Disclaimer: The Page 69 Test is not mine. It has been around since 2007, asking authors to compare page 69 against the meat of the actual story it is a part of. I loved the whole idea of it and so I'm stealing it specifically to showcase small press titles - novels, novellas, short story collections, the works! So until the founder of The Page 69 Test calls a cease and desist, let's do this thing....
Set up page 69 for us.
One of the
novel’s many tensions is between the narrator, Richard Garner, and his family,
and that’s on full display on page 69. It’s 1891, and Garner, a Washington, DC,
teacher and self-taught primatologist, is determined to go to Africa to observe
chimpanzees in the wild. His plan is to build a cage in the rainforest and live
inside it for several months as he studies the apes. In particular, he wants to
study their “speech” after capturing it with a phonograph. He thinks this will
have major implications for the theory of evolution. On page 69, Garner’s
admiring an illustration of himself in an article on his planned research trip.
In the illustration, he’s in his cage, which is surrounded by gorillas and
elephants. His wife, Maggie, isn’t fond of his plan and would prefer he study
apes in zoos, but Garner simply won’t hear it.
What Man
in a Cage is about
Man in a
Cage is based on a true story. Garner’s mostly been
forgotten, but he was well known in his lifetime for his primate research. A
lot of people didn’t take him seriously, though. There’s a little of him in
Hugh Lofting’s Dr. Dolittle and H. A. Rey’s Man in the Yellow Hat from the
Curious George books. Man in a Cage treats him with a lot more
seriousness. Colonization, racism, and environmental stewardship are some of
the themes that coalesce in the story of Garner’s first trip to Africa.
Do you think
this page gives our readers an accurate sense of what the novel is about? Does
it align itself with the novel’s theme?
Yes, I think it passes the test. And there’s another
theme—one that transcends the novel’s particular time and place—that comes out
on page 69: ambition. Once Garner decides to study primate language, he can’t
be talked out of it. His ambition is so strong that it often overpowers his
reason. There are plenty of characters who stand in Garner’s way—other
scientists, missionaries, big-game hunters—but Garner’s stubbornness might be
his worst enemy.
PAGE 69
Man in a Cage
“You don’t
really intend to go through with this, do you? Please tell me it’s all just
talk.”
“It’s not
just talk, Dear. I fully intend to go through with this.”
The
illustrator, besides portraying me recording the capuchins in Central Park, had
ventured to draw me sitting inside a cage of steel bars pointing a phonograph
toward a gorilla twice my size, while another approached from the rear of the
cage. In the distance, an elephant raised its trunk, thrusting his tusks like
great spears.
“Go anywhere
you like to look at monkeys in zoos, take as long as you need—but Africa? You’d
be away for such a long time—and it sounds terribly dangerous.”
“Where I
plan to go is a French colony. A place to holiday, for heaven’s sake. I’ll take
you there sometime.”
“A holiday
in the jungle?”
“As for when
I’m in the jungle, I’ll be protected by the cage I’m going to build.”
“But you’ll
have to get there and build it first. You could get yourself killed. I’m
tempted to pray that your friends at the Smithsonian will keep their purse
strings tight. I’m sorry—but that’s just how I feel.”
“I am afraid
it’s too late for that.”
“Oh,
Richard!”
Patrick Nevins is an associate professor of English and the author of Man in a Cage, which was published in August by Malarkey Books. His short fiction appears in Crab Creek Review and other journals. He can be found online at www.patricknevins.com.
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