It’s not unusual for me to feel bewildered and my hate for humanity refreshed after reading stuff about what we, as a human species, are doing to animals and with which infuriating entitlement and ruinous normalcy we do it. Smithy, the story of a chimpanzee locked in a mansion in the early 70s for the purposes of a research experiment on the ability of apes to express themselves through sign language, spoke to that spot in me.
The book is written in the epistolary style, consisting of letters some research assistants who participated in the experiment write to their families or friends, of short daily progress reports and descriptions of the original film material, because a big part of the experiment has also been filmed. The old, creepy and reportedly haunted mansion the experiment takes place is in Rhode Island and was, in the past, used as a school as well as for private purposes by its owners.
Professor Piers Preis-Harold and his colleague Dr. Wanda Karliewitz are the heads of the team which consists of the research assistants and mostly inexperienced psychology students Eric, Ruby, Gail, Tammy and Jeff. While Preis-Herold, quite typically for a professor, barely and sporadically there to collect information on progress and to give instructions on the direction of the study, mostly leaves the crew for his own affairs and to ensure the money flow for the experiment, Wanda is de facto running things. She is the only person in this setup who has a linguistic background in that her field is “psychology, specializing on linguistics” and one of the few people in this group who has a command of American Sign Language ASL.
Piers-Harold’s declared goal is: “[...] to demonstrate that chimpanzees can communicate on a more sophisticated level, initiating interaction instead of merely responding to leading prompts, and even using grammar to form sentences spontaneously in a natural environment.”
At this point it is probably useful to note as an aside that all this is based on a real-life study that was conducted also in the 70s with a
chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky (referring to Noam Chomsky whose linguistic
theory was that animals are not capable of using language as humans do), and
ended with Nim, being treated like a human by humans all his life, believing he
is actually one of them, being sold to a pharmaceutical laboratory for medical research. Thanks to violent protests Nim was “lucky” to be taken out of there
and was transferred to a ranch where he spent the rest of his life. It is reported that until the end of his life Nim communicated with other apes of similar background in ASL. Just look it up on Wikipedia, it is a gut-wrenching story. Smithy's story, on the other hand, remains even more tragic and frightening than his in parts it borrows from this experiment but has an additional supernatural twist.
Coming back to him - let's put a chimpanzee and a handful of unqualified, inexperienced young people, some of them quite toxic in their behavior, in a house and wait for the shit show to happen! Be warned that this book consists of about 500 pages of people basically
psychologically abusing an ape, who is repeatedly forced into situations that
cause him to feel distress and fear and when he pleads with them to stop, they perceive it as resistance
and an undermining of their authority ending up punishing him and causing more distress
and fright and then being all surprised and devastated when he snaps. Justly
so, I want to ad on a personal note, I have never wished more for any other fictional characters to their faces being ripped off. As I mentioned above, this insufferable cycle repeats itself for about
500 pages! So you guess it - Smithy is a frustrating read, albeit a captivating one.
The excessive frustration stems not only from witnessing absolutely preventable animal suffering but also from some plot holes, which could have prevented said suffering and are presumably planted in there by Desiree herself to enable, explain, facilitate the failure of the experiment in question.
I don't know to which degree the constellation of the research crew is rooted in reality, but it is obviously highly problematic and not very realistic (if it is a real fact, indeed, that professor must have been finished as soon as possible) that a linguistic research study is conducted by psychologists, furthermore by psychology students that aren't proficient in ASL themselves. You want to assess to what degree it is possible for an ape to use ASL, you will choose people who actually have a knowledge of ASL, right? Not here though - many of the participants didn't speak ASL in the beginning of the experiment. As the great professor puts it, “Naturally everyone here will have to learn to sign, so we can properly understand what Webster (aka Smithy) chooses to tell us.” - because it is so totally easy to quickly and casually learn a completely new language (which sign language is). I feel like it would make more sense to include researchers, and hear me out on this, include researchers who are experienced ASL speakers, so they can actually understand and interpret what Smithy is saying in the right way? I may be missing something here, but I feel like this is important.
The richest linguistic catastrophe comes shortly before the ending on page 487, when one of the researchers realizes that they never taught Smithy how to sign the word "afraid", leaving the poor thing unable to express his fear, trying to describe his feelings as “mad” or “sad” and the researchers taking his every word literally - and of course, punishing him for it. Just saying, a linguist might have known.
A second point that annoyed me, and that's a personal quirk of mine, is the wrongful use of a foreign language. I absolutely hate it when authors decide to use a foreign language in their stories to give a certain impression, but then don't bother spelling or using that language properly. In Smithy this happens to be the German language...
It is hinted at that research assistant Eric Kaninchen (I only know Erik or Erich to be the German use of the name, but let this one pass) is German and that he is more flexible and more apt linguistically because he is bilingual - which is a really good approach in itself. But take this excerpt where Eric mentions Smithy telling him he is anxious to go to sign language school:
“Smithy go to school now.”
(OK technically “Go Smithy school now”. I understand him anyway. In German, it doesn’t matter what order you put the words in.)
Now, I’m really
not sure if I’m understanding this correctly or don’t understand it at all, because
as far as I know we do have syntax in German and it does not not-matter what order you put the
words in. The way Eric claims is the right usage, the sentence would be “Geht Smithy Schule jetzt” which is
grammatically wrong in German too... The obviousness of the lack of proper research makes you wonder if the above mentioned logical inconsistencies too are mere failures and not calculated intent.
And finally comes the peak, when at the absence of team leader Wanda, due to personal reasons the professor assigns the really, really, truly most unlikely person, Gail, as temporary head of the team, under whose leadership Smithy's situation of course deteriorates. Argh!!! This definitely was the last straw on the back of the suspension of my disbelief. What is
the purpose in all this? Build up and play with the reader's frustration? If so, that's a dangerous playground and a little less stress would have done this book good.
On the plus side: The concept of Smithy is something that catches immediate attention and promises to explore the truly darker sides in our relation to our closest cousins. I know few people who wouldn’t find that fascinating.
The story is insanely captivating – I had so many nights I wished I didn’t have to work the next morning because I wanted to keep reading, but was also too stirred up and even frightened to sleep. Which leads to the most important thing about this book – the story of Smithy IS scary. The scare creeps slowly in and I felt my heart drop the first time Smithy starts signing things that would be normal if they actually were there!
The characters, except for the professor, were drawn vividly and developed in credible, if unfavorable ways. Almost all of them being idiots caused me to appreciate Jeff all the more since he was the only one who seemed to truly care about Smithy. One can only hope that he was successful in his declared intention to rescue Smithy from the pharm lab.
Phew... That was a lot to get off my chest, but you know what? In the end I am glad I read it. Was it perfect? No. But it was an intense experience, will keep you glued to the pages and awake the animal activist in you.On a last spoilered note: My personal take is, after having read hundreds of pages of animal pain and abuse, I would have felt more satisfied and at ease if Smithy were given a happy ending.
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