it should be a Dalkey Archive title, but that might just be because it reminded me of Jim Krusoe's novel Iceland. Don't let that discourage you. I believe I enjoyed this one slightly more. You missed out, Dalkey folks!
I found Gaziano's novel The Divine Farce at the bookstore on a day I didn't feel like buying anything (the horror!), but my library didn't have it and I had to try this one instead. No regrets. Nice little story, and (I hope) one of many good works from Leapfrog Press. Feels like it should be a Dalkey Archive title, but that might just be because it reminded me of Jim Krusoe's novel Iceland. Don't let that discourage you. I believe I enjoyed this one slightly more. You missed out, Dalkey folks!
September 10, 2024
SILLLLYYYYY
December 10, 2025
Que libro tan bizarro y original, me gustó mucho el concepto y fue muy agradable de leer.
November 6, 2008
The other night at dinner, I got one of those great kid questions from my almost fourteen-year-old Hart: Why do people get old?
Hmmm.
We muse.
All animals die, I think, I say. And insects. Maybe not viruses... but that's nitpicking, so how about plants? Well, some, but not all. Aren't there some that live to be a thousand years old? Why not two thousand? Okay, so plants and animals have the same basic cell structure, but plants use magnesium (hence the green color) and animals use iron (hence the red). Is there something less corrosive about magnesium? We pull out the greatest lay chemistry book on the planet, Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements by John Emsley, and discover that magnesium is "benign," meaning it doesn't react with other elements. That might be the answer. Fortunately, however, the entire discussion is hijacked by the total wonder of the relationship between plants and animals (see the Oxygen chapter). Simply, the plants make the oxygen that we use, we make the carbon dioxode that they use. There couldn't be one without the other. (And plants came before the egg.)
Anyway, all of this is a rather long way of getting around to how I was reminded of a great new book. Scanning through Building Blocks, we read about iron, and how great portions of the ocean are without it and therefore completely barren. Where had I just read about that with such amazing clarity that I feel like I know those underwater deserts, I wondered? Oh yes, this little book called The Love Song of a Monkey.
If this book had a different title, it would be perfect. Just after he was stuffed into a suitcase by his wife and her lover (who was also his mad doctor) but before he was thrown off a motorboat into the Atlantic, chained to a statue of Venus taken from his own living room, that title was nagging at me. Monkey Man?
Here’s a guy, dying of AIDs and he’s offered the possibility of a complete cure, a better-than-new-cure, but only if he can endure indescribable pain for an hour. Okay, he does describe it:
Some piece of equipment turned on with a harsh buzzing sound. Then the laser beam hit the bottom of my feet…. If I hadn’t been held down on the table I would have convulsed like a fish and crashed onto the floor. No person could have withstood that pain for any hope or goal. It vaporized my strength of will. I didn’t know anything except my feet. The pain lay in a precise plane, like a deli slicer, the rotating blade taking microscopically thin slices one by one, starting from the bottom of my feet and working its way upward. It seemed that every virus particle was a twist of metal, a splinter that needed to be wriggled and wrenched out, torturing the flesh around it. Every bacterium had to be exploded and the shrapnel scraped out with a blunt spatula. Every blemish, every bit of scar tissue, cut with a microscopic scalpel and excised. This was not the torture of a thousand knives. It was six hundred billion knives and drills and lit matches concentrated into one layer of flesh.
Graziano is a psychology professor at Princeton and author of several other books, as well as articles published in the New York Times, Science Magazine, and Glamour blending fiction, music, and science. The Love Song of a Monkey is fabulously imagined and seriously considered and very funny. A kind of fairytale antithesis on the meaning of existence.
Now, if it weren’t for that title. It’s a little thorn. It announces itself boldly in the title, nags where it’s remembered during almost the whole book, then sneaks in at the end and squats there, black-caped, hook-handed.
Look, it’s only 152 pages long. It’s fantastic. It has a wonderful ending. Read it and tell me what you think.
Hmmm.
We muse.
All animals die, I think, I say. And insects. Maybe not viruses... but that's nitpicking, so how about plants? Well, some, but not all. Aren't there some that live to be a thousand years old? Why not two thousand? Okay, so plants and animals have the same basic cell structure, but plants use magnesium (hence the green color) and animals use iron (hence the red). Is there something less corrosive about magnesium? We pull out the greatest lay chemistry book on the planet, Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements by John Emsley, and discover that magnesium is "benign," meaning it doesn't react with other elements. That might be the answer. Fortunately, however, the entire discussion is hijacked by the total wonder of the relationship between plants and animals (see the Oxygen chapter). Simply, the plants make the oxygen that we use, we make the carbon dioxode that they use. There couldn't be one without the other. (And plants came before the egg.)
Anyway, all of this is a rather long way of getting around to how I was reminded of a great new book. Scanning through Building Blocks, we read about iron, and how great portions of the ocean are without it and therefore completely barren. Where had I just read about that with such amazing clarity that I feel like I know those underwater deserts, I wondered? Oh yes, this little book called The Love Song of a Monkey.
If this book had a different title, it would be perfect. Just after he was stuffed into a suitcase by his wife and her lover (who was also his mad doctor) but before he was thrown off a motorboat into the Atlantic, chained to a statue of Venus taken from his own living room, that title was nagging at me. Monkey Man?
Here’s a guy, dying of AIDs and he’s offered the possibility of a complete cure, a better-than-new-cure, but only if he can endure indescribable pain for an hour. Okay, he does describe it:
Some piece of equipment turned on with a harsh buzzing sound. Then the laser beam hit the bottom of my feet…. If I hadn’t been held down on the table I would have convulsed like a fish and crashed onto the floor. No person could have withstood that pain for any hope or goal. It vaporized my strength of will. I didn’t know anything except my feet. The pain lay in a precise plane, like a deli slicer, the rotating blade taking microscopically thin slices one by one, starting from the bottom of my feet and working its way upward. It seemed that every virus particle was a twist of metal, a splinter that needed to be wriggled and wrenched out, torturing the flesh around it. Every bacterium had to be exploded and the shrapnel scraped out with a blunt spatula. Every blemish, every bit of scar tissue, cut with a microscopic scalpel and excised. This was not the torture of a thousand knives. It was six hundred billion knives and drills and lit matches concentrated into one layer of flesh.
Graziano is a psychology professor at Princeton and author of several other books, as well as articles published in the New York Times, Science Magazine, and Glamour blending fiction, music, and science. The Love Song of a Monkey is fabulously imagined and seriously considered and very funny. A kind of fairytale antithesis on the meaning of existence.
Now, if it weren’t for that title. It’s a little thorn. It announces itself boldly in the title, nags where it’s remembered during almost the whole book, then sneaks in at the end and squats there, black-caped, hook-handed.
Look, it’s only 152 pages long. It’s fantastic. It has a wonderful ending. Read it and tell me what you think.
December 7, 2025
This sat on my TBR shelf for 3 years so I figured I'd pick it up and read a chapter. Wow!!! I finished the whole book in about an hour with no breaks. This absolutely captivated me! I found it interesting how him and his wife came to similar conclusions by the end, despite their drastically different decisions and paths their lives took. This short story is capable of sparking great dialogue.
October 17, 2008
The Love Song of Monkey may be my favorite read this year. Michael S.A. Graziano does an amazing job of creating characters so real and vivid, they carry the surreal aspects of the story perfectly. While the book is short, I hesitate to call it a quick read. I plowed through it simply because I couldn't put it down, but then I went back and read it again. The Love Song of Monkey is rich with layers of meaning and stop-and-think moments. This is love as Ian McEwan might conjure it, something complex shared by deeply flawed people, and yet something ultimately beautiful. I'm glad to have discovered a new favorite writer.
June 29, 2016
This is a quirky book about forgiveness and enduring love. Short and sweet, unusual adjectives for science fiction, written by a respected Psycholigist in academic circles.
Jonathan is dying from AIDS and his wife has found an experimental treatment for a cure. Dr. Kack, name appropriate , is delighted to proceed. Pushing myself through this book because it came highly recommended by a friend , I was rewarded after about 1/3 of the book. It is not a book I will soon or ever forget.
Jonathan is dying from AIDS and his wife has found an experimental treatment for a cure. Dr. Kack, name appropriate , is delighted to proceed. Pushing myself through this book because it came highly recommended by a friend , I was rewarded after about 1/3 of the book. It is not a book I will soon or ever forget.
November 29, 2025
Weird and delightful. Glad I read this!
February 25, 2025
A very strange, but thought provoking book. This author has a masterful way of describing complicated scenes and the human experience in relationship to their environment. It was beautifully written in the Devine Farce, and it continued all throughout this book, so I am very happy I chose to read more from this author.
August 1, 2019
A strange, surreal page turner
This is a fantastic novel, and I mean that in the old-fashioned sense that the events are fantastic. And surreal and deeply human. I read it in one fell swoop. It runs. Fast. It's a little crazy and you can feel Graziano making it up as he goes along--which is a great way to write a novel since you don't know how it's going to end. If you're clever and naturally creative--as Graziano is--some beautiful effects can be achieved. I once wrote a novel this way. You start out at one place: here Graziano, who is a professor of psychology at Princeton, starts with his protagonist dying of complications from AIDS. He is being taken to the hospital by his anorexic wife. He's in a lot of pain and scarcely cares whether he lives or dies. And then you end up in another: at the bottom of the ocean, in a museum, as a cat burglar called the Monkey man, and all the while you sing "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot.
I suspect that where Graziano thought he was going in the beginning is different from where he actually went. I also suspect that he had intended a realistic narrative but found himself constrained. And so he threw off the shackles and typed a tale incredible.
Graziano's strength is first in the rapid paced narrative and then in the great freedom he gives his story. Neither conventional reality nor scientific plausibility deters him from his fancy. The narrative is lean like something from James M. Cain or Cormac McCarthy, but without the strict adherence to realism. Graziano's story doesn't unfold as in a familiar tale or in something contrived to seduce the human psyche. Instead the story evolves as something reacting to myth or to the dream time, or to whim or fancy. Taken in retrospect "The Love Song of Monkey" (really a long short story), seems to be about the human predicament, as all literature must be. A man has done something wrong and is paying the price. He suffers and he learns from his suffering. And then he triumphs over circumstance and becomes something more than just human--a kind of demigod perhaps. Once he was vulnerable, then he was almost untouchable. Almost. Love kept him tethered to the world no matter how far he roamed in the great depths of the sea of his mind. And then he returned by happenstance to the world of humans and sought out the object of his love--the object of all the years of meditation--and found her more beautiful than she had ever been. And his love for her was unsullied and undiluted by the mundane events of this world. A kind of eternal and ethereal love is what Graziano's muse longs for and is what he achieves in the end.
People hurt one another and do bad things to one another, but in the end they forgive, and indeed find in their wisdom that there was really nothing to forgive ever, and in that state of mind they realize their love. And they live happily ever after, or they die in the state and in the grace of love--which amounts to the same thing.
Thus this is a love story, a bit creepy like a Halloween flick or something from a tale about the undead. As I intimated above, I read it in less than an hour. It is, all told, a strange page-turner, and one that resonates.
--Dennis Littrell, author of the mystery novel, “Teddy and Teri”
This is a fantastic novel, and I mean that in the old-fashioned sense that the events are fantastic. And surreal and deeply human. I read it in one fell swoop. It runs. Fast. It's a little crazy and you can feel Graziano making it up as he goes along--which is a great way to write a novel since you don't know how it's going to end. If you're clever and naturally creative--as Graziano is--some beautiful effects can be achieved. I once wrote a novel this way. You start out at one place: here Graziano, who is a professor of psychology at Princeton, starts with his protagonist dying of complications from AIDS. He is being taken to the hospital by his anorexic wife. He's in a lot of pain and scarcely cares whether he lives or dies. And then you end up in another: at the bottom of the ocean, in a museum, as a cat burglar called the Monkey man, and all the while you sing "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot.
I suspect that where Graziano thought he was going in the beginning is different from where he actually went. I also suspect that he had intended a realistic narrative but found himself constrained. And so he threw off the shackles and typed a tale incredible.
Graziano's strength is first in the rapid paced narrative and then in the great freedom he gives his story. Neither conventional reality nor scientific plausibility deters him from his fancy. The narrative is lean like something from James M. Cain or Cormac McCarthy, but without the strict adherence to realism. Graziano's story doesn't unfold as in a familiar tale or in something contrived to seduce the human psyche. Instead the story evolves as something reacting to myth or to the dream time, or to whim or fancy. Taken in retrospect "The Love Song of Monkey" (really a long short story), seems to be about the human predicament, as all literature must be. A man has done something wrong and is paying the price. He suffers and he learns from his suffering. And then he triumphs over circumstance and becomes something more than just human--a kind of demigod perhaps. Once he was vulnerable, then he was almost untouchable. Almost. Love kept him tethered to the world no matter how far he roamed in the great depths of the sea of his mind. And then he returned by happenstance to the world of humans and sought out the object of his love--the object of all the years of meditation--and found her more beautiful than she had ever been. And his love for her was unsullied and undiluted by the mundane events of this world. A kind of eternal and ethereal love is what Graziano's muse longs for and is what he achieves in the end.
People hurt one another and do bad things to one another, but in the end they forgive, and indeed find in their wisdom that there was really nothing to forgive ever, and in that state of mind they realize their love. And they live happily ever after, or they die in the state and in the grace of love--which amounts to the same thing.
Thus this is a love story, a bit creepy like a Halloween flick or something from a tale about the undead. As I intimated above, I read it in less than an hour. It is, all told, a strange page-turner, and one that resonates.
--Dennis Littrell, author of the mystery novel, “Teddy and Teri”
June 16, 2025
4.5 stars
The way Graziano's writing just flows from scenario to scenario in a completely believable way even though the things he writes about border on the absurd is so refreshing. He makes reading about literal hell on earth so easy, and I consistently get stuck caring for a character I know essentially nothing about. He writes like Graziano himself is going through these crazy experiences with the calmest, most laid back attitude and I genuinely admire all of his characters for their handling of the things they go through. Wish I could be like you Jonathan <3
The way Graziano's writing just flows from scenario to scenario in a completely believable way even though the things he writes about border on the absurd is so refreshing. He makes reading about literal hell on earth so easy, and I consistently get stuck caring for a character I know essentially nothing about. He writes like Graziano himself is going through these crazy experiences with the calmest, most laid back attitude and I genuinely admire all of his characters for their handling of the things they go through. Wish I could be like you Jonathan <3
March 18, 2017
You can read my review of “The Love Song of Monkey” on my web site.
December 18, 2021
A weird little book that was somehow both hideous and fascinating at the same time.
August 4, 2022
I'm a great fan of Graziano's research. It's cool that he writes fiction as well, however this was a bit lightweight and I did not find too many interesting ideas or captivating storyline.
December 8, 2023
Such a bizarre story. Fun quick little read.
March 1, 2025
I really enjoyed this book
June 17, 2025
I was searching for something though provoking and I got something silly. Very enjoyable!
June 23, 2025
8.5/10
June 24, 2025
I started this late at night and finished it in about two hours. I was sleepy, but I read it all the way through. It's just that good.
September 18, 2025
All this time I had been anchored to a shipwreck and hadn't even known it because my head was tilted back and I was looking up.
October 9, 2025
Real good
I really like how this is written. It's compelling. Can't be more specific. It's intangible. Highly recommend... why i gotta write such a long review?
I really like how this is written. It's compelling. Can't be more specific. It's intangible. Highly recommend... why i gotta write such a long review?
October 27, 2025
Was a really sweet and fun short story. It did feel a bit bored at the ocean part but I guess that was intentional.
December 27, 2025
Delightful and intriguing read. The concepts, that are completely up to your interpretation, definitely sit with you. Graziano is a favorite.
December 26, 2008
Indefatigable Love
THE LOVE SONG OF MONKEY is a brief novel that is likely to be around for a long time, if word of mouth from those who have had the pleasure of reading it encourages a potentially wide audience to join the bandwagon. Author Michael S.A. Graziano happens to be a professor of Psychology at Princeton University and a composer of music, and probably these adjuncts to his considerable talent in writing help make this unusual, lyrical, challenging exploration into the mysteries of the durability of love so successful. This book glows!
Young Jonathan is dying from AIDS as his skittish skinny art director wife Kitty takes him to the offices of Dr. Kack for a treatment that appears to be Jonathan's only hope for survival. Dr. Kack has invented the Kwark-King, a machine that realigns molecules in living creatures making them impermeable to outside invasion and hopefully to cure them of invading organisms. To date Dr. Kack has used his machine on cats and mice but the degree of pain the machine inflicts during treatment has proven intolerable to the subjects and they die or enter a death like catatonic state Jonathan agrees to be the first human subject for the odd machine, sensing that his wife Kitty has connections with Dr. Kack. Jonathan proceeds with the treatment encased in a container that holds him stable for the entire perfusion of molecule changing energy: at the end of the treatment the still alive but the catatonic Jonathan is thought dead by both Kack and Kitty and Jonathan's quite aware body is dumped in the sea, anchored by an iron Venus sculpture. And there he remains, under the ocean, for years, able to remain alive because of the 'new' body and organ transformations - the monkey man of an experiment that actually worked!
Part II of the novel focuses on Jonathan's life beneath the earth's surface, a period of respite from the madness of civilization when he can put his life and his relationship with Kitty in perspective while observing the glories of life at the bottom of the sea. Eventually he encounters a touch of civilization and finds a crevice in the ocean's floor that happens to be a volcano of sorts: Jonathan is explosively cast a=back into civilization where he is mistaken for a 'found object of art' and eventually sold to a museum. In Part III Jonathan as art views the world now 55 years older - and among the thing he view is the aged Kitty (now comically Kitty Kack since she married the original Dr. Kack). The manner in which Jonathan encounters his life's love - despite all the passage of time and the acts Kitty has performed - reveals on of the more tender elegies of lasting love in literature.
Graziano writes with conversational ease that shadows the profound meanings present on every page, illuminated by a droll sense of humor and a magical realism type of style of writing that never leaves the reader unwillingly to believe this wonderfully implausible fable. This is a joy of a book to read and one that deserves an audience of readers who love literature and life - and still believe in love.
Grady Harp
THE LOVE SONG OF MONKEY is a brief novel that is likely to be around for a long time, if word of mouth from those who have had the pleasure of reading it encourages a potentially wide audience to join the bandwagon. Author Michael S.A. Graziano happens to be a professor of Psychology at Princeton University and a composer of music, and probably these adjuncts to his considerable talent in writing help make this unusual, lyrical, challenging exploration into the mysteries of the durability of love so successful. This book glows!
Young Jonathan is dying from AIDS as his skittish skinny art director wife Kitty takes him to the offices of Dr. Kack for a treatment that appears to be Jonathan's only hope for survival. Dr. Kack has invented the Kwark-King, a machine that realigns molecules in living creatures making them impermeable to outside invasion and hopefully to cure them of invading organisms. To date Dr. Kack has used his machine on cats and mice but the degree of pain the machine inflicts during treatment has proven intolerable to the subjects and they die or enter a death like catatonic state Jonathan agrees to be the first human subject for the odd machine, sensing that his wife Kitty has connections with Dr. Kack. Jonathan proceeds with the treatment encased in a container that holds him stable for the entire perfusion of molecule changing energy: at the end of the treatment the still alive but the catatonic Jonathan is thought dead by both Kack and Kitty and Jonathan's quite aware body is dumped in the sea, anchored by an iron Venus sculpture. And there he remains, under the ocean, for years, able to remain alive because of the 'new' body and organ transformations - the monkey man of an experiment that actually worked!
Part II of the novel focuses on Jonathan's life beneath the earth's surface, a period of respite from the madness of civilization when he can put his life and his relationship with Kitty in perspective while observing the glories of life at the bottom of the sea. Eventually he encounters a touch of civilization and finds a crevice in the ocean's floor that happens to be a volcano of sorts: Jonathan is explosively cast a=back into civilization where he is mistaken for a 'found object of art' and eventually sold to a museum. In Part III Jonathan as art views the world now 55 years older - and among the thing he view is the aged Kitty (now comically Kitty Kack since she married the original Dr. Kack). The manner in which Jonathan encounters his life's love - despite all the passage of time and the acts Kitty has performed - reveals on of the more tender elegies of lasting love in literature.
Graziano writes with conversational ease that shadows the profound meanings present on every page, illuminated by a droll sense of humor and a magical realism type of style of writing that never leaves the reader unwillingly to believe this wonderfully implausible fable. This is a joy of a book to read and one that deserves an audience of readers who love literature and life - and still believe in love.
Grady Harp
July 14, 2015
The Love Song of Monkey is such a bizarre read- and that's what makes it so good. A man, diagnosed with AIDS, tries a last ditch effort at a cure at the encouragement of his wife. Unbeknownst to him, his wife and the mad doctor are involved in an affair. When he supposedly passes on from the painful and experimental procedure, the man's wife and the doctor stuff him into a suitcase and chain him to a statue of Venus and dump him into the Atlantic Ocean. This is a story of the weird relationship that exists between mind, body and soul. In his meditative state, traversing the Mariana Trench while holding onto Venus, the character exists within and outside his body, exists within and outside his soul. Grappling in darkness he experiences out of body sensations and exists as simply a mind.
A fantastic read.
A fantastic read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 6, 2008
What a charming gem of a book! I read it cover-to-cover during one day's subway travels, and its infusion of strange calm rescued me, for once, from commuter's rage. Love Song of Monkey is a darkly comic yet irrepressibly hopeful story.
After an experimental operation goes mysteriously right, Jonathan finds himself at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, chained to a statue of Venus. He needs no food and breathes water like air. Jonathan's meditations on love (namely his unfaithful wife, Kitty) take him on an adventure to the mid-Atlantic ridge, into a volcanic shaft, and back to land, where he becomes a demon statue, a nimble thief, and a super-hero. I hope to write a longer review at http://fictionwritersreview.com next week.
After an experimental operation goes mysteriously right, Jonathan finds himself at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, chained to a statue of Venus. He needs no food and breathes water like air. Jonathan's meditations on love (namely his unfaithful wife, Kitty) take him on an adventure to the mid-Atlantic ridge, into a volcanic shaft, and back to land, where he becomes a demon statue, a nimble thief, and a super-hero. I hope to write a longer review at http://fictionwritersreview.com next week.
April 13, 2009
this little book is delightfully weird. a philosophical, biological and romantic little journey that never quite goes where you expect. in a world full of books where the expected is far too common, this nugget is a little breath of fresh air.
i think it only gets 4 stars instead of 5 because it feels slightly underdeveloped and at the same time, has a few meandering points. that is, to be fair, some of the point of the book but... it only worked 4/5th of the time.
that's still very good of course, and this book is vivid and unique enough that i'd be tempted to read it again someday. which is saying a lot for someone who hasn't reread a book in over 10 years.
i think it only gets 4 stars instead of 5 because it feels slightly underdeveloped and at the same time, has a few meandering points. that is, to be fair, some of the point of the book but... it only worked 4/5th of the time.
that's still very good of course, and this book is vivid and unique enough that i'd be tempted to read it again someday. which is saying a lot for someone who hasn't reread a book in over 10 years.
January 24, 2016
What an interesting, fulfilling read! This is the kind of book that you can easily devour in one sitting in about an hour and a half, which is pretty cool considering its incredible depth.
I don't want to reveal much of the plot, because I think it's much more satisfying to go into it knowing very little. Here's what I'll say: written by a neuroscientist, it's a surreal, funny, introspective and deeply affecting tale about self-discovery and the lasting power of love. Even better, it's inspired by T.S. Eliot's poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (if you couldn't already tell from the title).
I don't want to reveal much of the plot, because I think it's much more satisfying to go into it knowing very little. Here's what I'll say: written by a neuroscientist, it's a surreal, funny, introspective and deeply affecting tale about self-discovery and the lasting power of love. Even better, it's inspired by T.S. Eliot's poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (if you couldn't already tell from the title).
November 30, 2010
What a wonderful, weird little book. Insightful, dark reflections on modern medicine, love, and finding peace. The author has clearly spent a lot of time alone meditating on the meaning of life. He blends profound observations with hilarious, wry commentary, in a very gently flowing prose - this is strangely appropriate given that a fair amount of the action (such as it is) takes place on the floor of the ocean. I'm not exactly sure what to compare this book to: Vonnegut on quaaludes, maybe? Regardless, it's a good one - enjoy!
January 30, 2009
It's sweet and cute and very short. It's gorgeously surreal about a man whose wife and doctor kill him while trying to cure him but in the process, turn him immortal and dump him in the ocean where he becomes a statue and learns to let go of his negativity, finding that there's still love in his heart for his wife. That's spoiler type material but that isn't what's important. It's really an extended short story but it's written with such grace I have to admire it.
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