His Monkey Wife

by John Collier

"A work of genius."-The Boston Globe

"He's a pure pleasure to read."-Michael Chabon

"From the first sentence of the novel the reader is aware that he is in the presence of a magician… [Collier] casts a spell and he does so always with a smile."-Paul Theroux

A novel about a strange, wondrous, and often hilarious love triangle.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, British Literature, Animals, Speculative Fiction, Literary Fiction, Fantasy

252 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1930

About the author

John Collier was a British-born author and screenplay writer best known for his short stories, many of which appeared in The New Yorker from the 1930s to the 1950s. They were collected in a 1951 volume, Fancies and Goodnights, which is still in print. Individual stories are frequently anthologized in fantasy collections. John Collier's writing has been praised by authors such as Anthony Burgess, Ray Bradbury, Neil Gaiman and Paul Theroux. He was married to early silent film actress Shirley Palmer.

Reviews

[Milliebot · Rating 1 out of 5]

What. The fuck. Even.

Okay, so a friend of mine gave books away as wedding favors and I picked this because I was curious. It sounded like it could be funny, as the premise was about an intelligent monkey falling in love with an English teacher she met when he was on a mission in Africa. I also wanted to get a sense of who this book was written for (because, really, who wants to read about a monkey loving a man?) and at the very least, I figured it would be amusing.

Well I was wrong. This book is crap.

I know it was written in 1930 but one of my favorite books was written in the 1800s, so I don't feel the disconnect is because of the difference in time and society. I do think a lot has to do with Collier's prose - it was so wordy and flowy and he talked so much about gourd only knows what. To be honest, very little stuck in my head and I was constantly trying to find the parts that actually had to do with Emily (the chimp) and Mr. Fatigay (her weak-willed love interest).

In short, Emily is super smart. She thinks like a human (albeit a very subservient and martyrish one) and though she cannot speak she can read and so she falls in love with Mr F. He takes her back to England because he finds her amusing (having no clue how intelligent she really is), where Emily encounters Mr. F.'s bitch fiance, Amy. Amy is instantly jealous of Emily and makes her a slave. In the end, Emily threatens Amy with a knife on their wedding day, so they switch places at the alter and dumbass Mr. F. can't tell his lover from a chimp and so marries Emily. He finds out seconds later, banishes her and then falls on Amy's mercy. Amy, strange bird that she is, decides to use this as an out not to marry Mr. F. and tells him to get lost. He ends up nearly starving to death on the streets from despair, where Emily finds him. She's become a rich dancer (I can't even) and takes him in and he decides to keep her as his wife. Amy shows up later to crash the party, finally revealing that Emily threatened her and Mr. F. is shocked and upset for 2 seconds, but them Emily produces a letter she typed him explaining how she wanted to come clean, etc, etc and he forgives her and finally realizes that Amy is a conniving bitch. Then they move to Africa to live in marital bliss forever after.

No joke.

And this book wasn't funny, nor amusing. Nor did I find it "A work of genius" or "written with sly humor throughout and is illuminated by splendid similes and metaphors which mark the author as a true humorist" s the quotes on the book's page remark.

I still don't know who the intended audience of this book was, but it wasn't me. I didn't find Emily endearing or fascinating and I am more than a little creeped out by Mr. F.'s speech at the end, proclaiming the virtues of having a chimp for a lover! Is this just an intellectual romance or is there some bestiality going on here? Either way I'm glad it's over.

[Megan Baxter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, this certainly was a book! Not a fun book, one full of racism and sexism and irritatingness, but certainly a book!

Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.

In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook

[Faith-Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a perfect quirky books for romantics. My boyfriend swore up & down that he wouldn't fall for Emily, the chimp...But he did. Who wouldn't love Emily? "His Monkey Wife" is a perfect escapist comedy!

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another one of those lost-gem books that for some reason not many people are reading today. The LA Times called this a work of genius and it was correct. The bizarre premise involves a proper early 20th-century British gent who adopts a female chimp who turns out to be preternaturally bright and falls in love with him. And the less I say after that the better, except note that this was written in 1930, and note the title. Despite it's age, it still goes where no man has gone before. And best of all, it's extremely witty. Treat yourself to something completely unexpected.

[Laura S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Admittedly, this requires quite a leap of the imagination, but behind the highly improbable plot lies an hilarious and amazingly well-observed look at human nature and relationships which is still relevant today. I didn't find this a particularly easy read. Some of the sentences are so long that, by the time you get to the end, you may have quite forgotten what it was actually about. I'm glad I persevered, though, as this is one of the most thought-provoking and original books I've read in a long time. (And it's also extremely funny!)

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is certainly an interesting premise...a chimpanzee who falls in love with the man who has taken her as his pet. It is also a satire of society in the 1930's when it was written. While I found the book to be really interesting and very witty in some parts, I also had a very hard time getting into it mainly because of the very flowery writing. Also, I think it was a bit dated. Overall, I would say it was a good read.

[Ellen Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lovely fable and commentary of British manners and society in the flapper years... The language is quite sophisticated, which will slow the reading down for many (me included!), but the resolution was worth the extra work... This was highly recommended by my hero librarian, Nancy Pearl, Queen of Readers ;)

[Zack · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a hard time gettting into this one because of Collier's line-work here, cluttered as it is with overlong preambles or setups and too many adjectives, neither of which two bad habits is present in his book of short stories.

[Patrice Sartor · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only aspect of this book I did not enjoy was the chimpanzee's near-nauseating love for the main male character. Otherwise, the chimp was an interesting and vibrant character, far surpassing the other females (all human) in personality. A different sort of love triangle, to be sure.

[Sarah Matthews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jane Austen-ish satire meets highly intelligent monkey and crazy fun shenanigans. That was my impression of it. Eat a banana while reading.

[Nico Lee · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh dear. I really loved Collier's short stories and occasionally this does sparkle but setting aside the racism as both a product of it's time and something that only crops up a lot near the start and end of this novel... I still couldn't get past the sexism. Yes, some women are venal. Yes, some men are decent enough chaps who make the mistake of marrying the kind of person who gives weight to the arguments of sexist idiots. However the answer to solving the difficulty of pairing off those foolish enough to be from 'Mars' or 'Venus' is not to find another planet populated by docile, silent, doting females for those from 'Mars'. The answer is... Well, to be honest, I don't care what the answer is. I have tried to live my life with another person and, by being a person myself,- not a man living with a woman, I have found it has worked well. We share domestic duties, both pay the bills, etc If you think you are entitled to be boorish, dominating, patronising and in charge and you then hitch yourself to someone who accepts that as natural or at least appears to, up to the moment they take you to the cleaners- by your estimation, in a court of law, then you pretty much deserve each other and all the fun you'll be having with the foibles your respective sexes bring to the table. Of course some women are gold-diggers or exploit men- there are 7 billion of us. I don't know if you've noticed but there are some horrible men out there too. Given the way society has been set up, if those women are going to be flawed humans, how would you expect them to behave? Alternatively you could treat people as your equal regardless of gender and hope they do likewise. I find with the people I want to spend any length of time with, that works for me. That's why I don't have any male friends who can only communicate through the medium of sport or any female friends who think that soap operas are an essenital part of life... Back to the novel, rant over. Amy, in the book, is not the modern woman that she is categorised as, or perhaps she'd be demanding real parity with Alfred. Meanwhile Alfred isn't a character at all, he is a blameless, saintly cog that keeps the plot rolling downhill and supports the author's skewed contentions. Are there women like Amy in the real world? Of course, there are. To argue all women are Amy, or at least becoming like Amy... nope. Feminism isn't flawed because women want all the advantages men have and none of the disadvantages, feminism is undermined by those individuals who do- who treat it like a buffet. You wouldn't argue we shouldn't do good because sometimes we do bad- and you shouldn't argue women should be silent because sometimes when they speak they're talking nonsense- I've heard enough men do that too. Normally when I review I try to seperate the message from the art- as I hate reviewers who can't enjoy or praise skill in someone because their political views don't chime with theirs. In this though, the message is so central, that I find, regardless of the occasional lovely turn of phrase, I just can't recommend it. Until I wrote this I also hadn't realised quite how much this book annoyed me. Right, I'm off to do the washing-up, because it's my turn.

[Judith Brennan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clever, cynical book which will appeal to those who enjoy Saki. The characters are weak, manipulative or cruel. Emily, while depicted as a pure, romantic heroine without the power of speech, is a devious and ruthless chimp who stops at nothing to get her rather dull, mediocre man. Her rival is a duplicitous and immoral young woman with links to London's pretentious literary set.
Collier wrote a review of his own book. He said of himself, 'He seems to dislike almost everything and everybody in life' until 'they have been transmuted into a comedy which is sardinic and unjust.' If you can cope with his jaundiced view and wildly complex sentence structure, you will enjoy the book.

[Chris Haigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second weirdest book I've ever read about a hyper-intelligent primate and definitely the most... romantic? Definitely of its time (watch out for racist language and depictions throughout), it's an interesting, funny, sometimes oddly touching satire of relationships, gender roles, and the absurdity of marriage.

[Nix · Rating 1 out of 5]

Beautifully written, appallingly racist and sexist. Pretty standard fare for early 20th century colonialist trash.

[David]

NPR raved about its humor

[Gail Darwent · Rating 4 out of 5]

A most amusing , witty literal oddity !

[Kris · Rating 1 out of 5]

abandoned after first 1/4. Just couldn't get through the dense language.

[Wania Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Didn’t pick up what the book was about until later in the book

[Clare Calder · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t enjoy this book. It was just weird. I thought it would be funny but it was just weird.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A one-joke book, but one joke is all you need if it's funny enough. Collier -- whose script for "The African Queen" will never feel the same to anyone who's read this novel, set partly in the Congo -- had a rare gift for windy mock-Victorian prose poetry, which illuminates the heroine's rich inner life so well.

I was surprised to learn from Wikipedia that chimps can be up to 5 feet tall, which is fortunate since the plot calls for Emily, veiled and wearing a gown in a darkened room, to be mistaken for a human at a crucial moment. Still, fans of unflinching realism will be annoyed.

[Vineeta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Huh! All these years, and until this moment I never knew the difference between a Foreword, a Preface, and an Introduction. I found Eva Brann's Introduction to His Monkey Wife quite delightful. Here's how she starts - "It is a truth universally acknowledged that an unattached monkey in possession of a liberal education must be in want of a human husband". See what I mean? Eva lets us know upfront that our heroine, Emily the chimp, gets her man in the end. Eva gives us a tour of the genre of primates in novels, and says "Throughout this multifarious genre, there is no chimp like Emily, none so to captivate the human heart, none with whom one would so wish to have a cup of tea."

This is the story of Emily, a chimp, who learns to read, think, and love like humans. She loves her master Mr.Fatigay, and wants to prevent his marriage to Amy. I did not particularly admire any of the three principal characters. Emily is slavish, Mr.Fatigay is dull as dishwater, and Amy is air headed and conniving.

The book itself is a good exercise in reading. It is strewn with hundreds of allusions to other literary works, over ninety percent of which I am not familiar with. It has words and expressions that one almost never encounters. Some sentences run to almost a page in length, and can be quite complex in construction. I found myself using Google Now quite often, asking questions like "Ok Google, what does the word japanned mean?" I learnt that a primate in the context of England could refer to the Archbishop of Canterbury. And I learnt something that came to me as a rude shock - That a parasol means an umbrella of some sort, and not some kind of waxy polish/cleaning agent that all these years I assumed it to be! If you are the kind that prefers not to look up the meanings of things, or are uncomfortable with not understanding all that goes on in the pages, I suggest you give this book a pass. However, if you are like me, you'll know that although hard to read, this is the sort of book that can widen your horizons.

"Is love less strong in its defense, or more so, when it is bestowed on the unworthy?"

[Muriel Schwenck · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not sure what my mother was thinking but I was a very advanced reader as a child. (My mother set up an old easy chair in a bosky willow glade for me, then I spent so much time there reading she was annoyed! HaHaHa!) When I was 12, my mother gave me "His Monkey Wife" because she loved it so much. I liked it. But I did not get all the literary references. It was just fun. 15 years later, I was much more literary, I read it again. And again. It is now one of my favorite books which I re-read every few years, and yes, I get more references each time. (And, I am back on the family farm. The chair and the bosky willow glen is gone, but I have another retreat among other trees where I read. Old habits die hard.)
Poor Emily, her first intellectual flowering, and her first romantic sensibilities are aroused by reading Victorian literature. What else could Emily do? The first bloom of love is the most lasting.
Self educated in a dead tradition, transplanted to the modern world from her jungle life. What did Tarzan do? He was always a gentleman and a man of honor. And so is Emily in her very lady like, intellectual and honorable way.
I think a great accompaniment to Emily's great romance is "How They Loved Him" by Florence Marryat. Try it.

[Ashley Lambert-Maberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love John Collier.

He's a terrific writer, and if you've never read him go find Fancies and Goodnights and try a short story at random.

This is slightly less successful, but still great fun. It's one of those weird, delicate, precious fantasies from the early 20th century that don't belong to the sword and sorcery (e.g. Conan) or the high fantasy (LOTR) genres. Lord Dunsany, James Branch Cabell, Sylvia Townsend Warner, those types.

Whenever I can find one of those, I'm thrilled. Last year I stumbled across The Unfortunate Fursey and it was one of my favourite books of the year!

(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book by way of the 'Forgotten Classics' column in The Times, and I'm glad I did. First, I'm partial to fiction from the 1930's - and as with any specialism, once you know a few of them it makes the rest more fun. The plot is available elsewhere, but I would agree with those who say the somewhat Edwardian style takes a bit of getting used to. I had to look up the definition of some words, which I haven't had to do in years. Still, it's a treasure and deserves to be more widely read, cackled over, and passed on.

[Frances Sawaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite bizarre, quite entertaining. Emily, the chimp, is the most loyal of creatues and for that she finds the reward she seeks and deserves. Of course, teaching herself to read and type helps her through the "civilized" world! Strong writing. Rich with literary references. Easy to see how Collier's style and subject are akin to Hitchcock, Bradbury or Serling.

[Carrie Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the plot and storyline, but it could have been told in a lot less words, or words that added to the story and enhanced it instead of being meaningless. I was able to skip most of it (speed read) and get the nuances of it all without reading a great deal of added fluff.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a great book, so clever...

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clever. Believe it would make a great play.