[In the following review, Miller focuses on the interchangeability of Madeline and Erasmus in The Woman and the Ape.]

Peter Høeg's fourth novel defies easy categorization. It is at once a tale of personal strength, a love story, and an ecological morality tale. To choose one of these or any other conventional label to describe The Woman and the Ape is to ignore its obvious unconventionality; for the personal strength comes from a woman so severely alcoholic that she seems beyond repair, the love story is between a woman and a primate, and the environmental lesson is delivered as an eloquent speech by an ape who seems more an extraterrestrial envoy from the future than an evolutionary mistake from the past.

One could begin by describing it as an imaginative exodus into the soul of contemporary London. Høeg paints London as the vital center of the modern civilized world, but it is also, “one of the largest habitats for nonhuman creatures on this earth.” Most of these creatures—mice, seagulls, insects—are beneath everyday notice, but one arrives unexpectedly to call attention to the manifold problems that humanity has created. Erasmus, the ape of the title, crosses the thin line between his own species and ours in order to make us aware of these problems.

Though fantastic, this side of the tale may sound easy, but it is complicated by the other side of the tale. Through her interaction with Erasmus, Madelene, the woman of the title, undergoes a transformation no less stunning than his. A wealthy, alienated woman who begins each day with a membrane-burning shot of high-proof alcohol, Madelene gradually finds meaning in her life through her relationship with Erasmus, who has come to her house as a subject of study for her husband, an animal behavior researcher. The more time Erasmus and Madelene spend together, the more difficult it is to distinguish differences between them.

Høeg blurs this line between the human and the animal in even more subtle ways. In one striking sequence, he recreates the Garden of Eden in contemporary England, replacing Adam (the name of Madelene's husband) with the ape, demolishing the terms of the creation/evolution debate. Through such flourishes, The Woman and the Ape forces us to think deeply about the issues that Høeg raises. Yet it never feels mired in such issues since the author deftly balances profound ideas with classic good-guy/bad-guy chase scenes. Although difficult to define, it is unquestionably troubling, entertaining, and masterfully done.