Not at all bad for a story written by a gorilla
Do children’s books need to have children as main characters in order to have irresistible appeal? Clearly not - especially, it seems, if they are written by a gorilla.
I greatly enjoyed
The Murderer’s Ape, one of my Books Of the Year for 2017
(see my review from Dec of that year). It had no pretensions to profundity but was a quite wonderful example of ‘old-fashioned’ storytelling. I was initially sceptical as to whether a sequel could live up to the original, however I was delighted to find that my misgivings were completely allayed. Exactly the same qualities are to be found in abundance in
The False Rose. This is the kind of children’s novel that I associate strongly with European children’s literature: a mixture of whimsy and high adventure with improbable but engaging action between endearing ‘goodies’ and dastardly villains. Sally Jones, is not only the protagonist but also the ostensible writer of the story. She may not be able to speak, but she understands language perfectly and writes superbly well for a gorilla working on a typewriter. (Although I suspect she may have some help from
Jakob Wegelius.) Her evocative descriptions of people, places and events allow us plenty of time to be drawn into her world. And then, once she has us hooked, she hurtles us into melodramatic excitement that we thrill to just as if it were happening. She is without doubt the most skilful (and delightful) gorilla storyteller that I have ever encountered.
Another engaging charmer
As well as ghosting Sally Jones’s writing, Jakob Wegelius is also an artist of considerable talent. He again illustrates his own book and his detailed, coloured endpapers are quite ravishing. His idiosyncratic but highly skilled character portraits are both illuminating and hugely entertaining. Often I prefer to envisage a novel’s characters for myself, but here I find they add so wonderfully to the written descriptions that they only intensify the reading involvement. Once again, text and drawings both contribute strongly to another story of captivating charm contained in a ravishing volume. A real gem.
