Page 20 - PGA Community News - October '22

Page 20, PGA C.A.N.! October 2022 October 2022
Book Review: Ape House

By Nils A. Shapiro she was told that she lot of sugar. She signs: “Want candy coffee. Isabel go.
My plan was to review would first have to do Hurry gimme.” It may be difficult for some readers to
a different book for this some studying about accept, but this is, according to Gruen, fact in the science
month’s column, but an linguistics in Toronto, of research with this species of great apes.
odd experience changed my and then—believe it The important characters in the story include a reporter,
selection. I had just ordered or not, but true— she John Thigpen, who is fascinated by the bonobos, thinks
online a newly published would have to get highly of the project, is fully supportive of it and, truth
book on a subject of great permission from the be told, is kind of fascinated by the research scientist,
interest to me, a work of bonobos themselves in Isabel, herself, which serves to hint at a romantic subplot,
nonfiction that I am very order to be able to visit although he is happily married.
anxious to read and bring them! After completing Suddenly, the laboratory is bombed, Isabel is seriously
to your attention, but which her homework, she put injured and the bonobos escape into neighboring trees.
will not be delivered to me for a week or longer. For some together a backpack Unlike chimpanzees, which have a violent streak when
reason I can’t explain, that new book stirred in me the that contained such they reach maturity—making them dangerous to keep as
memory of a novel that I read and loved many years ago. goodies as bouncy pets, as many families have learned to their dismay—
So, I researched the computer files of my 150-plus past balls, fleece blankets, bonobos experience the same shock, fear and confusion
Book Reviews—which are arranged chronologically, not M&M’s, xylophones, that humans would feel when their world is torn asunder.
by book title—and finally, after more than an hour, came Mr. Potato Head toys, etc., and asked the people at the What happens next—who committed this horrific
upon the one for which I was searching. The following Great Ape Trust to inform the bonobos that she had some act; the way in which the bonobos become pawns in a
appeared in this column 11 years ago. I commend this “surprises” for them. As Gruen relates it, the response she greedy attempt to garner national TV ratings; Isabel’s
book to you again, wholeheartedly. You will understand got was that “not only were they letting me come in, they frantic efforts to rescue her apes from a dangerous and
how it relates to the new book that I am awaiting when I were insisting…. The experience was astonishing—to life-threatening condition, and the role of the reporter in
review that one in a future column. this day I cannot think about it without getting goose trying to help her—form the threads of this story that is
***** bumps. You cannot have a two-way conversation with a beautifully written and very suspenseful. I was hooked
The common wisdom used to be that chimpanzees great ape, or even just look one straight in the eye, close from the very beginning. And when you get to almost the
were the animal world’s closest relatives to humans. up, without coming away changed…. I was told that the last page, a box of facial tissues will come in very handy.
That is no longer the case. We now know that another next day Panbanisha (one of the bonobos) said to one of By then, those bonobos will have won a very special
species of great apes—bonobos, which are native to the the scientists, “Where’s Sara? Build her nest. When’s she place in your heart, and you will be aching for them to
Congo—share a remarkable 98.7 percent of the human coming back?” be reunited with Isabel.
DNA. Though similar in size to chimpanzees, they differ After having had such an experience, it is no wonder Does all turn out well in the end or not? I would sign
somewhat in their physical features. Most importantly, that Gruen next used it to full advantage in writing the language the answer to you, but I don’t know how. Perhaps
bonobos in research studies have learned to understand novel Ape House. This is the story of an animal behavioral I am not as intelligent as a bonobo. You will have to
the meanings of as many as 3,000 English words, and research scientist, Isabel Duncan, who has been working read the book to find out. If Gruen had an unforgettable
have actually been taught to communicate with humans in with a group of bonobos using the ASL communication. experience actually meeting the bonobos, I am one
full two-way conversation using the same sign language Living under the auspices of a U.S. university under reviewer who has had an unforgettable experience reading
—American Sign Language (ASL)—that deaf humans excellent, positive and thoroughly humane conditions, her book.
use to communicate! the bonobos are extremely happy and well cared for, After all, 11 years later another completely different
Sara Gruen, author of Ape House, first heard about yet a small band of well-intentioned—but misguided— book reminded me how much I loved it.
bonobos in an email from her mother soon after completing protesters continue to march outside the laboratory walls.
her major bestselling book, Water for Elephants, (which The capability of bonobos to utilize sign language,
was made into a hit motion picture), and decided to learn according to Gruen, is reflected throughout the book,
more about these fascinating animals. When she contacted as when, for example, Bonzi—the female head of the
the leading research institute, the Great Ape Trust, bonobo matriarchal society—is asking for coffee with a

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