We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

We are all completely beside ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler is a brilliant depiction of both science and humanity, or rather the contradictions between what we can analyse and what is simply just being.

The story follows the Cooke family: one mother one father, one brother and two sisters. It is narrated by the youngest sister, Rosemary, with its primary focus being on her sister Fern who is, in fact, a chimpanzee. While the novel, like my review, does not immediately reveal that Fern is an ape, it is impossible to review the story, as it is impossible to tell it, without eventually revealing this fact. It is the reluctance, and conversely the need to share this aspect that strikes at the very core of the novel.

Fern is at once a sister, a family member, a loved one -Same and yet also non human, other, an outsider -NotSame. For Rosemary, despite Fern being an ape, there was no other that understood her or that she understood with such certainty as she did Fern.

Fowler expertly combines aspects of the scientific and of case studies - experiments with the grad students, endless notes and theories, with childhood memories and family dynamics inductive of any so-called normal American family. It is with expert skill that she paints Fern as simultaneously subject and family member. It is this paradox that forms the conflict of the novel, and of Rosemary's life in general. While social norms and public opinion portray chimps as simply animals -wild and unpredictable - there is a sense, for the Cookes, that Fern is a vital part of their family dynamic. Truly one of them in so many indefinable ways.

A heartfelt and moving tale, Fowler opens the readers eyes to new possibilities, highlighting interspecies connection without shying away from the devastation, heartbreak, cruelty and confusion that come with bringing a wild animal into a home. Touching on various aspects of behavioural theory - of both apes and humans alike - Fowler challenges our understanding of psychology and behaviour, rights and privileges.

A stunning and emotional novel, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is a beautiful take of man's need to know, to understand and our ultimate inability to do so.

After Dark

After Dark by Haruki Murakami
I should have known, I suppose, the strangeness that is a Murakami novel. Questioning and prompting, After Dark invades our sense of normalcy and of the conscious and unconscious worlds in an odd and uncertain way.

The novel takes place over the course of a few hours in the dead of night, in Tokyo. We follow Mari as she wanders the streets, frequents diners and generally runs into various night characters. Her meetings, which take her to love hotels, make her witness to crimes and have her encounter old acquaintances, meander in and out of normalcy, painting a patched portrait of Tokyo night life. Spliced with Mari's encounters are narrative snippets relating to her sister, Eri, a mere figure - silent and unmoving - bound in a perpetual sleep.

After Dark is not a passive novel. By no means a light read, it denies you the luxury of an east narrative, demanding patience and thought. The novel begins to explore connections between siblings and human beings in a general sense, while touching on aspects of life, death and consciousness, all in a seemingly detached manner. A style unlike any other I have read, Murakami writes without weight, drifting in and out of subject matter, often dark material, without ever putting down roots. It is easy, then, to feel disconnected from the story, and rather uninterested in the characters themselves, as the lack of connectivity can feel cold. While questions arise from the pages about connectivity and existence, it is as though as an after thought, a mere vague wonder, which lacks any sense of urgency or importance. This is, however, a hallmark of Murakami's style in that he does not aid the reader or allow them easy access to his work. His stories, instead, require time, the slow reading of poetry where words are ingested and then digested. It is only through active reading that the deeper sensations of After Dark begin to show through.

Because of this, After Dark is often polarizing, sometimes hailed as a masterful display of genius writing, or else dismissed as a cold hard story about one bland character and her sleeping sister. For me, I fall somewhere in between. I can recognize the careful work that is After Dark, and yet despite knowing the assumed intentions, I could not grab hold of a strong enough -anything- to really connect with the novel. Such is the effect of Murakami, it seems. Brilliant perhaps, but therefore isolating.