BOOK OF THE DAY: Donald Clarkereviews Me Cheeta: The Autobiographyby Cheeta
THE TEMPTATION to play along with the ghostwriter of Me Cheetaand write a review that takes his or her extraordinary book at face value is nearly irresistible.
How might such a piece begin? Eschewing both the cosiness of David Niven's The Moon's a Balloonand the camp cynicism of Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon, Cheeta, the 76-year-old chimpanzee who starred alongside Johnny Weissmuller in MGM's Tarzan movies, has delivered a book that celebrates the golden age of Hollywood while simultaneously examining its fetid, emission-soaked underbelly. Cheeta may be an ape, but, as a writer, he's no monkey.
That sounds about right.
Such an approach would, however, deprive us of the opportunity to ponder what exactly this book is trying to be. The anonymous author (I have my suspicions) has certainly set out to offer a pastiche of the celebrity memoir. Following capture in the jungles of Liberia, Cheeta is transported to Los Angeles where, as the most celebrated animal performer of the time, he gets to pal around with such supernovas as Errol Flynn, Joan Crawford and Jackie, the MGM lion. Cheeta, an enthusiast for the medium he sees as actualised "dreams", admires many of the actors, but certain individuals - Rex Harrison, Mickey Rooney, Marlene Dietrich - draw only loathing.
"All I'd managed to do so far was bite Marlene Dietrich, who had turned out, to my annoyance, to be what they called a "good" German," he writes of his contribution to the war effort. "If Dietrich was a good German, I thought, then the bad ones must be f**king terrifying."
Dispelling any illusions that this is a book for kiddies, Me Cheetadepicts legendary icons vacuuming up cocaine while engaging in eye-wateringly over-populated sex orgies.
Anger - not to mention Niven - seems discreet by comparison.
Me Cheetaalso appears to be intended as a serious argument against the involvement of apes in the movie industry. No Reel Apes, a campaign supported by Dr Jane Goodall, the distinguished naturalist, is frequently mentioned, but, this being a book marinated in seven classes of irony, Cheeta always makes clear his disdain for the venture.
Most surprisingly, this weird volume, whether pastiche, discourse or postmodern novel, turns out to be a proper book by a proper writer.
Cheeta's supposed amanuensis has made a serious (though consistently hilarious) attempt to imagine how the cruelties and follies of everyday humanity might seem to one of the higher apes.
Cheeta goes from matter-of-fact, unsentimental descriptions of life in the jungle - noting, for example, how his mother never addressed her children while being "penetrated" - to studies of Hollywood life that frequently use the language of simian anthropology. A smile becomes a "display". The most significant stars and the major studios are described as "alphas".
It soon becomes clear that, just as film-makers sought to anthropomorphosise apes, Cheeta is making chimpanzees of his human companions. What a gorgeously neat reversal.
A proper book by a proper writer should have a proper personality at its centre and this version of Cheeta fairly bounds from the pages and hoots in the lucky reader's face. Initially forgiving of the various tortures visited on him by humans, he eventually reveals a shrewd awareness of the wretchedness of most human endeavours.
He does, it is true, adore Weissmuller, but that passion spurs a jealous suspicion of every woman who shares the same planet as the star. "Chaplin had Hitler in The Great Dictator," he muses. "I had Jane."
He is, thus, a very human ape. The real Cheeta, who still lives happily in Palm Springs, may, perhaps, not savour being represented as such a spiteful animal, but he can console himself with the knowledge that the book bearing his name is the best of its kind ever written. Mind you, it is the only book of its kind.
• Donald Clarke writes about film for The Irish Times
• Me Cheeta: The Autobiographyby Cheeta Fourth Estate 320pp, £16.99