|
Quit
Monks or Die by Maxine Kumin
This book recalled for me an odd moment which I had forgetten: a tour
of the monkey lab at Harvard, walking past rows of monkey cages. Have
I suppressed this disturbing memory, or did I really see bandaged monkeys,
their corpus callosum cut to disconnect the two sides of their brain for
psychological experiments. (This doesn't harm the monkey or cause any
pain.)
At the time I remember taking a discarded bag of Purina Monkey Chow and
hanging it on my dormitory room wall. It was incredibly amusing. In retrospect,
recalling the context, I'm not so sure.
Anyway, on to the book. The plot is oddly presented, somehow out of sequence.
The suspense is reduced without removing the mystery. One by one, the
suspects are exonerated and you see what really happened.
Although a short prefatory remark acknowledges Deborah Blum, author of
The
Monkey Wars , Maxine Kumin did not succeed in bringing us very close
to graduate life in and around a psychological research establishment.
The story was enlivened somewhat by two pairs of twins.
So escape from your cage, swing on down to www.amazon.com and order a
copy of Quit
Monks or Die
|
|
dreams
home
bookshop
music shop
meal menus
adventure
photos
links
about us
|
