This slim novel (not quite a novella) begins with a bang – the Big Bang. In poetic, then humorous, then dazzling prose we are introduced to our world: vapours, water, mountains, lava, the oceans and so on until evolution occurs and the aardvark eventually enters.
Then to Republican congressman Alexander
Paine Wilson who is not a likeable character. Arrogant, vain, self-serving and with zero self-awareness, we wish him ill right from the beginning. But what of his connection to the aardvark?
The world of the aardvark and the world of Alexander Paine Wilson collide, comedically and suddenly, when a stuffed aardvark is delivered to the congressman's door. It arrives with a card from Greg Tampico, Alexander's secret lover (Alexander is Not Gay). In a comedy of cataclysmic errors Alexander's day goes from admiring his Reagan-esque living quarters and wardrobe to his arrest and some seriously negative publicity.
The story hangs together bizarrely and beautifully. It charts the aardvark's journey from snuffling happily in Africa to Victorian England where, in death, it meets celebrated taxidermist, Titus Downing of Leamington Spa. Downing is the trusted colleague and great friend of Sir Richard Ostlet, the naturalist who enters the aardvark into western knowledge and parlance. Downing's narrative sits neatly alongside that of Alexander, smart parallels being drawn between the two tales.
Enter the Aardvark narrates the sudden, ignominious downfall of an ambitious politician. It deals with secret love in heartbreaking detail. The pace of the narrative is breakneck, the turn of phrase at once lyrical, then jarringly colloquial, creating a reading experience that is captivatingly sharp. This book is a delight.
