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Fw: Fw: More about Literary Chimpanzees
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----- Original Message -----
From: nabokv-l@listserv.ucsb.edu
Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2000 7:44 PM
Subject: Fw: Fw: More about Literary Chimpanzees
RESPONSE to LAURA De Risi "ape"posting
----- Original Message -----
From: Diane Charney
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2000 6:21 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: More about Literary Chimpanzees
-----Original Message-----
From: Laura De Risi <<mailto:laura.derisi@flashnet.it>laura.derisi@flashnet.it>
To: NABOKV-L <<mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
Date: Friday, April 21, 2000 4:37 PM
Subject: More about Literary Chimpanzees
George Shimanovich's remark on global computer literacy is poignant... and seminal. If anyone wants to know more about Literature and Chimps, I suggest reading, or re-reading, B. Malamud's God's Grace, a comic and prophetic novel which in some way is not so far from Nabokov's themes as it may seem. There is, first of all, a chimp who learns English and speaks it in a heavy German accent... But his articulation improves fast-- much faster than Pnin's! God's Grace isn't a book only about language, but language makes the most fascinating part of it.
The references to literate apes bring to mind Kafka's "Report to an Academy," a fascinating story in which an initially captive ape upends the power structure, and goes right to the "head of the class."
Diane Joy Charney
Yale University