Get stuffed!
“You, you faggot, are an aardvark, an irrational, everlasting Earth-product, and whether you are ready to accept this or not, you have been, all this time, it must be said, wearing the skins of your enemy.”
In December 2020, at the end of a difficult year, the Monthly Book Group convened digitally for an extra meeting to discuss “Enter the Aardvark”, the third novel by Jessica Anthony, an American author who has been attracting considerable attention of late. Her third novel deals with taxidermy, “the Herero, the Namibians sporting the skin of their oppressor”, and links the twenty-first century affairs of a Ronald Reagan obsessed Republican congressman, Alexander Paine Wilson and his partner Greg Tampico to an earlier relationship between a Royal Leamington Spa taxidermist, Titus Downing, and his affairs with a 19th century African explorer, Sir Richard Ostlet. The explicit link is an Aardvark, caught and prepared for display in 1875, and delivered to Wilson by a Fed Ex employee, starting a train of events that lead to Wilson’s downfall in a tragi-comic black farce, teasing the reader by playing with the notion of déjà vu.
The proposer said he had laughed out loud while reading the book and chose it as he thought the political satire would bring much needed light relief to the un-assembled club. He spoke briefly of Anthony’s background as a young, east coast liberal, and how she wrote the first draft of the book in six weeks while guarding the Maria Valeria Bridge between Štúrovo, Slovakia and Esztergom, Hungary. Apparently, she started with the title, then developed the story from there. Our proposer introduced us to a new (to most of us) plot device, a “McGuffin” – an object or device in a film or book that serves no purpose other than to trigger the plot, for example used by Hitchcock in the 1930s.
He was intrigued by mirroring of the two plots, although preferring Georgetown to Leamington Spa. Some aspects of the plot were ambiguous, was Richard alive or a ghost, following the loss of his eyes and their insertion in the aardvark? He felt the writing style was typical of contemporary US writers and made mention of the use of the second person, which divided opinion among the group, although all would agree it was not a “showstopper”. He was moved to look at the nature and science of aardvarks, proposing the metaphor of the illogical creature that defies evolution. Where do we take that, the emphasis on homosexuality, the repressed senator that idolizes Ronald Reagan, the absurdity of contemporary US politics? He suggested that, although Donald Trump is not mentioned explicitly, (the book was written in 2017), he was probably the inspiration, and the author had been quite clever in settling on Ronald Reagan rather than Trump as the subject of Wilson’s obsession. The parody reference to the 1776 revolutionary spirit of Thomas Paine alludes to Trump’s America when congressman Wilson reveals his Paine-inspired manifesto to separate Democrats and Republicans, “It’s Time for Two Americas”.
What were our impressions of the book?
First and foremost, everyone, well almost everyone, found it very funny and praised the timing of the choice. There was favourable comment on the staccato format of short segments switching between the past and present and that the author had managed so well to switch mood between the Victorian and contemporary US modes of depiction. Some were less sure of the treatment of homosexuality, and by extension the stereotyping of politicians (or taxidermists?) as gay. Did the author have experience of gay relationships? One of us was surprised that the author was female, but perhaps we should be circumspect.
The theme of evolution was important. Our expert commented on the idea of causality, from formation of the earth to today, and how events in Victorian times affected the US 20th century. The prologue starts, “a swirling mass of vapors is unhinged, shooting through outer space”, continues with the emergence of the “virgin class Mammalia”, the discovery of the “Earth Pig”, so called by the African hunters, entered in the notebook of Ostlet’s assistant, stuffed by Downing, delivered on Wilson’s doorstep about one hundred and forty-two years later. One liked the zoological references, reminding him of first year at university. A colleague agreed, teased about evolution, colonialism, love and sex. He kept on reading rather than think deeply about the several themes that were introduced. Another suggested that perhaps the author had ‘swallowed Wikipedia’, too many themes were dumped on the page rather than integrated in the plot, but again, that was a minority view. The proposer agreed that too many elements in the story might make it indigestible, a possible flaw, but also suggested it was better to leave it on the surface and not to dive too deeply into it.
Another agreed it was clever, well-constructed, but found it a bit difficult in switching between the past and present, losing the thread. It highlighted the difference between the US (dollar fixation) and the UK (status fixation). There were other serious themes, the lack of empathy on the part of the US senator, how he despises woman, doesn’t care about climate change, and is contemptuous of homosexuals in his repressed state. Turning again to the McGuffin, did the constraint of the chosen title make the imagination deeper, attributing Andre Gide. He further suggested that aardvark symbolizes man’s inhumanity to the animal kingdom, and referred to the Jiva, the continuity of life through all types of sentient being, e.g. in the transference of the eyes from Richard Ostlet to the aardvark.
So, the meeting ended. As was usual in these video evenings, the discussion was shorter and more focused, for good or bad. Inspired by the opening quote, your scribe listened again to ‘Fairy Tale of New York’ by the Pogues.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
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