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Bad Monkeys
Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder.
She tells police that she is a member of a secret organization devoted to fighting evil; her division is called the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons—"Bad Monkeys" for short.
This confession earns Jane a trip to the jail's psychiatric wing, where a doctor attempts to determine whether she is lying, crazy—or playing a different game altogether. What follows is one of the most clever and gripping novels you'll ever read.
She tells police that she is a member of a secret organization devoted to fighting evil; her division is called the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons—"Bad Monkeys" for short.
This confession earns Jane a trip to the jail's psychiatric wing, where a doctor attempts to determine whether she is lying, crazy—or playing a different game altogether. What follows is one of the most clever and gripping novels you'll ever read.
230 pages, Paperback
First published July 24, 2007
About the author
Matt Ruff
14 books2,395 followersI was born in New York City in 1965. I decided I wanted to be a fiction writer when I was five years old and spent my childhood and adolescence learning how to tell stories. At Cornell University I wrote what would become my first published novel, Fool on the Hill, as my senior thesis in Honors English. My professor Alison Lurie helped me find an agent, and within six months of my college graduation Fool on the Hill had been sold to Atlantic Monthly Press. Through a combination of timely foreign rights sales, the generous support of family and friends, occasional grant money, and a slowly accumulating back list, I’ve managed to make novel-writing my primary occupation ever since.
My third novel, Set This House in Order, marked a critical turning point in my career after it won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, a Washington State Book Award, and a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, and helped me secure a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. My fourth novel, Bad Monkeys, also won multiple awards and is being developed as a film, with Margot Robbie attached to star. My sixth novel, Lovecraft Country, has been produced as an HBO series by Misha Green, Jordan Peele, and J.J. Abrams. It will debut on Sunday, August 16.
In 1998 I married my best friend, the researcher and rare-book expert Lisa Gold. We live in Seattle, Washington.
My third novel, Set This House in Order, marked a critical turning point in my career after it won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, a Washington State Book Award, and a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, and helped me secure a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. My fourth novel, Bad Monkeys, also won multiple awards and is being developed as a film, with Margot Robbie attached to star. My sixth novel, Lovecraft Country, has been produced as an HBO series by Misha Green, Jordan Peele, and J.J. Abrams. It will debut on Sunday, August 16.
In 1998 I married my best friend, the researcher and rare-book expert Lisa Gold. We live in Seattle, Washington.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,423 reviews
September 15, 2007
One of those books that starts out great and then totally falls apart. It opens with Jane Charlotte having been arrested for murder in Las Vegas; when she told the police she’s part of a secret government organization (code name: Bad Monkeys) she ended up in the psych ward. The book is comprised of her interviews with the doctor there alternating with her first person account of her story. For about two-thirds of the book, this is fascinating: Ruff—whose Set This House in Order, about Dissociative Identity Disorder, I still want to read—is really skilled at making the reader wonder if Jane’s story is true or the result of her being a total whackjob. But then, something that Ruff had been doing a good job hinting at was revealed as fact in about the least subtle way possible. That alone would have been a minor misstep, but it unfortunately signaled worse things to come. Suddenly plot twists were heaped on plot twists; I was left staring at the (beautifully designed, alas) book, going, “When did this become a bad M. Night Shyamalan movie?” (If one discards The Sixth Sense, that’s kind of redundant, isn’t it?) I shut the (incredibly cool, elongated yellow plastic) cover with no idea what this book was actually supposed to be about, what it was trying to say. Maybe I expected too much from Ruff—based solely on an excerpt from Set This House in Order—but I was deeply disappointed.
December 22, 2007
It's sort of like a runner who starts the race strong, first out of the gate, all eyes are on him. Then he kind of stubs his toe, takes a break, and vigorously walks into the stands looking for an ice cream vendor*.
Sort of.
Trying very hard not to ruin the book, the first half I found extremely compelling. Great premise, well-written, exciting action, good dialog. Read the whole thing in two days. But the more I think about it, the less I like it, because the second half is ever-increasingly fantastic, and so convoluted that I just stopped caring what any of them had to say or did. To elaborate more might spoil it, and you might like it better than I did.
H.G. Wells wrote in a forward to a collection of his stories that "nothing remains interesting [in a fictional world] where anything may happen." This is unfortunately the case with Bad Monkeys.
Sort of.
Trying very hard not to ruin the book, the first half I found extremely compelling. Great premise, well-written, exciting action, good dialog. Read the whole thing in two days. But the more I think about it, the less I like it, because the second half is ever-increasingly fantastic, and so convoluted that I just stopped caring what any of them had to say or did. To elaborate more might spoil it, and you might like it better than I did.
H.G. Wells wrote in a forward to a collection of his stories that "nothing remains interesting [in a fictional world] where anything may happen." This is unfortunately the case with Bad Monkeys.
March 16, 2020
MARCH 2020 NEWS Author Ruff will have a Reddit AMA on the 27th! https://www.reddit.com/r/books/commen...
Review now at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.
Review now at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud.
May 16, 2009
As many of the Good Readers pointed out, this novel begins very strong and it ends very weak. This sounds not too bad but it is: What makes me angry (and I would like Ruff to give me my money/time back) is that it begins strong because it ends weak. Let me explain: It is not very difficult to make a really good beginning. You only have to make the reader think "How will this end?". And the reader will be rewarded if all the loose ends will be cleared in the end. But if they don't the reader will feel cheated, and that's what happens to the reader of "Bad Monkeys". It is like an Agatha Christie novel in which you are really curious who the murderer is and in the end Miss Marple tells you that she doesn't know because the case was too difficult.
November 20, 2009
I'm just going to get my complaint about this book off my chest before I start talking about the contents of Bad Monkeys. I absolutely hated the physical format of this book. By the ISBN number, it comes up in GoodReads as being a hardback. Now, that's probably what the publisher called it and the cover is harder than a paperback, but it's not quite as hard as a hard back. That wouldn't be bad if it weren't for the fact that the book is considerably narrower than a typical hardback or trade paper back and considerably taller (and less flexible) than a mass market paperback. The pages were also a lot smaller than the covers. The full result was a book that was physically difficult to read. It felt cumbersome and it was difficult to hold comfortably. I couldn't put it down on my table or desk without it closing. I certainly hope that future edition will be printed in a more tried and true version.
Now that I've gotten my griping out of the way, on to my review:
Bad Monkeys wasn't at all what I expected. It was a compelling read and it constantly challenged the concept of reality. It had more twist and turns than a Six Flags roller coaster. It's either the story of good and evil top-secret organizations and double agents, or it's the story of a woman who is so wracked with guilt she invents a world in her mind that allows her to be a superhero. In the end, it really isn't clear what the truth is. The best thing about this fast-paced story is that it doesn't give us the answers, but leaves the interpretation up to each reader.
Now that I've gotten my griping out of the way, on to my review:
Bad Monkeys wasn't at all what I expected. It was a compelling read and it constantly challenged the concept of reality. It had more twist and turns than a Six Flags roller coaster. It's either the story of good and evil top-secret organizations and double agents, or it's the story of a woman who is so wracked with guilt she invents a world in her mind that allows her to be a superhero. In the end, it really isn't clear what the truth is. The best thing about this fast-paced story is that it doesn't give us the answers, but leaves the interpretation up to each reader.
November 24, 2008
Monkey Shines
A review by Gerry Donaghy
Jane Charlotte works for The Department of Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons, a division of a nameless organization dedicated to fighting evil. The nickname for her division is Bad Monkeys, and at the beginning of Matt Ruff's novel of the same name, Jane is being questioned by a police psychiatrist regarding her involvement in a recent murder. When asked if she punishes evil people, Jane responds glibly, "No. Usually we just kill them." But the victim in question wasn't evil and ensuing interrogation traces Jane's recruitment into the organization and the body count she's accumulated along the way.
Matt Ruff is the kind of author who has yet to write the same book twice. While I was not a fan of his debut novel Fool on the Hill, I was quite impressed with both of his subsequent novels: the Edward Abbey-meets-Ayn Rand-via-Thomas Pynchon flavored Sewer, Gas and Electric, and the achingly stirring tale of multiple personality disorder Set This House in Order. Both are books that I've recommended without hesitation in the past and I'm happy to report that Bad Monkeys can be similarly endorsed.
Bad Monkeys inhabits the same literary space as the drug-fueled paranoia of Philip K. Dick, owing a particular debt to Minority Report. In that story, the protagonist is a detective in a division of the police department that investigates what are called "pre-cog" crimes, arresting perpetrators before they have a chance to act on their impulses. In Ruff's universe, it's not a matter of seeing the future as much as handicapping it, singling out bad seeds and eradicating them. It's not about justice; it's about, as one the Bad Monkeys operatives puts it, "fighting evil in all its forms." Bad Monkeys is an intriguing exploration of moral relativism set in a plot so labyrinthine that it could have sprung from the mind of Borges if he wrote screenplays for Michael Bay. Often the lines between heroes and villains are blurred, and the organization, which is ostensibly fighting for good, engages in surveillance so ubiquitous and undetectable that Alberto Gonzales would be green with envy. And, there is never any explanation as to who charges the Bad Monkeys with their tasks or gave them a license to kill. It's a shadow organization whose umbra gets murkier the longer Jane works for them.
But ultimately, as Jane is being interrogated, her reliability as a narrator is called into question as the psychiatrist presents evidence that refutes her testimony. Ruff throws the reader some astounding curveballs, often necessitating the need to re-read and re-re-read some passages to make tentative sense of what's going on. In this way, Bad Monkeys pleasingly resembles cinematic brain corkscrews such as Memento and The Usual Suspects.
There was a review published recently in Bookforum about Bad Monkeys that not only gave away all of the plot surprises, but was fairly mean-spirited as well, stating, "I give away the surprise ending because I doubt anyone who reads this review will read Bad Monkeys." He then chides the author for not being Nabokov. Maybe I'm just another Kool-Aid drinker, or maybe this Bookforum critic is an irredeemable curmudgeon, but I don't think that's what Ruff was striving for. Rather, he's trying his hand at the pulp genre, writing a book that is practically begging to be turned into a film. Maybe that's a bad thing to some folks. But with a beguiling storyline and taut pacing, Bad Monkeys may not be Nabokov, but it is one hundred percent Matt Ruff. That alone makes it worth recommending.
A review by Gerry Donaghy
Jane Charlotte works for The Department of Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons, a division of a nameless organization dedicated to fighting evil. The nickname for her division is Bad Monkeys, and at the beginning of Matt Ruff's novel of the same name, Jane is being questioned by a police psychiatrist regarding her involvement in a recent murder. When asked if she punishes evil people, Jane responds glibly, "No. Usually we just kill them." But the victim in question wasn't evil and ensuing interrogation traces Jane's recruitment into the organization and the body count she's accumulated along the way.
Matt Ruff is the kind of author who has yet to write the same book twice. While I was not a fan of his debut novel Fool on the Hill, I was quite impressed with both of his subsequent novels: the Edward Abbey-meets-Ayn Rand-via-Thomas Pynchon flavored Sewer, Gas and Electric, and the achingly stirring tale of multiple personality disorder Set This House in Order. Both are books that I've recommended without hesitation in the past and I'm happy to report that Bad Monkeys can be similarly endorsed.
Bad Monkeys inhabits the same literary space as the drug-fueled paranoia of Philip K. Dick, owing a particular debt to Minority Report. In that story, the protagonist is a detective in a division of the police department that investigates what are called "pre-cog" crimes, arresting perpetrators before they have a chance to act on their impulses. In Ruff's universe, it's not a matter of seeing the future as much as handicapping it, singling out bad seeds and eradicating them. It's not about justice; it's about, as one the Bad Monkeys operatives puts it, "fighting evil in all its forms." Bad Monkeys is an intriguing exploration of moral relativism set in a plot so labyrinthine that it could have sprung from the mind of Borges if he wrote screenplays for Michael Bay. Often the lines between heroes and villains are blurred, and the organization, which is ostensibly fighting for good, engages in surveillance so ubiquitous and undetectable that Alberto Gonzales would be green with envy. And, there is never any explanation as to who charges the Bad Monkeys with their tasks or gave them a license to kill. It's a shadow organization whose umbra gets murkier the longer Jane works for them.
But ultimately, as Jane is being interrogated, her reliability as a narrator is called into question as the psychiatrist presents evidence that refutes her testimony. Ruff throws the reader some astounding curveballs, often necessitating the need to re-read and re-re-read some passages to make tentative sense of what's going on. In this way, Bad Monkeys pleasingly resembles cinematic brain corkscrews such as Memento and The Usual Suspects.
There was a review published recently in Bookforum about Bad Monkeys that not only gave away all of the plot surprises, but was fairly mean-spirited as well, stating, "I give away the surprise ending because I doubt anyone who reads this review will read Bad Monkeys." He then chides the author for not being Nabokov. Maybe I'm just another Kool-Aid drinker, or maybe this Bookforum critic is an irredeemable curmudgeon, but I don't think that's what Ruff was striving for. Rather, he's trying his hand at the pulp genre, writing a book that is practically begging to be turned into a film. Maybe that's a bad thing to some folks. But with a beguiling storyline and taut pacing, Bad Monkeys may not be Nabokov, but it is one hundred percent Matt Ruff. That alone makes it worth recommending.
October 5, 2016
Another brilliantly inventive book by Matt Ruff, Bad Monkeys follows the story of Jane Charlotte, a daring and deceptive agent of a secret society's assassination group (the eponymous "Bad Monkeys" department.)
It's hard to peg the book's genre with any sense of confidence. At the outset it presents a kind of murder mystery that soon delves into psychological suspense. These give way to a sort of present-day secret society sci-fi in which it's clearly our world but forces are at work beneath the surface of our societal structures. Even that, though, is uncertain because with every chapter break Ruff reminds us that Jane Charlotte's story is full of holes. Thus it's really only in the last few pages that Ruff lets you in on the secret of what kind of book you've been reading.
If there's an aspect to Bad Monkeys that didn't resonate for me, it was simply that at times the narrative was moving too evenly. Jane's dispassionate rendition of her story sometimes keeps the highs and lows from feeling emotionally charged. However the writing is quick and clever, the plot winding without becoming muddled, and the payoff at the end leaves you asking why there aren't more books like Bad Monkeys out there.
It's hard to peg the book's genre with any sense of confidence. At the outset it presents a kind of murder mystery that soon delves into psychological suspense. These give way to a sort of present-day secret society sci-fi in which it's clearly our world but forces are at work beneath the surface of our societal structures. Even that, though, is uncertain because with every chapter break Ruff reminds us that Jane Charlotte's story is full of holes. Thus it's really only in the last few pages that Ruff lets you in on the secret of what kind of book you've been reading.
If there's an aspect to Bad Monkeys that didn't resonate for me, it was simply that at times the narrative was moving too evenly. Jane's dispassionate rendition of her story sometimes keeps the highs and lows from feeling emotionally charged. However the writing is quick and clever, the plot winding without becoming muddled, and the payoff at the end leaves you asking why there aren't more books like Bad Monkeys out there.
February 5, 2018
No sé muy bien cómo llegué a este libro, pero todo el conjunto es muy atractivo: el título, el argumento, la grandiosa portada de la edición de Bloomsbury.
Desde el principio atrapa de mala manera, y cada vez se hace más surrealista e intrigante. Me lo he leído en un par de días, quitándole horas al sueño. El humor, el misterio que supone el personaje de Jane Charlotte (¿dice la verdad?, ¿miente?, ¿está loca?), la organización secreta, el interrogatorio del Dr. Vale, la parte distópica... La mayor parte del tiempo me lo creí todo, aunque las preguntas del médico hacen dudar unas cuantas veces, y cuando pasada ya la mitad del libro es todo una ida de olla tremenda (el último cuarto, quitando el final, me parece lo peor del libro, demasiado rápido, demasiada acción, me daba la impresión de haberme metido yo algún tipo de sustancia psicotrópica) empecé a pensar que fuese cual fuese el final no me sorprendería, pero sí, y de qué manera, y eso que en parte está ahí desde el principio. Me ha encantado el último capítulo, le da sentido a todo, a cada giro de la trama.
Me ha gustado mucho, entretenidísimo y muy divertido, una pena que no esté traducido.
Desde el principio atrapa de mala manera, y cada vez se hace más surrealista e intrigante. Me lo he leído en un par de días, quitándole horas al sueño. El humor, el misterio que supone el personaje de Jane Charlotte (¿dice la verdad?, ¿miente?, ¿está loca?), la organización secreta, el interrogatorio del Dr. Vale, la parte distópica... La mayor parte del tiempo me lo creí todo, aunque las preguntas del médico hacen dudar unas cuantas veces, y cuando pasada ya la mitad del libro es todo una ida de olla tremenda (el último cuarto, quitando el final, me parece lo peor del libro, demasiado rápido, demasiada acción, me daba la impresión de haberme metido yo algún tipo de sustancia psicotrópica) empecé a pensar que fuese cual fuese el final no me sorprendería, pero sí, y de qué manera, y eso que en parte está ahí desde el principio. Me ha encantado el último capítulo, le da sentido a todo, a cada giro de la trama.
Me ha gustado mucho, entretenidísimo y muy divertido, una pena que no esté traducido.
December 6, 2013
Wozers! What did I just read?
Finished it pretty much in one night. It pulled me in immediately, barreled through to the end, & left me wondering what the heck I just read.
A New York Times book review called it "science-fiction mystery thriller (a trifecta of genres!)".
Don't read lots of reviews or summaries, just jump in blind & enjoy the ride. Seriously.
Finished it pretty much in one night. It pulled me in immediately, barreled through to the end, & left me wondering what the heck I just read.
A New York Times book review called it "science-fiction mystery thriller (a trifecta of genres!)".
Don't read lots of reviews or summaries, just jump in blind & enjoy the ride. Seriously.
May 23, 2013
I have no, absolutely no idea how to classify this book. It's like a weird dream twisting back and forth, changing the colours of the settings and the players constantly, a huge mindfuck really, guiding you around until you have no idea what's up and down or left and right.
And it really shouldn't be. It's the typical fight good against evil, black against white. It should be clear and easy. But it really is not.
Jane Charlotte has killed a man, but after hearing her story, the police detectives don't put her in jail. Instead she lands in the psych wing of the local Detention Center in the hands of Dr. Richard Vile whose task it is to assess her state of mind.
So she tells her story again. She tells about the secret organization she works for, fighting evil, the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons - the Bad Monkeys. She explains her recruitment, talks about the jobs and assignments she had, about all the events leading up to this last kill. But how much of this is true? How much is an outright lie and how much just a refocus of perception? Is she crazy, a liar or is the world really as infused by secret institutions as she makes it out to be?
This book really blew my mind. Not all of it - there were times where I just thought "okay, what the hell?", but then another twist happened and I was hooked again. The things I loved most were the beginning and the end. The beginning set a brilliant scene, the perfect start to an unpredictable, bizarre, and intricate tale. It's the end, though, that really had me staring motionlessly at the last page for a few minutes. And which made me want to reread the whole thing, just to see how this new knowledge might change my perception of every scene described. If you're someone (like me occasionally) that tends to skip ahead and read how things turn out before actually getting there - don't do it here!!! It would spoil everything, seriously!!
As a consequence of this book I've added every Matt Ruff book I hadn't read so far to my to-read-mountain which really says everything worth saying. He just writes so well here (and the same goes for Fool on the Hill, another all-time favourite of mine!) - his tone is casual, authentic, and fits the book and the whole story perfectly.
Gods, am I flashed. I'll just leave any other book be for tonight...
And it really shouldn't be. It's the typical fight good against evil, black against white. It should be clear and easy. But it really is not.
Jane Charlotte has killed a man, but after hearing her story, the police detectives don't put her in jail. Instead she lands in the psych wing of the local Detention Center in the hands of Dr. Richard Vile whose task it is to assess her state of mind.
So she tells her story again. She tells about the secret organization she works for, fighting evil, the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons - the Bad Monkeys. She explains her recruitment, talks about the jobs and assignments she had, about all the events leading up to this last kill. But how much of this is true? How much is an outright lie and how much just a refocus of perception? Is she crazy, a liar or is the world really as infused by secret institutions as she makes it out to be?
This book really blew my mind. Not all of it - there were times where I just thought "okay, what the hell?", but then another twist happened and I was hooked again. The things I loved most were the beginning and the end. The beginning set a brilliant scene, the perfect start to an unpredictable, bizarre, and intricate tale. It's the end, though, that really had me staring motionlessly at the last page for a few minutes. And which made me want to reread the whole thing, just to see how this new knowledge might change my perception of every scene described. If you're someone (like me occasionally) that tends to skip ahead and read how things turn out before actually getting there - don't do it here!!! It would spoil everything, seriously!!
As a consequence of this book I've added every Matt Ruff book I hadn't read so far to my to-read-mountain which really says everything worth saying. He just writes so well here (and the same goes for Fool on the Hill, another all-time favourite of mine!) - his tone is casual, authentic, and fits the book and the whole story perfectly.
Gods, am I flashed. I'll just leave any other book be for tonight...
September 6, 2007
Bad Monkeys was an absolute page turner for me (in every possible positive sense of the phrase). It was like Matt Ruff was channeling Neal Stephenson. Through a primarily first person narrative, with a sprinkling of third person interludes, Bad Monkeys questions the deeper nature of good and evil, and what exactly separates the two, without ever dropping it's fast pace or Matt Ruff's characteristically fun nature.
December 4, 2008
I've attempted to not give away any pertinant inforation about the story, however if you don't want to know anything at all...don't read this review.
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this book when I began reading it and I found my self scrutinizing the book in the beginning. I couldn’t decide if I liked, loved or would place it on the ‘don’t know what to think’ shelf. It was different; written almost entirely from a dialogue point of view, seen almost entirely from one characters point of view and you’re questioning the whole time, ‘Is she crazy, is this real, what will happen at the end’? It didn’t take long before I thought this is starting to get really interesting and strange and I think I like it.
Early on, I only considered two options; she’s crazy and they’ll prove it… She’s not crazy and her “organization” will get her out of this. Usually I can figure out the ending to a book before I read it as most endings are predictable, this one threw me for a complete loop.
It twisted and turned, which augmented my interest in the book and added to the oddity of the story. The entire book was a complete plan that you were not privy to until the last chapter. You were fooled the whole way through. Early on in the book, when she was talking about doing something with her life and yet all she had done was do drugs and jump from job to job I thought it was strange that the good people would want her (and no wonder why they wanted her…)
Later in the book when I almost believed she was good, just lost along the way, I thought I can’t believe they are going to turn her bad when she was trapped by the bad Monkey’s. This is what I loved about the book. I like being kept in suspense until the very end. I like not knowing what’s going to happen until it happens. This book was far from predictable in its outlandishness! And even though it was right there in front of my face, I didn’t really acknowledge the idea of where she was. With all the killing going on around her I truly believed she had been caught and was in a mental institution. Finding out about the doctor was, was the best part!!
The premise behind the book was a great. Jane was a great actress in the story. Attempting to make us believe she’s been hallucinating and creating a vision of people that weren’t really there. At about the halfway mark, I thought her brother is dead and she is imaging him coming to her because she is guilty that she allowed him to be killed. And I think the Evil Jane Twin was really her, she stepped outside of the box and described it as if she was looking through the window. It was her way of describing to us how bad she really was, and thinking the whole time she was fooling us into believing the Bad Monkey’s actually created a twin Jane to attempt to bring her down (which she had me going at one point). The whole story made me really think that she was sick in the head and the end of it proved that even though it all existed (she hadn’t made all of it all up), she was definitely sick in the head!!
Overall, I enjoyed this story and I really liked the book. I’ve given it 4 stars and I would recommend it as a silly, quirky, strange read to any one who likes that kind of book. It was imaginative and interesting…and it was fun to read!!
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this book when I began reading it and I found my self scrutinizing the book in the beginning. I couldn’t decide if I liked, loved or would place it on the ‘don’t know what to think’ shelf. It was different; written almost entirely from a dialogue point of view, seen almost entirely from one characters point of view and you’re questioning the whole time, ‘Is she crazy, is this real, what will happen at the end’? It didn’t take long before I thought this is starting to get really interesting and strange and I think I like it.
Early on, I only considered two options; she’s crazy and they’ll prove it… She’s not crazy and her “organization” will get her out of this. Usually I can figure out the ending to a book before I read it as most endings are predictable, this one threw me for a complete loop.
It twisted and turned, which augmented my interest in the book and added to the oddity of the story. The entire book was a complete plan that you were not privy to until the last chapter. You were fooled the whole way through. Early on in the book, when she was talking about doing something with her life and yet all she had done was do drugs and jump from job to job I thought it was strange that the good people would want her (and no wonder why they wanted her…)
Later in the book when I almost believed she was good, just lost along the way, I thought I can’t believe they are going to turn her bad when she was trapped by the bad Monkey’s. This is what I loved about the book. I like being kept in suspense until the very end. I like not knowing what’s going to happen until it happens. This book was far from predictable in its outlandishness! And even though it was right there in front of my face, I didn’t really acknowledge the idea of where she was. With all the killing going on around her I truly believed she had been caught and was in a mental institution. Finding out about the doctor was, was the best part!!
The premise behind the book was a great. Jane was a great actress in the story. Attempting to make us believe she’s been hallucinating and creating a vision of people that weren’t really there. At about the halfway mark, I thought her brother is dead and she is imaging him coming to her because she is guilty that she allowed him to be killed. And I think the Evil Jane Twin was really her, she stepped outside of the box and described it as if she was looking through the window. It was her way of describing to us how bad she really was, and thinking the whole time she was fooling us into believing the Bad Monkey’s actually created a twin Jane to attempt to bring her down (which she had me going at one point). The whole story made me really think that she was sick in the head and the end of it proved that even though it all existed (she hadn’t made all of it all up), she was definitely sick in the head!!
Overall, I enjoyed this story and I really liked the book. I’ve given it 4 stars and I would recommend it as a silly, quirky, strange read to any one who likes that kind of book. It was imaginative and interesting…and it was fun to read!!
February 4, 2009
In this story, the protagonist--a thirty-something Femme Nikita--faces an interrogation that exposes her sordid, adventurous, secret-agent past, and eventually illuminates her moral state as good or evil (I won't divulge which). Told in episodic backstory, the novel covers the twin tropes of brotherhood: from the macro (Big Brother is Watching) to the micro ("am I my brother's keeper?"). It also has plenty of serial killing, drugs, geeky technology and plastic explosives.
The book is an ungainly stew of Kurt Vonnegut, Chuck Palahniuk, Daniel Defoe, and Franz Kafka. The police state--as well as the emotional states--it describes get more extreme with each chapter, and Ruff reaches for some kind of Statement About Humanity towards the end, which falls flat because he's basically exhausted his story partway through.
In the first two thirds, Ruff--to his credit--suggests but never divulges the key signature of the piece. Rather than performing an autopsy of his concerns, he animates them with extremely well-written scenes including those of the protagonist's runaway days and later, of her misadventures as a liquor store clerk. He introduces minor characters who have dimension and spends time on physical and theoretical landscape, with room on the narrative stage for all of it, in turns, to crackle, snap, and breathe. Are we in northern California, or in some wasteland watching Cain and Abel march off together? Is the obvious middle-aged man in a white van really a serial killer? Is the girl in the white room making shit up about Keyser Soze, or is she a sympathetic refugee from a war between secret agencies?
In fact, the book is quite a page-turner, at least until about 160 pages in. But then, Ruff trades in most of the minor characters for new ones with progressively more cartoonish identities (with names like "Love" and "Wise," for instance). And forget one Deus Ex Machina to wrap things up: in this book there are a whole crew of Deities (actually, clowns), while tons of explosives and some magic drugs completely obliterate the space-time continuum and any remaining narrative gravity along with it.
So finally the book becomes an idea of a book. Or an incomplete novel worthy of Vonnegut is followed by an essay on human nature in the form of a Henry Miller daydream filtered through a Michael Mann film? It's an interesting dish, but like one culinary experiment in which I glazed some meat with maple syrup, it ends up not tasting as good as one would hope.
Three stars for belting a double off the wall but getting thrown out at third to end the game.
The book is an ungainly stew of Kurt Vonnegut, Chuck Palahniuk, Daniel Defoe, and Franz Kafka. The police state--as well as the emotional states--it describes get more extreme with each chapter, and Ruff reaches for some kind of Statement About Humanity towards the end, which falls flat because he's basically exhausted his story partway through.
In the first two thirds, Ruff--to his credit--suggests but never divulges the key signature of the piece. Rather than performing an autopsy of his concerns, he animates them with extremely well-written scenes including those of the protagonist's runaway days and later, of her misadventures as a liquor store clerk. He introduces minor characters who have dimension and spends time on physical and theoretical landscape, with room on the narrative stage for all of it, in turns, to crackle, snap, and breathe. Are we in northern California, or in some wasteland watching Cain and Abel march off together? Is the obvious middle-aged man in a white van really a serial killer? Is the girl in the white room making shit up about Keyser Soze, or is she a sympathetic refugee from a war between secret agencies?
In fact, the book is quite a page-turner, at least until about 160 pages in. But then, Ruff trades in most of the minor characters for new ones with progressively more cartoonish identities (with names like "Love" and "Wise," for instance). And forget one Deus Ex Machina to wrap things up: in this book there are a whole crew of Deities (actually, clowns), while tons of explosives and some magic drugs completely obliterate the space-time continuum and any remaining narrative gravity along with it.
So finally the book becomes an idea of a book. Or an incomplete novel worthy of Vonnegut is followed by an essay on human nature in the form of a Henry Miller daydream filtered through a Michael Mann film? It's an interesting dish, but like one culinary experiment in which I glazed some meat with maple syrup, it ends up not tasting as good as one would hope.
Three stars for belting a double off the wall but getting thrown out at third to end the game.
February 19, 2014
Here's the second book I frantically, last-minute-ly bought as I was heading off for a nine-day tropical idyll with my fam. I've really enjoyed a couple of Ruff's other books, so this seemed like a slam dunk.
Nope.
I mean, it was definitely good. It started out pretty riveting, in fact! There's secret assassin organizations, a gun that shoots heart attacks, serial child-killers, sociopathic drug dealers, and scary clowns, just for starters. It's kind of a cartoonish semi-futuristic shoot-'em-up, I guess.
But, like other GR reviewers have noted, though it started off with a bang, by the middle it was sinking, and the end left me seriously befuddled. There's a lot of skill in the tight plotting, but ultimately all the feints and double-crosses just got to be too much for me.
IDK, it was for sure a solid beach read, but I expect I'll forget it pretty quickly, and I can't really recommend it as anything more than a passing diversion.
Nope.
I mean, it was definitely good. It started out pretty riveting, in fact! There's secret assassin organizations, a gun that shoots heart attacks, serial child-killers, sociopathic drug dealers, and scary clowns, just for starters. It's kind of a cartoonish semi-futuristic shoot-'em-up, I guess.
But, like other GR reviewers have noted, though it started off with a bang, by the middle it was sinking, and the end left me seriously befuddled. There's a lot of skill in the tight plotting, but ultimately all the feints and double-crosses just got to be too much for me.
IDK, it was for sure a solid beach read, but I expect I'll forget it pretty quickly, and I can't really recommend it as anything more than a passing diversion.
May 26, 2020
Unreliable Narrator describes her work as an assassin for a Benevolent Vigilante Conspiracy putting down Bad Monkeys (evil doers such as undetected serial killers) and her subsequent involvement with her group’s Nebulous Evil Organisation mirror opposite.
My dead tree copy of the book was a modest 227 pages. It had a 2007 US copyright.
Matt Ruff is an American author of science fiction, thriller and comedic novels. He has written seven (7) novels. This is the second novel of the author's that I have read. The first being, Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy.
This book has languished on my hardcopy TBR pile for almost a decade. I found it while I was cleaning. I started reading it in an idle moment, and finished the first half in one sitting.
The best part of the story was within a series of doctor-patient interviews with flashbacks. Ruff did a good job of keeping me teetering back and forth in trying to decide if the protagonist (Jane Charlotte) was a psychopath, delusional, or a pawn in an existential battle between good and evil.
In the second half, the story jumped the shark. Jane’s monologue became a bizarre parody of the Action Girl trope. The nature of reality was now in question. The story was much better when she only could have had paranoid personality disorder and might be an agent of a vigilante organization. The story ended in a series of telegraphed switch, double switch, and switch again that felt rather half-hearted.
Prose as good. In places it was very good. The author had several interesting turns-of-a-phrase that left me chuckling. However, while dialog and descriptive prose were good, action sequences were weak. They felt very abbreviated in comparison to the dialog and descriptive prose.
Jane provided the story’s single POV. She’s a troubled woman whose life story is given through a series of flashbacks from her early teens to late middle age. It was an interesting litany of poor choices, spiced with peculiar rationalizations. Phil, Jane’s younger brother was an important non-character. For a large part of the story, he might have been Jane’s imaginary brother. That was frankly better for him. The folks from both the Existential Organizations borrowed heavily from The Men in Black trope. More interesting were the strange characters of the San Francisco demimonde sketched-out in the extended flashbacks chronicling Jane’s life. I thought the reprobates who were Jane’s victims were particularly well done.
I like stories with an unreliable narrator that’s identifiable up-front. Here it was quickly obvious that Jane was a sociopath, but possibly a psychopath. Then there was the challenge of deciding if she was also delusional, or there really was a vigilante organization for justice. One of Jane’s most compelling rationalizations was that a psychopath could be an ideal agent of Good. With the introduction of a parallel organization for Evil the story became less interesting to me. At that point it became about the existential conflict between good and evil and the nature of reality. I felt this was too heavy for the sometimes-comedic nature of the story's beginning. I’m also more interested in the more mundane mind game of, “was there a benevolent conspiracy employing psychopathic assassins”? The story devolved from there. I suspect Ruff meant to indicate Jane was becoming more delusional as the narrative became more Matrix-like . It ended in a predictable battle between good and evil, with an almost bewildering series of reversals that you could see coming.
The story was well written. Its: prose, characters, plot (mostly) and world building (mostly) were good. In places it was funny. However, I’m less interested in the metaphysical than I am in psychosis. The smaller story of psychotic assassin for justice employed by a benevolent conspiracy was as metaphysical as I am willing to get. As the story got further OTT with the exploration of the nature of reality—I lost interest. At that point, I felt that the mind games that were entertaining in the beginning, to not be weighty, but to be dead weight. Thankfully, the story was brief. In summary, this story started out well, but ended badly for me when it became too overtly about the battle of good vs. evil and the nature of reality.
My dead tree copy of the book was a modest 227 pages. It had a 2007 US copyright.
Matt Ruff is an American author of science fiction, thriller and comedic novels. He has written seven (7) novels. This is the second novel of the author's that I have read. The first being, Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy.
This book has languished on my hardcopy TBR pile for almost a decade. I found it while I was cleaning. I started reading it in an idle moment, and finished the first half in one sitting.
The best part of the story was within a series of doctor-patient interviews with flashbacks. Ruff did a good job of keeping me teetering back and forth in trying to decide if the protagonist (Jane Charlotte) was a psychopath, delusional, or a pawn in an existential battle between good and evil.
In the second half, the story jumped the shark. Jane’s monologue became a bizarre parody of the Action Girl trope. The nature of reality was now in question. The story was much better when she only could have had paranoid personality disorder and might be an agent of a vigilante organization. The story ended in a series of telegraphed switch, double switch, and switch again that felt rather half-hearted.
Prose as good. In places it was very good. The author had several interesting turns-of-a-phrase that left me chuckling. However, while dialog and descriptive prose were good, action sequences were weak. They felt very abbreviated in comparison to the dialog and descriptive prose.
Jane provided the story’s single POV. She’s a troubled woman whose life story is given through a series of flashbacks from her early teens to late middle age. It was an interesting litany of poor choices, spiced with peculiar rationalizations. Phil, Jane’s younger brother was an important non-character. For a large part of the story, he might have been Jane’s imaginary brother. That was frankly better for him. The folks from both the Existential Organizations borrowed heavily from The Men in Black trope. More interesting were the strange characters of the San Francisco demimonde sketched-out in the extended flashbacks chronicling Jane’s life. I thought the reprobates who were Jane’s victims were particularly well done.
I like stories with an unreliable narrator that’s identifiable up-front. Here it was quickly obvious that Jane was a sociopath, but possibly a psychopath. Then there was the challenge of deciding if she was also delusional, or there really was a vigilante organization for justice. One of Jane’s most compelling rationalizations was that a psychopath could be an ideal agent of Good. With the introduction of a parallel organization for Evil the story became less interesting to me. At that point it became about the existential conflict between good and evil and the nature of reality. I felt this was too heavy for the sometimes-comedic nature of the story's beginning. I’m also more interested in the more mundane mind game of, “was there a benevolent conspiracy employing psychopathic assassins”? The story devolved from there. I suspect Ruff meant to indicate Jane was becoming more delusional as the narrative became more Matrix-like . It ended in a predictable battle between good and evil, with an almost bewildering series of reversals that you could see coming.
The story was well written. Its: prose, characters, plot (mostly) and world building (mostly) were good. In places it was funny. However, I’m less interested in the metaphysical than I am in psychosis. The smaller story of psychotic assassin for justice employed by a benevolent conspiracy was as metaphysical as I am willing to get. As the story got further OTT with the exploration of the nature of reality—I lost interest. At that point, I felt that the mind games that were entertaining in the beginning, to not be weighty, but to be dead weight. Thankfully, the story was brief. In summary, this story started out well, but ended badly for me when it became too overtly about the battle of good vs. evil and the nature of reality.
June 13, 2012
I've read a good deal of reviews, and not everyone likes this book. Some people think it fell apart after the beginning, and I'm going to have disagree. I think that when you read this book, you have to be ready to go for a ride - and if you get on the train and are willing to take you where it's going to take you, you won't be disappointed.
I will say this though, I felt that as the book neared its conclusion, the story was not as well developed as it was at the beginning. You sort of get the impression, however subtle, that the end of the book didn't undergo as much development, editing, and generally didn't take as much time as the beginning. It's as if as Ruff got to the end of the book just let the story sweep him away and finished it as quickly as possible. You can't blame him though, the story does sweep you away.
The characters are amazing. You will not believe where you find yourself at the end of the story - you will not believe how attached you've become to the real villain and how much you want that person to win, even if you are willing to accept that they are evil.
I'd read it again and recommend it without hesitation.
I will say this though, I felt that as the book neared its conclusion, the story was not as well developed as it was at the beginning. You sort of get the impression, however subtle, that the end of the book didn't undergo as much development, editing, and generally didn't take as much time as the beginning. It's as if as Ruff got to the end of the book just let the story sweep him away and finished it as quickly as possible. You can't blame him though, the story does sweep you away.
The characters are amazing. You will not believe where you find yourself at the end of the story - you will not believe how attached you've become to the real villain and how much you want that person to win, even if you are willing to accept that they are evil.
I'd read it again and recommend it without hesitation.
June 6, 2017
Abandoned. I got halfway through. Found the main character to be artificial and phony. Found the plot points around the secret organization to be awkward and incoherent. Disliked the story to that point being told in flashback, which stunts drama and momentum. And I disliked the premise of a secret organization that knows "for sure" who various serial killers or pedophiles are (although the police doesn't) so they execute them. It's not far off from the old canard about it being okay to torture terrorists because they must have info about terror attacks that could save lives. Forget due process and human rights...when you just KNOW (who knows exactly?) who deserves to die or suffer. You know, that evil alien other isn't a person anyway...?
May 31, 2018
I remember the context clearly enough. The first time I read Matt Ruff's 2007 novel Bad Monkeys was in January 2008. I had just purchased a copy of this brightly-colored, oddly-shaped book at Powell's on Hawthorne, and I was on an airplane, flying back to my home town (a good place to be from) to attend my father's funeral. But I realized recently, more than a decade later, that for some reason I had retained almost nothing about the novel itself. It seemed high time for a rereading.
Like the work of Nick Harkaway, another favorite of mine, every Matt Ruff book is unique—but Bad Monkeys is weird, even for Ruff. It begins in a featureless white room (which Ruff acknowledges is something of a cliché). Jane Charlotte is undergoing a psychiatric evaluation in Las Vegas' Clark County Detention Center after having killed a man named Dixon who, by Jane's own admission, wasn't such a bad monkey—
I should mention that emotional triggers, from massive amounts of bloodshed to multiple counts of sexual abuse, abound throughout Bad Monkeys. This novel would not, I'm afraid, be a very good fit for network TV, though I would love to see it done well by one of the more adventurous streaming video services. Jane Charlotte is already cast (in my head, anyway), for example—she's played by Fiona Dourif, the actress who did such a superlative job as the "holistic assassin" Bart Curlish in the 2016 BBC adaptation of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency—a series which veers madly away from Douglas Adams' own work, to be sure, but which is worth watching in its own right. Fiona Dourif is the daughter of veteran actor Brad Dourif, by the way, who—wait for it—actually turns out to be from my home town, the very place to which I was traveling back in January 2008.
It's almost enough to make one believe that "everything is connected" (just as Bart and others in Dirk Gently say, more than once).
In and around all the action, Bad Monkeys takes on some serious subjects—such as how evil is, so often, rooted in self-sabotage. You can ignore those bits in favor of the explosions, murders and general conspiratarian mayhem—I certainly did, the first time through—but if you're looking for depth, that's here too.
The pages of my copy of Bad Monkeys are a little foxed, now—I'm not sure its unusual format was a good choice, at least in terms of longevity. This isn't my favorite Matt Ruff book either, perhaps, but I find that it holds up to reexamination. Its twists and turns eventually come to a conclusion that's both logical and, even the second time through, surprising.
And I'm still hoping for that on-screen adaptation...
{...}eventually I realized I wasn't in hell, I was just in America.
—p.60
Like the work of Nick Harkaway, another favorite of mine, every Matt Ruff book is unique—but Bad Monkeys is weird, even for Ruff. It begins in a featureless white room (which Ruff acknowledges is something of a cliché). Jane Charlotte is undergoing a psychiatric evaluation in Las Vegas' Clark County Detention Center after having killed a man named Dixon who, by Jane's own admission, wasn't such a bad monkey—
"He was a prick. I didn't like him. But he wasn't evil."This is a problem for her (as well as for Nevada's law enforcement, of course) because Jane herself is a Bad Monkey—one member of a clandestine organization whose very reason to exist is to do something about evil:
—p.3
"So in your job with Bad Monkeys," the doctor asks, "what is it you do? Punish evil people?"As Bad Monkeys progresses, the body count rises steeply, and it gets harder and harder to tell the good monkeys from the bad ones. And Jane isn't much help—turns out she's not the most reliable of narrators.
"No. Usually we just kill them."
"Killing's not a punishment?"
"It is if you do it to pay someone back. But the organization's not about that. We're just trying to make the world a better place."
"By killing evil men."
"Not all of them. Just the ones Cost-Benefits decides will do a lot more harm than good if they go on breathing."
—p.3
I should mention that emotional triggers, from massive amounts of bloodshed to multiple counts of sexual abuse, abound throughout Bad Monkeys. This novel would not, I'm afraid, be a very good fit for network TV, though I would love to see it done well by one of the more adventurous streaming video services. Jane Charlotte is already cast (in my head, anyway), for example—she's played by Fiona Dourif, the actress who did such a superlative job as the "holistic assassin" Bart Curlish in the 2016 BBC adaptation of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency—a series which veers madly away from Douglas Adams' own work, to be sure, but which is worth watching in its own right. Fiona Dourif is the daughter of veteran actor Brad Dourif, by the way, who—wait for it—actually turns out to be from my home town, the very place to which I was traveling back in January 2008.
It's almost enough to make one believe that "everything is connected" (just as Bart and others in Dirk Gently say, more than once).
In and around all the action, Bad Monkeys takes on some serious subjects—such as how evil is, so often, rooted in self-sabotage. You can ignore those bits in favor of the explosions, murders and general conspiratarian mayhem—I certainly did, the first time through—but if you're looking for depth, that's here too.
The pages of my copy of Bad Monkeys are a little foxed, now—I'm not sure its unusual format was a good choice, at least in terms of longevity. This isn't my favorite Matt Ruff book either, perhaps, but I find that it holds up to reexamination. Its twists and turns eventually come to a conclusion that's both logical and, even the second time through, surprising.
And I'm still hoping for that on-screen adaptation...
October 9, 2014
This book started as a wild, five-star adventure. The closest comparison is to the movie Men in Black, but in this book the hidden organization is dedicated to rooting out evil, not to protecting aliens blah blah blah. Several parallels to the movie: the organization is completely hidden; they have some crazy technology; due to their unconventional mission they are very tolerant of unconventional personalities and tactics. And, most importantly, Ruff has the same absurdist sense of humor evidenced by the movie.
The title comes from the nickname for a division within the organization (which, it is made clear, is not part of the government). "Bad Monkeys" are the assassins devoted to killing evil people (real division names tend towards the baroque; this one is: "The Department of Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons", so you can see why they use nicknames). But not until "Cost-Benefits" has calculated that death is the best option; in some cases redemption might be attempted by the division nicknamed "Good Samaritans" or by "Second and Third Chances". Another division, "Scary Clowns", specializes in Psychological Operations.
Another similarity is to Fight Club. Our protagonist, Jane Charlotte, is very much an unreliable narrator. It soon becomes clear that she might not be telling the truth. It then becomes apparent that she might not know the truth. As we get to the end, it becomes very uncertain whether there is any truth in the book at all.
Ruff chose to pursue this path down the rabbit hole, and unfortunately ended up with a weaker book thereby. He gets to demonstrate his extreme cleverness, but at the expense of his readers' engagement. His choice led to a convoluted, mind-bending conclusion that is reminiscent of some of Philip K. Dick, but because he maintains a consistent and well-balanced plot, Ruff actually writes a much better story than PDK. Folks that like the movies made from Dick's stories are quite likely to enjoy this book.
The best news: even though this isn't the blow-out promised by the first pages, the book is a short and fast read. Probably four or five hours.
The title comes from the nickname for a division within the organization (which, it is made clear, is not part of the government). "Bad Monkeys" are the assassins devoted to killing evil people (real division names tend towards the baroque; this one is: "The Department of Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons", so you can see why they use nicknames). But not until "Cost-Benefits" has calculated that death is the best option; in some cases redemption might be attempted by the division nicknamed "Good Samaritans" or by "Second and Third Chances". Another division, "Scary Clowns", specializes in Psychological Operations.
Another similarity is to Fight Club. Our protagonist, Jane Charlotte, is very much an unreliable narrator. It soon becomes clear that she might not be telling the truth. It then becomes apparent that she might not know the truth. As we get to the end, it becomes very uncertain whether there is any truth in the book at all.
Ruff chose to pursue this path down the rabbit hole, and unfortunately ended up with a weaker book thereby. He gets to demonstrate his extreme cleverness, but at the expense of his readers' engagement. His choice led to a convoluted, mind-bending conclusion that is reminiscent of some of Philip K. Dick, but because he maintains a consistent and well-balanced plot, Ruff actually writes a much better story than PDK. Folks that like the movies made from Dick's stories are quite likely to enjoy this book.
The best news: even though this isn't the blow-out promised by the first pages, the book is a short and fast read. Probably four or five hours.
March 10, 2010
Auf diesen Roman war ich besonders gespannt, da es offensichtlich sehr stark polarisiert. Entweder totale Begeisterung oder völlige Ablehnung. Meine Meinung ist mal wieder völlig konträr, denn ich bin unschlüssig, also in der Mitte.
Die Geschichte handelt prinzipiell um den Kampf zweier Organisationen: Eine vertritt sprichwörtlich das Gute und die andere das personifizierte Böse (Bad Monkeys) wobei sich beide derselben Methoden bedienen und Leute umbringen. Die Bösen aus Freude am Bösen und die Guten töten "Böse" als Prävention vor weiteren Untaten. Dass hier die Grenzen fließend sind und als ein Teil des Betrachtungswinkels fungieren, versteht sich von selbst. Dabei gibt es wie bei allen gegenteiligen Blöcken noch jede Menge Doppelagenten, die für beide Seiten arbeiten, was eben die Unterschiede der Systeme (Organisationen) noch weiter aufweicht.
So spannend der philosophische Ansatz zweier solcher Organisationen und die Herausarbeitung der vorhandenen/nichtvorhandenen Unterschiede zwischen Gut und Böse ist, so problematisch ist in diesem Roman meiner Meinung nach der Umstand, dass diese Geschichte in eine obskure Science-Fiction James Bond Welt mit allerlei Tricks und psychologischem Plot bzw. Krimskrams verpackt ist, die des Guten einfach viel zuviel ist. Es scheint fast als ob die SF und die Psychologie als Gagfeuerwerk abgebrannt wird, und das wiederum wirkt total aufgesetzt.
Hätte Ruff nur die Hälfte der Tricks und Anlehnungen an große SF-Romane gemacht und wäre ein bisschen dezenter vorgegangen, wäre dies vielleicht ein großer Roman geworden, der sich wirklich mal spannend mit dem personifizierten "Guten" und "Bösen" auseinandersetzt - in dieser Roman-Konstellation wäre es sogar möglich gewesen, dass herauskommen könnte, dass es gar keine Unterschiede oder nur eine Organisation gibt.
Ach ja noch was: Was ist der Unterschied zu Die feine Nase der Lilli Steinbeck , die auch ein ähnliches Thema anspricht, einen ähnlich obskuren Plot und am Ende auch kein gutes Finish hat? Ganz Klar die Sprache, diese wunderbare Sprache... das kann Matt Ruff einfach nicht.
Die Geschichte handelt prinzipiell um den Kampf zweier Organisationen: Eine vertritt sprichwörtlich das Gute und die andere das personifizierte Böse (Bad Monkeys) wobei sich beide derselben Methoden bedienen und Leute umbringen. Die Bösen aus Freude am Bösen und die Guten töten "Böse" als Prävention vor weiteren Untaten. Dass hier die Grenzen fließend sind und als ein Teil des Betrachtungswinkels fungieren, versteht sich von selbst. Dabei gibt es wie bei allen gegenteiligen Blöcken noch jede Menge Doppelagenten, die für beide Seiten arbeiten, was eben die Unterschiede der Systeme (Organisationen) noch weiter aufweicht.
So spannend der philosophische Ansatz zweier solcher Organisationen und die Herausarbeitung der vorhandenen/nichtvorhandenen Unterschiede zwischen Gut und Böse ist, so problematisch ist in diesem Roman meiner Meinung nach der Umstand, dass diese Geschichte in eine obskure Science-Fiction James Bond Welt mit allerlei Tricks und psychologischem Plot bzw. Krimskrams verpackt ist, die des Guten einfach viel zuviel ist. Es scheint fast als ob die SF und die Psychologie als Gagfeuerwerk abgebrannt wird, und das wiederum wirkt total aufgesetzt.
Hätte Ruff nur die Hälfte der Tricks und Anlehnungen an große SF-Romane gemacht und wäre ein bisschen dezenter vorgegangen, wäre dies vielleicht ein großer Roman geworden, der sich wirklich mal spannend mit dem personifizierten "Guten" und "Bösen" auseinandersetzt - in dieser Roman-Konstellation wäre es sogar möglich gewesen, dass herauskommen könnte, dass es gar keine Unterschiede oder nur eine Organisation gibt.
Ach ja noch was: Was ist der Unterschied zu Die feine Nase der Lilli Steinbeck , die auch ein ähnliches Thema anspricht, einen ähnlich obskuren Plot und am Ende auch kein gutes Finish hat? Ganz Klar die Sprache, diese wunderbare Sprache... das kann Matt Ruff einfach nicht.
March 18, 2017
It's hard to express how bad this book was. Premise sounds interesting on the back. Book is straight up terrible.
February 29, 2024
So here's my thing. Matt Ruff makes me mad. He's so good at writing, and he's so multifaceted, and also I only started reading things by him like a couple years ago, and I am blaming him for that oversight.
Anyways this book was a lot of fun!
CONTENT WARNING:
Things that were fun:
-The ourboros of psychosis. We meet a woman in a psych ward. I still don't know what, if anything, was real. In everything we learn there are a few touchstones and they create a disturbing picture of a mind that has lots of reasons to be broken.
-The frenetic storytelling. So different in tone and style than Lovecraft Country, the only other by this author I've read. I'm always impressed by chameleon authors. Note though, I don't think if I had read this first I would have been as impressed.
Things I did not love:
-The content. So, this is a book about people who hurt people. And the ways people hurt people, and the reason people become people who hurt people, tend not to be pleasant things. You never hear the true crime show where the person had a perfectly safe and happy childhood surrounded by trustworthy and caring adults, a cohort of age appropriate and similarly happy kids, trips to Disney World and a doting golden retriever.
-The end. I didn't buy it. It was too obvious and it broke some of the immersion of the earlier chaos and mystery.
3.5 rounded up because I'm still angry that Matt Ruff can write these things, and that no one made me read him sooner. Shame on all of you ;-)
Anyways this book was a lot of fun!
CONTENT WARNING:
Things that were fun:
-The ourboros of psychosis. We meet a woman in a psych ward. I still don't know what, if anything, was real. In everything we learn there are a few touchstones and they create a disturbing picture of a mind that has lots of reasons to be broken.
-The frenetic storytelling. So different in tone and style than Lovecraft Country, the only other by this author I've read. I'm always impressed by chameleon authors. Note though, I don't think if I had read this first I would have been as impressed.
Things I did not love:
-The content. So, this is a book about people who hurt people. And the ways people hurt people, and the reason people become people who hurt people, tend not to be pleasant things. You never hear the true crime show where the person had a perfectly safe and happy childhood surrounded by trustworthy and caring adults, a cohort of age appropriate and similarly happy kids, trips to Disney World and a doting golden retriever.
-The end. I didn't buy it. It was too obvious and it broke some of the immersion of the earlier chaos and mystery.
3.5 rounded up because I'm still angry that Matt Ruff can write these things, and that no one made me read him sooner. Shame on all of you ;-)
December 25, 2016
Also available on the WondrousBooks blog.
Before starting the book, I skimmed through the Goodreads reviews. Also, my flatmate, who let me borrow the book, she shared the opinion of everyone on Goodreads.
So, I need only but confirm this: This book starts amazing and then falls flat on its sad, miserable face.
The story of Bad Monkeys might not have the most original concept ever, but the thing is, I really liked the basic idea. I wish that it had continued working on that, instead of developing into a weird sci-fi-wanna-be-karate-freakshow.
The story is as follows: Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder. While she's already in custody, she meets with a psychiatrist and starts retelling her story to him. Jane admits to being a member of the division Bad Monkeys of a secret organization, which deals with assassinating dangerous, evil people. Jane explains in detail her childhood, her integration into the organization, and what lead to her being in custody. While many of the things she says turn out to be the exact truth, many are proven wrong by the official facts her doctor manages to unearth in his investigation. Is Jane really part of an assassin organization? Is she simply crazy?
The thing which drew my attention was the idea behind the organization: it intervenes when a really evil person is set loose and is probably going to cause a lot of damage to society. The basic notion behind this, I would say, is the mistrust toward the justice system. If you asked me about it, I would say that I absolutely don't believe that criminals get the deserved punishment. As there is no retribution, it's really hard to believe in justice.
More so, Bad Monkeys puts a very simple question to its readers: If there was an ex-director of a Nazi concentration camp, who caused the death of half a million people, and who's now 90 years old, and living hidden in the forests of South America, and a guy who has only killed one person, but he has found a lust for violence, and is fairly young, which one would you kill?
I'll let you answer that for yourselves.
However, no matter how intriguing and thought-provoking this core idea was to me, the book came short on so much more. For starters, the main character, Jane, was so confusing. I, as a reader, had a hard time caring about her as a person, and cared only about her story. She herself was just some side noise around everything that was happening in the story itself. Also, the author made some valid points taken from religion and the Bible, but at some point, there was so much religion and religious remarks and comparisons, that I wasn't sure where he was going. As a person, who on the surface seemed to lean more on atheism, than on religiousness, he definitely didn't prove it but his use of Christian allegories.
And, last, but by far not least, the ending of the book was absolutely ludicrous. Somewhere around 1/3 in, the book started getting increasingly ridiculous and messed up. And not in a good way. From a slow, methodical thriller, it turned into a really bad acid trip, which to me was like "Why do I even care?", which made me read with less and less interest.
I am stubborn. I read the book despite the warnings. Don't be like me, save yourselves the time. Read something else.
Before starting the book, I skimmed through the Goodreads reviews. Also, my flatmate, who let me borrow the book, she shared the opinion of everyone on Goodreads.
So, I need only but confirm this: This book starts amazing and then falls flat on its sad, miserable face.
The story of Bad Monkeys might not have the most original concept ever, but the thing is, I really liked the basic idea. I wish that it had continued working on that, instead of developing into a weird sci-fi-wanna-be-karate-freakshow.
The story is as follows: Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder. While she's already in custody, she meets with a psychiatrist and starts retelling her story to him. Jane admits to being a member of the division Bad Monkeys of a secret organization, which deals with assassinating dangerous, evil people. Jane explains in detail her childhood, her integration into the organization, and what lead to her being in custody. While many of the things she says turn out to be the exact truth, many are proven wrong by the official facts her doctor manages to unearth in his investigation. Is Jane really part of an assassin organization? Is she simply crazy?
The thing which drew my attention was the idea behind the organization: it intervenes when a really evil person is set loose and is probably going to cause a lot of damage to society. The basic notion behind this, I would say, is the mistrust toward the justice system. If you asked me about it, I would say that I absolutely don't believe that criminals get the deserved punishment. As there is no retribution, it's really hard to believe in justice.
More so, Bad Monkeys puts a very simple question to its readers: If there was an ex-director of a Nazi concentration camp, who caused the death of half a million people, and who's now 90 years old, and living hidden in the forests of South America, and a guy who has only killed one person, but he has found a lust for violence, and is fairly young, which one would you kill?
I'll let you answer that for yourselves.
However, no matter how intriguing and thought-provoking this core idea was to me, the book came short on so much more. For starters, the main character, Jane, was so confusing. I, as a reader, had a hard time caring about her as a person, and cared only about her story. She herself was just some side noise around everything that was happening in the story itself. Also, the author made some valid points taken from religion and the Bible, but at some point, there was so much religion and religious remarks and comparisons, that I wasn't sure where he was going. As a person, who on the surface seemed to lean more on atheism, than on religiousness, he definitely didn't prove it but his use of Christian allegories.
And, last, but by far not least, the ending of the book was absolutely ludicrous. Somewhere around 1/3 in, the book started getting increasingly ridiculous and messed up. And not in a good way. From a slow, methodical thriller, it turned into a really bad acid trip, which to me was like "Why do I even care?", which made me read with less and less interest.
I am stubborn. I read the book despite the warnings. Don't be like me, save yourselves the time. Read something else.
May 13, 2009
Bad Monkeys is a paranoid, reality disintegrating thriller with elements of the Matrix, Usual Suspects, The Prisoner, Morrison’s The Filth, Stross’s Laundry series(orientation delivered in a dream.), and a lot of Philip K Dick. This is a bit of a tribute to PKD with many elements taken from his work and biography (figure out who Jane Charlotte is in the context of his life and there is a clue), so expect bizarre battling organization organizations, ubiquitous surveillance, reality transforming drugs, and distinct mingling of fantasy and reality (for the characters not the genre elements…though those are mingled also). The twists at the end are especially mind rattling and I thought I would be disappointed but I wasn’t. Ruff’s terrific humor and handling of character and voice make this material especially fun.
July 18, 2012
Bad Monkeys was really good but I am stuck on how to classify it other than to say it was really good! I have no idea how much of the story was real and how much was the delusional ramblings of the main character.
Jane Charlotte is in a mental hospital and is being interviewed by a doctor. Bad Monkeys is her story. It is a strange tale of a secret organization that fights evil. Jane is recruited to join the Bad Monkeys division of this organization but she has a penchant for drugs and a bad habit of not sticking to the plan. Many of her assignments go terribly wrong and she ends making some bad decisions and choosing the wrong side.
I can't really describe this is more detail. It was sort of on the bizzarro side of things but on re-examining the story as I write this, there was more to it than just the weird. I do recommend, if you see it, give it a try!
Jane Charlotte is in a mental hospital and is being interviewed by a doctor. Bad Monkeys is her story. It is a strange tale of a secret organization that fights evil. Jane is recruited to join the Bad Monkeys division of this organization but she has a penchant for drugs and a bad habit of not sticking to the plan. Many of her assignments go terribly wrong and she ends making some bad decisions and choosing the wrong side.
I can't really describe this is more detail. It was sort of on the bizzarro side of things but on re-examining the story as I write this, there was more to it than just the weird. I do recommend, if you see it, give it a try!
April 4, 2024
The basic premise direct from the blurb:
"Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder. She tells police that she is a member of a secret organization devoted to fighting evil; her division is called the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons—"Bad Monkeys" for short. This confession earns Jane a trip to the jail's psychiatric wing, where a doctor attempts to determine whether she is lying, crazy—or playing a different game altogether."
I've been doing a book challenge (loosely) and chose this Audible Audio initially for the prompt "a genre you don't usually read," which for me is sci-fi. But halfway through, I decided to switch it to "unreliable narrator." I really wasn't sure whether it was sci-fi, or if the main character really belonged in the psych ward, etc. This novel is chocked full of twists and turns, and I won't give anything away here, but it was so good! I'm surprised to find a bunch of 2 and 3 star ratings; maybe if you read this sort of thing all the time, it doesn't measure up. For me, it was a question mark right up until the end, and was quite engaging.
"Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder. She tells police that she is a member of a secret organization devoted to fighting evil; her division is called the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons—"Bad Monkeys" for short. This confession earns Jane a trip to the jail's psychiatric wing, where a doctor attempts to determine whether she is lying, crazy—or playing a different game altogether."
I've been doing a book challenge (loosely) and chose this Audible Audio initially for the prompt "a genre you don't usually read," which for me is sci-fi. But halfway through, I decided to switch it to "unreliable narrator." I really wasn't sure whether it was sci-fi, or if the main character really belonged in the psych ward, etc. This novel is chocked full of twists and turns, and I won't give anything away here, but it was so good! I'm surprised to find a bunch of 2 and 3 star ratings; maybe if you read this sort of thing all the time, it doesn't measure up. For me, it was a question mark right up until the end, and was quite engaging.
May 7, 2019
Well, it wasn't terrible. A lot of redundant shit happened. Major overwriting, excessive wordiness.
June 18, 2012
Jane Charlotte is being held in a prison psych ward and is giving her life story to a doctor. She explains that she works for a secret organization (Bad Monkeys) that works to track and find evil people and get rid of them. The entire book is the exchange between her and the doctor.
Right off the reader is presented with the dilemma:
Is Jane telling the truth?
Is Jane completely gone mentally and living in a self-created fantasy world?
Is Jane lying on purpose for a alternative motive?
The first 2/3 of the book, I was completely engrossed. I found myself pondering the story during the day as I worked and looked forward to getting back to it. Then the story took a rather disappointing turn.
Imagine you are visiting with a friend who starts telling an interesting story from when he was camping with his family as a teen. The story is compelling and funny and you are enjoying it. Then suddenly your friend explains that while they were eating dinner, magic unicorns showed up around the campfire and began eating cupcakes made of clouds. You immediately feel bored/disappointed.
That is how I felt during the last third if the book. It just became really random and bizarre. I didn't mind the final twist in the end (I was totally surprised), but the last few chapters were such a mess, it took out the fun of the twist.
Great idea for a book. Great execution during the beginning/middle of the book. Total train-wreck in the end.
A disappointing 2 stars.
Right off the reader is presented with the dilemma:
Is Jane telling the truth?
Is Jane completely gone mentally and living in a self-created fantasy world?
Is Jane lying on purpose for a alternative motive?
The first 2/3 of the book, I was completely engrossed. I found myself pondering the story during the day as I worked and looked forward to getting back to it. Then the story took a rather disappointing turn.
Imagine you are visiting with a friend who starts telling an interesting story from when he was camping with his family as a teen. The story is compelling and funny and you are enjoying it. Then suddenly your friend explains that while they were eating dinner, magic unicorns showed up around the campfire and began eating cupcakes made of clouds. You immediately feel bored/disappointed.
That is how I felt during the last third if the book. It just became really random and bizarre. I didn't mind the final twist in the end (I was totally surprised), but the last few chapters were such a mess, it took out the fun of the twist.
Great idea for a book. Great execution during the beginning/middle of the book. Total train-wreck in the end.
A disappointing 2 stars.
May 15, 2008
I really liked the plot of this book - an undercover organization getting rid of evil people and all their high-tec, cool gear to go with it.
The book started off really weird and then got even stranger. It did seem that the last 20-30 pages were a little forced, or maybe, the author wasn't sure how he wanted to end the story. It threw me off until I realized what exactly was going on (which it does get explained).
Despite this strangeness, it was overall a good book. Very different than I've read before!
The book started off really weird and then got even stranger. It did seem that the last 20-30 pages were a little forced, or maybe, the author wasn't sure how he wanted to end the story. It threw me off until I realized what exactly was going on (which it does get explained).
Despite this strangeness, it was overall a good book. Very different than I've read before!
September 25, 2009
Great book. For one thing it had a twist that took me somewhat by surprise and (if I do say so myself) that isn't usual anymore. Nice new twist on the hero (or even superhero) story line. Well written, well told, I really liked it.
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