Calvin Cohn, last man erroneously alive after the apocalypse as far as he can tell, and Buz, a chimpanzee trained by a Christian scientist, Dr. Bunder, land on an island and salvage from the ship a few things, such as a portable phonograph and seventy-eights records of lamentations and prayers sung by Cohn’s father, a rabbi (some of the records will be munched by a kind gorilla that later augments what will have become a small community of apes). It turns out Buz has been trained by Dr. Bunder to understand and speak English, albeit with a speech impediment presumably due to the imperfect surgery inflicted on his vocal cords, and passes on some of this knowledge to the other apes. (Another novel in the set, Manrissa Man by Peter van Greenaway, also has talking hominids). Assuming there is enough understanding and intelligence to build on, Cohn tries to instruct the apes in the basics of morals and communal behaviour, with rather limited success, as will be seen. Since there is no human Eve available, Cohn, after some hankering with God in the manner of Moses, starts a new race with Mary-Madelyn, one of the chimpanzees, but there are stronger forces at play. ‘He caught the sight of Mary Madelyn in the field beyond the waterfall, her sexual flower risen like a stiff red flag, her white sail dress torn into rags on the grass. She crouched as Esau, eating a bruised banana, mounted her. He pumped once, dismounted carefully. Then Gottlob, who had been looking on studiously, entered Mary Madelyn twice. Shutting both eyes he concentrated, as he pumped vigorously and dismounted; then he reentered, pumped eight hard deliberate times, and proudly descended.’ There is no connection between the unpromising prospect of the little humanoid girl resulting from Cohn’s congress with Mary-Madelyn and a reading in front of a museum audience by John Tottenham that I just heard which would justify the inclusion of this sentence, but it absolves me from telling what further happens to the little girl. You will need to find out yourself, or remain frustrated.