Goodreads Ireland discussion

Thanks for opening the spoiler thread Emma, I cant wait to read everyones thoughts on it. As Emma says, so many ethical and moral issues are raised in this story. What interested me most was the impact the experiment had on the various family members.

Rosemary was obviosly tramatised by Ferns removal from the family and believed for many years that she was to blame, but it seems she repressed those feeling til she left home for college. Anyone have any thoughts on why that might have been? Why did all that self recrimination surface at that point of her life?

Maybe she needed to leave the family home like Fern had to leave the family home before she could come to terms with it?

Another possibility is she matured enough to deal with those feelings.

OK guys I'm really dying to hear what you thought of this one!

I found it surprising and fascinating. Unfortunately for me, the friend who recommended this book also recommender Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human at the same time, which was a bit of a spoiler.

Did anyone come to the book with no prior knowledge? If so when did you figure it out? What kind of parents would choose to make their child part of a psychology experiment?

Address some of these or just tell us what you thought of the book :-)

I was spoiled too. A lot of the reviews on GRs do something similar and talk about other Chimp books. I was happy then that the revelation comes fairly soon - about 70 pages in. So then I was the same as any other reader.

I was totally surprised. I had no prior knowledge of anything because I got a pre-release copy to review. It blew my mind. I was in quite a bit before I figured it out. I'm old, I'm slow.

I thought it was quite clear that there was something a bit strange about the situation, I did too think the child had disappeared or some kind of devastating event had occurred...

In regards to the thinking behind raising a chimp along with a child I know Rosemary's mother claims near the end that they always believed Fern would have been with them for ever but it does beg the questions as to why they didn't consider the lifelong impact her presence would have on the other children's life?

Rosemary talks about how outsiders found it hard to accept Fern as a real sister and I must admit that I was one of those people. Though I did find that as the story line progressed it was much easier to accept!

I like how the readers view of the characters also changed as the story line developed. It was not until rosemary and her mothers relationship rekindles that I felt any kind of empathy or relationship to the mother.

The themes of memory throughout were interesting but to me it seemed understandable that at college, away from the home she was able to really contemplate and begin to unravel her past.

Fixo

Rosemary was raised in different times too. Children were not treated with the same sensitivity as they are now. There were no helicopter parents. That would have odd. We were let go early and ran around with lots of freedom. People didn't consider things from their children's point of view. It just wouldn't have occurred to them. Also as scientists they were seeing things through their experiment. It was the experiment that was important.

I can see people having a hard time accepting Fern as a sister. I would have.

It's an interesting scenario. I know that if I had been asked to sit next to 5 year old Rosemary in school her behaviour would have freaked me out. I'm not sure how I would have reacted to her putting her fingers in my mouth! We are all conditioned re: socially acceptable behaviour at a very young age.

Speaking of which, how fair do you think the experiment was on Fern?

Emma wrote: "I think it only comes to surface in college partly because Rosemary was only 5 when it happened so had repressed and forgotten much of it anyway, and it's only through the string of events that see..."

Did anyone else think that the taking of the unknown drugs may have contributed to the sudden memory surge at least in terms of behaviors? I actually wondered at one point if the reapperence of Lowell was a drug induced hallucination.

I googled the experiment referenced with the spider webs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_...
I had seen it years ago but I'd forgotten it. The web spun after exposure to caffeine is very worrying :o

Margo wrote: "Emma wrote: "I think it only comes to surface in college partly because Rosemary was only 5 when it happened so had repressed and forgotten much of it anyway, and it's only through the string of ev..."

Oh boy! I need to cut back on coffee!

My thought exactly - what are we going to ourselves??

To my utter shame I didn't see anything coming about Fern being a chimp! I really believed she was probably in some way not typically developing, hence the grandmothers' reaction, but not human was never on my mind! Talk about naive!

As to why she only started thinking about it in college us probably because college is usually when people first begin looking inwards from their own perspective rather than the point of view of another!

And as has been pointed out the parents probably saw Fern as just another sibling for their biological children and were blinded by the research potential... I'm not sure though!

Emmet I don't think it's at all shameful to make that admission! I think the blurb was very misleading which was good in one way - the reveal was what made the book so amazing - but it didn't entices me to read it all.

Some of the comments on the non-spoiler thread were saying that the way the book jumped around in time was of putting. Do you think the story could have been told in a better way?

Emma wrote: "Re your question Margo on how fair the experiment was on Fern. It's hard to say. She is an orphan chimp rescued from poachers. While she is with the family she seems to be well treated and loved. H..."

Emma that is a good question. As a former scientist I've had to come to terms with a certain amount of animal testing - indirectly - as the authorities demand it in early stage clinical trials. Where it is essential to determine that a drug is safe and all unnecessary cruelty is removed, and if it has the potential to improve the quality of human life them yes, I can live with it. I'm not sure that these psychological experiments do that.

I abhor the fact that we humans mistreat animals just because we can. I hate the kind of experiments that Lowell was trying to stop. I am not a vegetarian but I believe that we do have a responsibility to treat animals as well as we can. I think everyone should maybe have to visit a slaughter house or at least kill the animal that they mean to eat, once in their life.

I was brought to visit a chicken battery as a child and I cannot eat chickens raised that way ever since

Sorry.......this has turned into a bit of a rant but it is a subject I'm pretty passionate about which is one of the reasons I loved this book - there are some things people should know about :-[

Margo, I totally agree with your comment about the treatment of animals it's disgusting how we treat them and even how sometimes we are willing to put up with it for our own benefit. Like you, I'm not a vegetarian and I have been known to use pharmaceutical products tested on animals when I have a headache. It seems we are all only as selfless as we can comfortably be.

As for the time shifts I thought they were really well employed in the book. Often a time shift is a lazy writer backing themselves out of a corner too tight to be escaped, but I think it worked well here as the technique to tell the story in an engaging way. Kind of like how you'd hear the saga of a friends childhood interspersed with current events!

Emma wrote: "It seems to be an ethical minefield. Like you Margo I can live with it the medical field provided there is no alternative and it will help save lives or improve the quality of lives.

There is no ..."

Eek Emma, I didn't know that about China - thank for giving me a whole new problem lol You are right about the tangled web of companies tho. It's not easy to figure out who owns what these days. And yes, food comes with less issues these days but I still think that the slaughterhouse are unnecessarily cruel. I was stuck in traffic one day recently behind a open backed truck carrying pigs and it was horrendous - the poor animals didn't even have space to standand as a result they were all fighting. I couldn't see the name or reg or I would have reported it. Those animals were scared and uncomfortable and were probably marketed as prime irish pork. I haven't eaten a rasher since.

Emmet wrote: "Margo, I totally agree with your comment about the treatment of animals it's disgusting how we treat them and even how sometimes we are willing to put up with it for our own benefit. Like you, I'm ..."

Emmet I didn't have a problem with the time shifts either but I guess they didn't work for everone.

Another thing that some had issues with was the amount of technical explaination. Did you think that was overdone? Personally I enjoyed it butnas I said, I'm a bit of a science nerd ;-)

Emma wrote: "Margo wrote: "Emma wrote: "It seems to be an ethical minefield. Like you Margo I can live with it the medical field provided there is no alternative and it will help save lives or improve the quali..."

It is very hard to be a conscientious consumer these days. And packaging another issue for me - I hear so many conflicting stories about what happens to our landfill rubbish. So much of the packaging can't be recycled and anyway recycling should be the last option. Ah well, these are all first world problems.

The Body Shop was bought by one of the big three - I think L'oreal who is infamous for animal testing.

The only thing is by buying Body Shop products you are still demonstrating to the larger firm that you would rather have the products not tested on animals. If enough people do that they would abandon testing all together to turn a profit.

I had heard of the China problem. It's been a problem for a lot of cosmetics companies on a purely financial sense. Making them choose between the EU and China. As they are all multinationals they will always go after both.

The book definitely made me rethink products tested on animals. I honestly hadn't thought about it up til that point but the book really opened my eyes. It's hard to stomach the cruelty yet some animal experiments done for medical reasons are necessary. It's a bit like watching Blackfish - up until that point I really had not thought much of SeaWorld and the captive animals and their habitats. Now I would never go to such a park although I know that most of the animals could not survive if they were released back into the wild. I wish there were more animal sanctuaries available. There is one I support that is an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee. The animals are allowed to live and roam the property but have a barn, food and medical treatment available should the need rise. They are not put on display but have elecams throughout the park where they can be viewed.

Donna wrote: "The book definitely made me rethink products tested on animals. I honestly hadn't thought about it up til that point but the book really opened my eyes. It's hard to stomach the cruelty yet some an..."

Donna I hadn't even heard of the film Blackfish, I'll have to keep a lookout for it.

What did you think of the other members of the Cook family Donna? I think we all understand where Lowell was coming from but what about the parents?

They struck me as totally absorbed in their own lives and work and I felt that the children suffered because of that.

Donna, I've seen blackfish and it was awful! The separation between parent and baby was heartbreaking. I have to say though what got me was the entertainment aspect of it all. :(

Well, it's been heartening to see that since the film was released, attendance at the parks has plummeted along with profits.

Margo, as a psych grad and current Speech/Language Science student the detailed bits helped me keep the ideation that I'm clever alive ;). I'm not sure they were overly technical though as even I got through them without a sneaky google as often happens when psych things come up. I think 'Still Alice' had me searching more!

I have to agree with Emmet. I am not scientifically minded at all and I was able to keep up with the discussion. Of course, in Calif. there is a ton of discussion on animal experimentation and treatment. In fact the 11 pm news is having a special on animal experimentation in N. Ca. The book is set at a place extremely close to me so a lot of the details of similar experiments have been in the news a lot.

hi folks - what a read. Was lucky to have avoided any spoilers so the twist really hit home.
think if the author's goal was to write an engaging, funny, story that would raise moral considerations of our relationship with our animal relations then this hit the spot.
Raises the questions, exposes the ambiguity and a variety of schools of thought without being preachy in any way
lots of food for thought in the discussions above, again, I think, a measure of the success of the book

did need to refer to dictionary a few times
new favourite is Limerence- an involuntary state of mind which results from a romantic attraction to another person combined with an overwhelming, obsessive need to have one's feelings reciprocated
would love to think the etymology is linked to Limerick :)

“The world runs,” Lowell said, “on the fuel of this endless, fathomless misery. People know it, but they don’t mind what they don’t see. Make them look and they mind, but you’re the one they hate, because you’re the one that made them look.”


“I'm unclear on the definition of person the courts have been using. Something that sieves out dolphins but lets corporations slide on through.”

Thanks Margo for nominating this one, great choice

Susan wrote: "I have to agree with Emmet. I am not scientifically minded at all and I was able to keep up with the discussion. Of course, in Calif. there is a ton of discussion on animal experimentation and trea..."

Susan are similar experiments still going on? (

Andy wrote: "hi folks - what a read. Was lucky to have avoided any spoilers so the twist really hit home.
think if the author's goal was to write an engaging, funny, story that would raise moral considerations..."

Andy that was a great sumation, you have hit the nail on the head. I love the quotes that you chose. I missed the use of the word limerence . I listened to it on audio and it must have passed me by -thats one disadvantage of audiobooks.

I really didn't like the narrators voice either. It was very harsh and kind on screechy - I hope that's not the local accent but I don't think so, it seemed to be just the way she talked.

Susan, have you heard the audio? I'd love to get a local opinion on the accent.

I have not heard it on audio but our accent is what's on most American TV shows and movies. Watch Mark Harmon on NCI and that's a true Calif. accent.

No Susan, she sounds nothing live any character in NCI. I thought maybe it was some local variation on what I would consider to be a CA accent. Glad to thank there isn't a tow full of people with that voice! My mam heard a bit of the audio when I was playing it and now she refuses to listen even though I keep telling her how great the book is :(

LOL. The power of a voice.

Loved this novel. I think it has actually changed the way I look, relate to animals-even our own pets. Such a clever way to draw the reader into the relationship with Fern that the narrator has. Time shifts were a major reason I loved the book. It also helps you focus in on the shifting narratives that each character has going. I found the disturbing image that Lowell, like Fern, ends up in "a cage" to be the image that sticks with me more than anything. The fact that her brother comes and goes from her life is also an echo of Fern's life that rings very true. I think it is true that both the "consciousness" of children and that of animals was in the period after the war, considered less important than it is now. A shocking development to the world of helicopter parents as pointed out by another reader. I laughed out loud at a number of the scenes involving Fern's interaction with the family and her older sister. Sharing of the red chip was a key moment for my heart. I loved this book. It opened my eyes to my own past. I can't believe how short and powerful it is. Thanks so much for recommending it.

John wrote: "Loved this novel. I think it has actually changed the way I look, relate to animals-even our own pets. Such a clever way to draw the reader into the relationship with Fern that the narrator has. Ti..."

That's a great observation John; Fern and Lowell both "in a cage" at the end of the book. I have to agree about seeing family pets in a different light also. Our dogs definately have their own communication systems when we take the time to them!

Do you think that Lowell deservered to go to jail? His group only damaged property on premium where animals were cruelly treated. I kind of think him as a hero :-)

He may be a hero in your eyes but he did break the law. There were other avenues he could have taken like going to the press especially with pictures or to court. It's hard to justify the destruction of property. If everyone went around breaking laws they didn't believe in or felt justified we would live in chaos. Not everyone feels the same way. That's how Trump got elected. I personally was outraged by the treatment of the animals but I'm not sure I would be justified in destroying the property. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Destruction of property and violent demonstration doesn't help. It only makes people believe you are radicals, so they dont listen to you.

But.... if no-one broke the law these things would never come to light. His group damaged property and accepted the consequences. They were willing to go to prison to bring the cruelty to public notice.

Violent demonstrations are not a good idea. Even peaceful ones can turn nasty and people end up getting hurt. But if people don't protest things don't change.

Protest is much different from destruction. This is something that Martin Luther King preached. I think they could have accomplished their goals by simply taking pictures and then going to the media for publicity. It may be because I am old but I just can't stand the idea of any more violence. I've seen enough.

I think that the facility staff that caught him would have taken any camera. I can't condone any act of violence to a person but I do think that by damaging property he forced an arrest and hence prison. You don't generate publicity by tresspassing - unless of course you're a TD ;-)

Margo wrote: "I think that the facility staff that caught him would have taken any camera. I can't condone any act of violence to a person but I do think that by damaging property he forced an arrest and hence p..."

It's the wrong type of publicity, though. Extremists and terrorist are not only ignored but actively ignored. However, those that argued sensibly and worked with the legislator have effected real change in animal testing in Ireland and the UK. As, someone who used to work in medical research in Ireland, Scotland and England, I have seen first hand how these people not only improved animal welfare among the University research system but actually improved the quality of experiments. This was because they worked with the research staff who are people too.


By the way, if you're interested, our labs where researching Alzheimer's cures not just in humans but in the feline form too - Cat's live long enough to get it nowadays. We worked with some of the leading Cat Vets. I worked with vegetarians (who considered the animal slaughter houses inhumane) and for a boss who actively campaigned against the use of animals in testing cosmetics. So it is entirely possible that I happened to work with a more ethical than most bunch of scientists.

I was a scientist myself in a previous life so I know we're not all a bunch of sadists lol I also know that animal testing is far less cruel these days, at least in europe. I also know how the illegal actions of groups such as Green peace heightened my awareness of what was going on in the world.

In a better world it would not be necessary but unfortunately we have in this world and sadly, in many countries unnecessary pain is still caused to living beings. Living in the countryside I routinely see animals being transported to slaughter in a less than humane was.

Great news about the cat research - alzheimers is a disease that has hit very close to home with me. There are great strides being made in its research :-)

The push to industrialised farming always concerns me. Meat prices can only kept down by treating animals as commodities on conveyer belts. That can only lead to inhumane transportation and slaughter.

The movement towards better conditions for chickens in the UK by famous chefs etc. has made a big difference. We need some more of that.

Going back to the book I think Lowell's actions are not just due to Ferns treatment but because he considered her a sibling only to have her treated as a piece of property by the University (two very extreme ends of the spectrum). As already mentioned above he ends up in a cage too. I think it's Rosemary and not Lowell that improves Ferns life the most (though not nearly enough). Perhaps the book is arguing that the more extreme actions will be unsuccessful? Or is it arguing that the extreme actions are needed first for others to notice and build upon in a more prescribed manner?

for an interesting, well written side read on industrialisation of food production (US focus) I'd got a lot from The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

thanks andy, i've added that. sounds like an eye opening read.

Maria, I think you've hit the nail on the head! Sometimes we need to break the rules to highlite a situation but then it's usually best with by legitimate action.

Margo - parts I and II are very good on industrial farming and on organic ('big organic' compared to what most of us would think of as organic)

part III on foraging, hunting etc is more of an acquired taste...

I'm interested in foraging in theory but my limited mobility makes it difficult in practice. As for hunting I'm a total wimp! If I had to kill to eat I'd be a complete vegetarian. I've been fishing a few times. Not as bad as hunting but I don't like hitting the poor fish on the head to kill it. Makes you think about whats on the supermarket shelves tho.

just finished this. I never saw Fern being a chimp a thing. when I first picked it up at the library I thought fern was a human child that went missing.
this book took me awhile to read, a lot longer then it should. I did like it towards the end.

I agree that the blurb was very misleading Kara. Were you disappointed that the book didn't focus on an "average" family?

I would have loved to read this book from Fern's perspective. A bit difficult I know as we so not yet understand exactly what Chimps perceive and feel - which is the whole point on the book - but still!