New novel by the star author: TC Boyle lets monkeys talk

He is the rock star among the writers: old hippie TC Boyle.

Now his new novel “Sprich mit mir” has been published.

Because it has a particularly large number of fans in Germany, months before its release in the English original - it won't be on the market until May.

• Best-selling author TC Boyle's books are sold in 24 countries

• TC Boyle used to get intoxicated on hard drugs - today his drug is writing

• His full name is Tom Coraghessan Boyle

It's been almost exactly two years since TC Boyle last rocked Munich.

A writer like him doesn't organize readings - when the American comes, his fans experience a literary performance.

At that time, in the sold-out Muffathalle, he presented “Das Licht”.

And then stood on stage for an hour to sign books and chat briefly with each guest.

They waited patiently in line, as in Corona times, only in front of the supermarket and drugstore.

Germany loves TC Boyle.

That is why his new novel “Sprich mit mir” is already being published in a translation by Dirk van Gunsteren - weeks before the English edition, which will be launched in May.

That alone, of course, warms the heart of the German reader.

Especially if, before reading it, she has watched Boyle's gorgeous promotional video that he filmed for Hanser Verlag in his home in California.

In it you can see him philosophizing with screaming grandson, dog and cat on the subject of “speak to me”.

In short, the question is to what extent animals have the ability to learn human language and to communicate with us.

The 72-year-old, who lives secluded with his wife in the Sequoia Mountains, in a wooden house without internet access, is very committed to environmental and animal welfare.

In works such as “A Friend of the Earth” and “When the Slaughter Is Over”, he took up the horrors that humans are inflicting on the earth and its inhabitants.

In “Talk to Me” he does that again.

In the novel, a chimpanzee learns sign language

It is a mind game: "What if it was really possible to communicate with members of another species, to talk to them instead of commanding and training them like parrots that only reproduced what they had been taught?" asks Guy, one of the two main characters in the novel.

He is leading a research project teaching the chimpanzee Sam to use sign language.

On a ranch, he raises the animal like a human.

The older Sam gets, the more challenging it is to work with the drift.

Guy hires Aimee as a student assistant.

The young woman develops maternal feelings for Sam.

Sleeps with him in bed, forgetting more and more that this is a scientific project and not a family life.

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What do these two monkeys from Leipzig Zoo think?

Are you aware of yourself?

What do you feel - and how much do you understand us?

Questions that the American author TC Boyle deals with in his new book "Sprich mit mir".

© dpa

That's where Boyle comes in.

“Is an animal aware of itself?” Asks Aimee.

And if so, what consequences would that have for our actions?

If animals like this fictional Sam actually started communicating with us, would we have to ethically reassess our behavior towards them?

"Because if so, how should one justify the fact that monkeys were kept in cages or - worse still - were used in pharmaceutical research?" Do sensations only arise through words?

Can't an animal feel pain, sadness, shame, anger, even without knowing the respective names for them?

As readers, we are forced into the cage ourselves

As usual, TC Boyle tells in a sober style, no gimmicks.

Except for one: By briefly describing each development of the story again from Sam's perspective, he forces us as readers into the cage into which the monkey will later be forced.

At one point, Guy, the ambitious professor who is not interested in the chimpanzee but only in his professional advancement, reflects on the cops on the neighboring meadow.

“Nobody taught them to speak.

They were as stupid as nature made them - or no, they were as intelligent as they had to be to survive. ”You feel caught in the face of this human arrogance.

And asks himself: who is actually the monkey here?

TC Boyle: "Talk to me".

Hanser Verlag Munich, 352 pages;

25 euros.

You can get the book from your bookseller around the corner here