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beckysbookshelf's review
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
grubstlodger's review against another edition
3.0
The two stories, ‘Woman into Fox’ and ‘Man in the Zoo’ are two stories that do exactly what they say. One is about a woman who turns into a fox and the other is a story about a man who lives in the zoo. There’s a fable-like quality to the stories that is largely driven by the matter-of-fact nature of their telling. This matter-of-fact nature grounds the stories and provides a great deal of humour whilst unsettling the reader at the same time.
I’m sure ‘Woman into Fox’ was trying to say something but what it was saying was a little beyond me. There were times it seemed to be saying that the husband, while accepting and wholly loving of the socially acceptable sides of femininity was terrified of the sides he perceives as more instinctive and animal. Certainly being a a fox is distinguished as being different to a fox but both are women. There’s even a part where he feels cuckolded by a dog fox when his wife, now fully integrated in her animal life, has puppies. The fact he still sees the vixen as his wife and the puppies as something like his children, is very disturbing. Naturally, the story does not have a happy end.
In some ways ‘Man in the Zoo’ is more straightforward. A man is a total tit and to make his girlfriend feel jealous because she won’t commit to him, and him alone, he signs up to become an exhibit at the ape house of London Zoo. Initially he is placed between the Orang-Utan and the Chimpanzee and the other two apes grow to hate him because he gets all the attention. Eventually the Orang-Utan assaults him and while he is being checked up medically (I was hoping by a vet) another man in moved into the cage next door and the ape house is on the way to being the man house. Whilst there is certainly an element of racism (and a whole heap of n-word), I don’t think the man is less happy with his place in the zoo because the person in the cage next door is black, or even because he is chatty but because with another man next door, he is no longer the unique man in the zoo. He is still too stubborn to leave his cage though and agrees to marry his girlfriend, only if she moves into the cage with him. She agrees but the zoo say they can’t do that and release the man to again be with his girl. I didn’t want him to have a particularly happy ending, I wanted him living a pointless life of being stared at and ridiculed because he is a cockwomble.
Whilst both of these novellas are uncomfortable, they are extremely interesting and I wouldn’t hesitate by trying other works by this author, he seems a rather interesting if not very pleasant sort of person - though he was from Brighton, so he has that going for him.
I’m sure ‘Woman into Fox’ was trying to say something but what it was saying was a little beyond me. There were times it seemed to be saying that the husband, while accepting and wholly loving of the socially acceptable sides of femininity was terrified of the sides he perceives as more instinctive and animal. Certainly being a a fox is distinguished as being different to a fox but both are women. There’s even a part where he feels cuckolded by a dog fox when his wife, now fully integrated in her animal life, has puppies. The fact he still sees the vixen as his wife and the puppies as something like his children, is very disturbing. Naturally, the story does not have a happy end.
In some ways ‘Man in the Zoo’ is more straightforward. A man is a total tit and to make his girlfriend feel jealous because she won’t commit to him, and him alone, he signs up to become an exhibit at the ape house of London Zoo. Initially he is placed between the Orang-Utan and the Chimpanzee and the other two apes grow to hate him because he gets all the attention. Eventually the Orang-Utan assaults him and while he is being checked up medically (I was hoping by a vet) another man in moved into the cage next door and the ape house is on the way to being the man house. Whilst there is certainly an element of racism (and a whole heap of n-word), I don’t think the man is less happy with his place in the zoo because the person in the cage next door is black, or even because he is chatty but because with another man next door, he is no longer the unique man in the zoo. He is still too stubborn to leave his cage though and agrees to marry his girlfriend, only if she moves into the cage with him. She agrees but the zoo say they can’t do that and release the man to again be with his girl. I didn’t want him to have a particularly happy ending, I wanted him living a pointless life of being stared at and ridiculed because he is a cockwomble.
Whilst both of these novellas are uncomfortable, they are extremely interesting and I wouldn’t hesitate by trying other works by this author, he seems a rather interesting if not very pleasant sort of person - though he was from Brighton, so he has that going for him.
mattsjaeger's review
5.0
A man broken by love commits himself to living in the Ape-house at the Zoo. He befriends a caracal. He is attacked by an orangutan. And occasionally, love comes to visit him through the bars of his cage.
"That evening Cromartie could not keep still. When the chairs presumed to stand in his path he knocked them over, but he found that merely upsetting the furniture was not enough to restore his peace of mind. It was then that Mr. Cromartie made a singular determination...somehow or other to get himself exhibited in the Zoo, as if he were part of the menagerie."
"That evening Cromartie could not keep still. When the chairs presumed to stand in his path he knocked them over, but he found that merely upsetting the furniture was not enough to restore his peace of mind. It was then that Mr. Cromartie made a singular determination...somehow or other to get himself exhibited in the Zoo, as if he were part of the menagerie."
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