The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore

A new book and one with many good reviews, so I picked this up on my Nook, but I am not sure what I think about ths yet. The premise of the book is that Bruno is a chimp born in a zoo, sold to an experimental lab at a university, who acquires language, falls in love with the female doctoral student who works with him, and begins to "evolve" into a human being.

Bruno becomes so educated that his vocabulary is filled with erudite language. He becomes a painter and actor. He loses his fur due to the stress of loving Lydia and their relationship becoming public when she is found to have a brain tumor. She is pregnant with their child. Their apartment is staked out by a streetcorner preacher and his followers, all of them alternately praying for and condemning them. Bruno walks upright, and after losing his hair, begins to make the final transition toward looking like a human with the help of plastic surgery.

The premise seemed promising, but the book sprawls out and Bruno is not a sympatheic character, and the story, told as Bruno is dictating his memoirs, is full of side comments, philosophy of the theatre and literature, and ultimately seems cold-blooded and dry. It is hard to feel much about the relationship between Bruno and Lydia, hard to feel sad or sympathetic of their trials and stresses. It's difficult to feel much of anything about it all.