Ark Baby

Rating:
Summary: Dark... and hilarious
Review: Ark Baby is a terribly witty social parody that manages to bring together disparate elements like Darwinism, taxidermy, slave ships, rural English chruches and a modern-day fertility crisis. Jensen has an ear for language and a wonderful talent for creating vivid, memorable and very unusual characters- like the hirsuite, red-headed twins who may be the saviors of British fertility. Stylisticly, "Ark Baby" reminds me more than a little of some of my favorite English authors with a sense of dark, comic irony; both Kingsley Amis and some of the later Aldous Huxley come to mind. Think Amis' "Lucky Jim" meets Huxley's "After Many a Summer Dies the Swan".

Jensen manages to develop two different plot threads, one contempory and one 19th Century, and then brings them together for a great finish that, while not entirely unexpected, still has a few twists and turns. I was a bit reminded of Thomas Powers, who often uses this technique to great effect. But unlike Powers, who often revelas sublte and unexpected connections between his plot threads, Jensen brings hers together in a massive collision, with great comic effect.

All in a all, a terrifically enjoyable and original book.

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece!
Review: Every once in awhile you do judge a book by its cover and find a treasure. With its intriguing tile and cover "Ark Baby" by Liz Jensen grabbed me right away.As the cliche goes, I was hooked from the very first page.The narrative is purposeful and intense without losing its lustiness and bouyant good humor. The story is compelling and I honestly had trouble puttting it down. Rarely does this happen to me having read hundreds of books and having developed a wariness of untried authors. I also must admit to a bit of chauvanism in my reading choices, opting for male writers such as John Irving, Peter Carey, Don Dellilo Gunther Grass and the ilk. The few women I do read are easily defined as such; E. Annie Prolux and Annie Dillard for what I consider a masculine bleakness and sense of scale. Toni Morrison for her compassion and corageous treatment of painful situations.All three could hold their own against the aforementioned male authors. Add to that list Liz Jen! sen! She writes with such freedom, conviction, and passion that I was amazed and uplifted by her energy. Add to this an epic sense of scale and you have something close approaching rare genius! Unfortunately Liz has only one other title,"Egg Dancing" which I can't wait to get my hands on. Meanwhile, read "Ark Baby" and hope like I do that as you are reading this their is an even greater novel brewing in Liz Jensen's mind.

Rating:
Summary: This baby is going to build and build -- so get on board!
Review: I cannot stop writing about this woman, this novel. It is every bit as rewarding as the other readers have said. Don't bother with well-pedigreed testimonials. Yes, the plotting is sublime, the dialog superb. But "Ark Baby" is synthesis, fusion. A new millennial rude beast is slouching towards - er, away, rather - from London. There hasn't been a female novelist, no one I've read - going on forty-odd years - of this magnitude. Jensen, with only a second work (I have not read her first) has excelled, exceeded my hopes. Over the years I've been willing, waiting. But male avatars ruled: Aristophanes, Cervantes, Swift, Kafka, Cortazar, Kawabata, and Poe, among many. A fantastically absurdist or peculiar plot, punctuated by comedic feasts -what is now deemed the novel of Black Humor - this was my Holy Grail. A particularly male quest? Maybe. No problem. Then Jensen blasts away such cherished delusions with "Ark Baby" - and damn-it-all - what a blessed event. Let us praise our now and future Queen. And so on and so forth. Moving on.... Personally, I found the plot-droplets on the novel's back compelling. But prof-scoffs here and there delight in detail, obssess with summary. Meanwhile you have not begun to feast. What have we here? A distaff Swiftian riff, a Mae-Westian romper-stomper treading lightly atop the famed "Stufenalter des Mannes" (the Ages of Man) - if you like, for openers. Will Self's recent "Great Apes" may come to mind (re: "influences"). But we won't find traces of his most pornographic long-windedness or scatological specialization on this terrain. Returning to sources of another sort may be in order. For example, the title "Art Baby" - perfect. A new Genesis, an elemental transformation has been conceived and proclaimed. Human and ape have already exchanged fluids, body parts, DNA - in life and in literature. Hand in hand, we wade faster and deeper into ... what? Bliss? Oblivion? Only Jensen knows this inter-tidal zone truly well, commands an impressive array of the perils readily evident and not. And still she may smile, may frolic, relax. Man, woman, monkey; clergy, scientist, circus performer; church, cetacean, child; beings living, dead, reputedly dead, and undead - all replete in the glorious spectacle of La Jensen's Grand Danse Macabre. Not since Lysistrata has the human process of birth itself so abruptly, thoroughly ceased or nearly so. An entire nation neutered, no less! And not by choice, no, far from it - what's worse, the women alone, en masse, are those impaired. No births, not even conceptions occur-and absolutely no one knows why! What truly educated person can deny the possibility, the almost inevitable immediate reality of such an event taking place, within a year or two, if not already somewhere, someplace, unbeknownst to us?

Let us then go back to the beginning: the Ark. Noah is not present. A dim light may be seen. Many, many animals are likely nearby. Their sounds and stink arise from below. Liz will relate the rest.

Rating:
Summary: People say we monkey around...
Review: You only have to look at Matthew Kneale's Whitbread prize winning novel English Passengers to see that evolutionary theory combined with genetics is a hot topic for English writers at the moment. As Kneale proved, it is a subject ripe for wit and farce. Such is the tone of Liz Jensen's social satire, Ark Baby. Liz Jensen even mentions Gregor Mendel, the Czech Monk whose games with peas have recently been resurrected by Robin Marantz Henig in A Monk and Two Peas.

Bobby Sullivan is a vet who lives in a Britain where no babies have been born since the Millennium. He himself was born on the day Elvis died; a memorable date in history if ever there was one. Unbeknownst to him, Bobby Sullivan is going to play a quite considerable role in evolution. Trouble is, he has to get out of town first, since his mercy killing of a marriage has got him into a wee bit of trouble. Here, you begin to see the evolution of Liz Jensen's own creations: 'Giselle' previously appeared as a short story all of its own, and concerned the disposal of a dog, rather than a Macaque monkey. There's also an early sight of Jensen's next novel 'The Paper Eater' on page 102, when Bobby Sullivan muses that the fate of Britain may be to become a nuclear waste dumping ground (since there would be no one living there, due to the fertility crisis). The story also moves back in time, to the discovery of a curious small baby, abandoned in the church of Parson Phelps. The good priest, after giving what he thinks is a pig a good kick on the bottom, repents by taking the child in. The care given by the Parson and his wife means that Tobias Phelps (as they christen him), can recover from his injuries. But who is the strange, illiterate woman whose narrative interrupts the text? Who has been conducting far more ambitious experiments than Gregor Mendel?

Thus Buck de Savile (Bobby Sullivan's new identity) arrives in the ancient Viking settlement of Thunder Spit. He believes that he has successfully escaped the town practice where monkey pets have replaced children, and is looking forward to inserting his arm into a cow's bottom. But it's not long before Buck is dragged off to look at some examples of Victorian taxidermy stuffed into a Thunder Spit attic inhabited by a comic ghost known as 'the Laudanum Empress', an avid fan of the crystal box which spews forth 'The Young and the Restless'. We jump back another 150 years and watch from a balloon as the mortal Laudanum Empress and her eminent taxidermist husband Ivanhoe Scrapie conceive their last child, Violet. Thus begins the chain of events which brings Horace Trapp's bloodstained Ark home, along with chef extraordinaire, Jacques-Yves Cabillaud, exponent of 'Cuisine Zoologique', a recipe book which he developed whilst acting as cook on board the Beagle. Meanwhile, Buck gets to grips with beautiful twin sisters Rose and Blanche and their peculiarly shaped feet. The twins participate in the mass pregnancy hoax following the bombing of the National Egg Bank and the death of Albion. As Rose and Blanche research their family history, Buck begins to wonder about his stamina and the stuffed 'Gentleman Monkey': could it be valuable evidence of a missing link?

Parson Phelps tells Tobias that fossils are just God's little joke, but he takes the publication of Charles Darwin's work very seriously, to the extent of ripping pages of it from the pulpit. Ivanhoe Scrapie, frustrated zoologist, also despairs that his fame has been eclipsed by that of Darwin. But just as Tobias discovers a strange and tantalising new fruit, so Scrapie thinks that he has found a missing piece of the puzzle. Violet, who has positively ballooned under the influence of cuisine zoologique, has a chance encounter with Henry Salt, the Victorian Vegetarianism activist. Soon, everybody's writing cookbooks...

Liz Jensen's social satire is as vibrant and readable as ever. Ark Baby has jokes trotting out of it two by two. She's also quick to point out that Darwinism and evolution theory still resound today, especially with the mapping of the human genome. Also buried within these pages are hints of the real life stories and tragedies: the difficult relationship between Captain FitzRoy of the Beagle and Darwin (echoed in Matthew Kneale's English Passengers), the interbreeding of the inhabitants of Thunder Spit recalls Darwin's infertile marriage to his first cousin, mentions of fossil hunting in Lyme Regis revivifies Mary Anning. But I think the most successful resurrection of all is that of Henry Salt. Suet the dog's instinctive reaction is to bite him, but even he sheds a tear as Henry Salt expounds on the Rights of Animals. Henry Salt's writings are still as powerful today, and extremely topical as Foot and Mouth runs on. I've created a page on the context of this novel for interested readers. Liz Jensen's brilliantly entertaining satire should also be as powerful many years from now. Liz Jensen is nothing less than George Orwell with wit.

Rating:
Summary: People say we monkey around...
Review: You only have to look at Matthew Kneale's Whitbread prize winning novel English Passengers to see that evolutionary theory combined with genetics is a hot topic for English writers at the moment. As Kneale proved, it is a subject ripe for wit and farce. Such is the tone of Liz Jensen's social satire, Ark Baby. Liz Jensen even mentions Gregor Mendel, the Czech Monk whose games with peas have recently been resurrected by Robin Marantz Henig in A Monk and Two Peas.

Bobby Sullivan is a vet who lives in a Britain where no babies have been born since the Millennium. He himself was born on the day Elvis died; a memorable date in history if ever there was one. Unbeknownst to him, Bobby Sullivan is going to play a quite considerable role in evolution. Trouble is, he has to get out of town first, since his mercy killing of a marriage has got him into a wee bit of trouble. Here, you begin to see the evolution of Liz Jensen's own creations: 'Giselle' previously appeared as a short story all of its own, and concerned the disposal of a dog, rather than a Macaque monkey. There's also an early sight of Jensen's next novel 'The Paper Eater' on page 102, when Bobby Sullivan muses that the fate of Britain may be to become a nuclear waste dumping ground (since there would be no one living there, due to the fertility crisis). The story also moves back in time, to the discovery of a curious small baby, abandoned in the church of Parson Phelps. The good priest, after giving what he thinks is a pig a good kick on the bottom, repents by taking the child in. The care given by the Parson and his wife means that Tobias Phelps (as they christen him), can recover from his injuries. But who is the strange, illiterate woman whose narrative interrupts the text? Who has been conducting far more ambitious experiments than Gregor Mendel?

Thus Buck de Savile (Bobby Sullivan's new identity) arrives in the ancient Viking settlement of Thunder Spit. He believes that he has successfully escaped the town practice where monkey pets have replaced children, and is looking forward to inserting his arm into a cow's bottom. But it's not long before Buck is dragged off to look at some examples of Victorian taxidermy stuffed into a Thunder Spit attic inhabited by a comic ghost known as 'the Laudanum Empress', an avid fan of the crystal box which spews forth 'The Young and the Restless'. We jump back another 150 years and watch from a balloon as the mortal Laudanum Empress and her eminent taxidermist husband Ivanhoe Scrapie conceive their last child, Violet. Thus begins the chain of events which brings Horace Trapp's bloodstained Ark home, along with chef extraordinaire, Jacques-Yves Cabillaud, exponent of 'Cuisine Zoologique', a recipe book which he developed whilst acting as cook on board the Beagle. Meanwhile, Buck gets to grips with beautiful twin sisters Rose and Blanche and their peculiarly shaped feet. The twins participate in the mass pregnancy hoax following the bombing of the National Egg Bank and the death of Albion. As Rose and Blanche research their family history, Buck begins to wonder about his stamina and the stuffed 'Gentleman Monkey': could it be valuable evidence of a missing link?

Parson Phelps tells Tobias that fossils are just God's little joke, but he takes the publication of Charles Darwin's work very seriously, to the extent of ripping pages of it from the pulpit. Ivanhoe Scrapie, frustrated zoologist, also despairs that his fame has been eclipsed by that of Darwin. But just as Tobias discovers a strange and tantalising new fruit, so Scrapie thinks that he has found a missing piece of the puzzle. Violet, who has positively ballooned under the influence of cuisine zoologique, has a chance encounter with Henry Salt, the Victorian Vegetarianism activist. Soon, everybody's writing cookbooks...

Liz Jensen's social satire is as vibrant and readable as ever. Ark Baby has jokes trotting out of it two by two. She's also quick to point out that Darwinism and evolution theory still resound today, especially with the mapping of the human genome. Also buried within these pages are hints of the real life stories and tragedies: the difficult relationship between Captain FitzRoy of the Beagle and Darwin (echoed in Matthew Kneale's English Passengers), the interbreeding of the inhabitants of Thunder Spit recalls Darwin's infertile marriage to his first cousin, mentions of fossil hunting in Lyme Regis revivifies Mary Anning. But I think the most successful resurrection of all is that of Henry Salt. Suet the dog's instinctive reaction is to bite him, but even he sheds a tear as Henry Salt expounds on the Rights of Animals. Henry Salt's writings are still as powerful today, and extremely topical as Foot and Mouth runs on. I've created a page on the context of this novel for interested readers. Liz Jensen's brilliantly entertaining satire should also be as powerful many years from now. Liz Jensen is nothing less than George Orwell with wit.