You were inspired to write this book by visiting the Chicago zoo, but also by a haunting memory of a chimp with an Oedipus complex from a Jane Goodall documentary you watched as a child. I think he once described Lolita himself as "my love affair with the English language." As for my love affair with language, Nabokov was the first writer whose English I absolutely fell in love with. It's true, you don't really need anyone else. Somebody said that all philosophy is just Plato and footnotes. Plato affected my thinking about time, semiotics, love, law and language more than any other philosopher. But studying Greek made an enormous impact on me, and the way I think of language, aesthetics, grammar, and so on. What novel or author sparked your love affair with language?īenjamin Hale: I haven't studied Ancient Greek in years and my Greek's pretty rusty now. The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore deals with a chimp who has acquired spoken language (along with quite the impressive vocabulary) and I read that you've studied ancient Greek. Until then, get to know him a little better with this Q+A, in which he talks about inspirational chimps and how Don Bluth scarred him as a child. Benjamin Hale, the author behind The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore, recently visited the KQED studios to record an episode of The Writers' Block, which will be released next week ( listen to Benjamin's reading).
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