25 Books in 25 Days: #18 Mr Thundermug

I read Caroline by Cornelius Medvei a few years ago, lent to me by my friend Mel cos it was about a donkey and she knows how much I love donkeys. Since then, I’ve bought a couple other of Medvei’s novels – but not til now have I read another, which is Mr Thundermug (2006). Incidentally, I love the cover illustration on my copy, by Richard Bravery.

It’s a novella about a baboon who has learnt English (nobody is quite sure how; it seems to have arrived complete) and tries to integrate in everyday life.

Nobody ever established where it was that the baboon came from, or what had brought him to this unnatural habitat. The basic facts are confusing – clearly, baboons are not native to this region; but, on the other hand, Mr Thundermug spoke our language perfectly, with no trace of an accent, and there is no evidence that he knew any foreign languages.

There were in fact numerous theories as to the baboon’s origins, but it was impossible to know which, if any, was true; all they had in common was their lack of supporting evidence. This in itself was not surprising, as our city excels in the manufacture of rumours. Nevertheless, the theories I heard were so often attributed, at various removes, to Mr Thundermug himself, that I began to think the baboon must have taken a perverse delight in providing contradictory accounts of his origins – tailored perhaps to his mood and the company.

He is hampered by having a wife and children who are non-speaking baboons, and by the discrimination he faces by those around him. For instance, the council try to evict him from his home as it is inhabitable because of a cockroach infestation – though, as he points out, he and his wife ate the cockroaches, so that problem is dealt with. As the novella goes on, he gets embroiled in an unlikely legal case.

I enjoyed Medvei’s writing, which plays with the surreal in a matter of fact way, and Mr Thundermug is an excellent character. His combination of optimism, disappointment, occasional grumpiness, and common sense in the face of bureaucracy, would be winning whatever sort of creature he were. I don’t think I entirely understood the point of the story – there might be a meaning to the parable that passed me by – but Medvei is an engaging storyteller with a vivid and unusual point of view.