Customer Reviews

Mr. Thundermug: A Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I purchased this after hearing a review on NPR. I love the book and have passed it around several friends. Everyone loved the story. We all tried to put the old "deeper meaning" on it. My take was that maybe this is a vehicle to think about relationships. All that being said just sit back and enjoy it.

I really wanted to like "Mr. Thundermug" - an intriguing premise and beautifully packaged - but the story didn't liv up to the opening sections. It really is a slight piece of work and by the end, I was hoping for something, anything, memorable to draw me closer to the big baboon. Unfortunately, I couldn't care less about him, his fate, or that of his family.

Honestly with all the things that one tolerates and deals with on a day-to-day basis, you'd think a talking monkey would be a welcome break. In this book it's not so much a break but just more filler to keep you moving. Albeit chuckling on the way.

The book records the quirky and light-hearted account of a truly fantastic event. Unfortunately, like our everyday lives, the fantastic event is blunted and barely noticed; here by the monkey's absentminded musings and the people's disregard for such a happening in lieu of other seemingly more important matters (though one man does notice).

Anyway, I got this book for a buck while waiting for the bus. It's short length was perfect for my long bus rides that day. As a quick read, it was just what I wanted. Don't expect much character development, but then again development is kind of besides the point. This book does a great job engaging the here-and-now. In this way it deals with the fantastic occurrence of a speaking monkey with the same tone as your every-day bus ride. I'll read it again one of these days.

Cornelius Medvei's Mr. Thundermug: A Novel is an imaginative short novel chronicling the life of Mr. Thundermug, a baboon who inexplicably learns how to speak English. This is another of the books I am reading as part of the Irresistible Review Challenge.

I originally found the review for this book at Diary of an Eccentric, which is listed as book 38, I believe, in the recap. What a great look at the life of a Baboon as a human, or should I say ape in a human world.

***Spoiler Alert***

Mr. Thundermug, his wife, and his two children, Angus and Trudy, are all given names by Mr. Thundermug. The baboon soon realizes that he is the only one in the family able to speak and understand English when it is spoken. Through a series of run-ins with the Council on Housing, Thundermug soon comes to realize that he is governed by two contrary standards--that of human law and natural law.

His grasp of speech amazes many, while others ignore the baboon who speaks their language as if he were a figment of their imagination. I wonder if this book is another look at discrimination, but at the same time I wonder if there is another meaning altogether. Perhaps as humans we are not as superior to animals as we would like to suggest or believe. Perhaps they are wiser than we are.

***End Spoiler Alert***

It's interesting to see a study of animal conditions from another perspective, rather than the human entering the world of the gorilla, for instance. The baboon enters the world of humanity and what he learns is striking.

What is the deal with this book? It gets amazing reviews from everyone, and I can't figure out what these people are seeing to admire in the book. I saw nothing in it.

Mr. Thundermug is a baboon who has developed the ability to speak human language at about the time he mysteriously appears in the narrator's town. The story walks us through a sequence of scenes, but doesn't really tell a story. There's no flow. There's no detail. No back story. Nothing is gone into in depth. No one seems the least bit surprised by a talking baboon. What am I meant to gain from this story? I'm sure I don't know. And I am also sure that I don't know how this little piece of junk got published.

Dorothy Parker might as well have been speaking about this book when she said ""This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." Sorry about the rating - Amazon won't let me give zero stars.

I bought this book because it has a positive review on NPR. I got the book and loved the characters,their way of life. Unfortunately I got no info from the book about his wife except she could not learn the English language.