Satirical Shakespeare Experiment Leads To Chimp Writing Great American Novel

The world of literature has been stunned recently by the news that a chimpanzee called Mr. Bongo has actually written the long-waited for 'Great American Novel'. The book, called The Diaries Of A Loser, which centers on the life and loves of a young Jewish monkey in 1950s New York and his desperate fight to control his addiction to bananas, has been seen as the first novel to genuinely encompass the vast spectrum of American life and ambitions in one short volume. The book, which has sold over four million copies in a matter of weeks in the USA, has united critics and the public alike in admiration, but has lead to a number of lawsuits and arguments over Mr. Bongo's newly-found fortune and future career.

Conceptual

The sudden emergence of Mr. Bongo as the literary soul and conscience of the world's richest nation occurred several months ago as the by-product of a modern-art installation by conceptual artist Leonard Grogan, which was being displayed in a Manhattan art gallery. The piece, called An Infinite Number Of Typewriters, was supposed to be a satirical work about the commercialization of literature, featuring Mr. Bongo, a typewriter, a packet of cigarettes, a lighter and a coffee machine in a 12' x 12' open-topped glass cube. According to the old theory that if you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters then one of them will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare, Grogan intended to place Mr. Bongo under the conditions that most modern writers wrote under to see what he would come up with. "I was expecting him to smash or defecate on the typewriter, perhaps eat the cigarettes and generally make a mess of the place, thereby proving my pretext that art becomes harder to produce the fewer stimuli you have to inspire you," said Grogan from his plush New York apartment, "but instead of setting about breaking stuff, which would have been cooler, the first thing he did was to type out a note asking for a packet of Marlboro instead of the Lucky Strikes we'd given him. Once we changed the cigarettes, he just started typing and didn't stop, except to sleep, until he'd finished two weeks later. I was kinda disappointed, as him producing that book makes me look a bit stupid now."

Keeper

The first to read Mr. Bongo's completed magnum opus was Jerry Starks, his keeper and handler for the duration of the installation. "Well, we all knew that Mr. Bongo had been typing a hell of a lot, but none of us knew what he'd been doing. We all just expected it to be random letters punched out on the page, or perhaps a cheap potboiler thriller. But when I came in one morning to feed and exercise him, there it was, all neatly typed and stacked by the typewriter. Mr. Bongo was sitting in the other corner of the cube, drinking a cup of coffee and scratching his ass, so I quickly had a look and realised that it was the greatest book I'd ever read. I was in the cube reading for six hours. I just couldn't put it down."

Reviews

Word of the supremely talented chimp soon leaked out, and within days Mr. Bongo had an agent and had signed a seven-figure publishing deal for the book, which was immediately released to rapturous reviews, some critics even going so far as to proclaim it the greatest novel ever written. The only dissenter thus far has been the Times Literary Supplement, whose reviewer called it; "Just a load of crap about bananas".

Conspiracy

There are others who find it difficult to believe that such a work could have been produced by a monkey at all. Conspiracy theorists suggest that the book was actually written by Grogan or Starks and planted in the cube as a hoax. Both give the idea short shrift, however. "Why the hell would me or Jerry write the greatest novel America has ever produced and then pretend the monkey did it?" asks Grogan. "That novel is worth millions to the writer. If I'd have written it, I'd have published it myself and kept the money, instead of playing some stupid and hugely expensive prank by saying it was the monkey. Hell, you should see his condo. It's huge! And he now gets to spend all his time hanging out with movie stars and beautiful women, whereas I have to spend mine in art galleries, scratching around selling pieces for less than $10,000 each."

Lawsuit

Yet this hasn't stopped Grogan from launching a lawsuit against Mr. Bongo and his publishers for $60 million, claiming breach of contract, infringement of copyright and theft. "I'd hired that damned monkey for two months, and then he writes a book and thinks he can just walk out with it after a fortnight. Well, the truth is that anything he produced whilst in that box is my property, since it is a product of my art. I may not have typed the damned thing, but I own it, and I'll get it back in court," he states. Further legal trouble for Mr. Bongo has come in the shape of a sexual harassment suit from his former housekeeper at his newly-purchased apartment, who claims that he made continual advances and obscene gestures with bananas towards her in the short period of her employment. His agent is unconcerned, however. "Even in the admittedly bizarre history of the American legal system, no-one has ever sued a chimpanzee before. He may have written the finest work of literature this country has ever seen, but when it comes down to it, he's still a monkey."

Vexed

The question of where now for Mr. Bongo is a vexed one, however. According to his agent, he is now working on "more challenging work that defies the structure of conventional literature." But Jerry Starks, who is still Mr. Bongo's closest confidant, has a different view on his new output. "It's just random letters punched out on the page," he said. "At least that's when he hasn't crapped in the typewriter, smashed the condo up with it, or got sick from eating cigarettes again. He just can't handle the pressure that everyone is putting him under at the moment. I mean, he's only been writing for a few months. He needs a break to come up with some new ideas. We thought he'd come up with something the other day, but Lynn, his P.A, recognized it as part of The Merchant Of Venice."