![]() After the humans leave, Ivan tells Stella he can’t sleep, and might be tired of his domain. Mack hands George some cash to buy the kids more crayons. Mack and George discuss how George’s wife is sick but doing okay. Mack works late in his office, then stops by Ivan’s cage drinking a bottle concealed by a brown paper bag. One afternoon Julia drew the dog, who didn’t have a name until she decided to call him Bob. She sometimes draws portraits of Ivan, who always looks a bit sad in her depictions. She would like to be a famous artist when she grows up. Julia sits by Ivan’s domain at night while George, her father, cleans the mall. He throws a me-ball toward them-balled up feces-and wishes the glass weren’t there. He splashes in his pool and struts, performing for them, but they mock him by pounding their chests. Ivan has three visitors, two of which are children who spit and throw pebbles at his glass. Ivan digresses to explain how Bob used to be a stray, but he found his way into Ivan’s enclosure and became part of the circus. Bob tells Ivan his appetite is not the problem. Ivan plans to eat more food than usual, believing this will bring customers and please Mack. Mack is in a foul mood after the mall circus attracts no customers for two days. At Big Top Mall, she is only bound by a rope. Once she fell from the pedestal and injured herself, Stella was sold to Mack. She used to have to balance on a pedestal while a poodle named Snickers lay on her head. She has scars on her legs from the chains used to contain her. Stella is older, and remembers every detail of her life in the wild and her previous career as a traveling circus elephant. Stella doesn’t think Ivan will ever meet another gorilla. He wondered all night where this other gorilla was, and if he or she was trapped in a box somewhere too. Then he saw another gorilla on a TV nature program. For a while he thought he was the last gorilla on earth. Ivan comments that he has been alone in his domain for 9,855 days. He and Bob, the dog, like to watch the tiny humans together. Ivan recalls a time a boy saw him and said that he must be the loneliest gorilla in the world. Ivan thinks humans don’t believe gorillas have imaginations or think about the past and the future, and Ivan wonders if they’re right. Ivan has always been an artist: as a young gorilla, he would paint on his mother’s back using mud. Mack sells Ivan’s drawings for $20 apiece. Ivan draws the things in his cage: apple cores, candy wrappers. Julia was also the first person to slip Ivan a crayon and slip of paper through a crack in the glass. He named it after his twin sister Tag, calling the toy Not-Tag. The mall cleaner’s daughter Julia gave Ivan a stuffed toy gorilla he sleeps with each night. Ivan says that humans come and leave fingerprints on his glass wall: he presses his nose on the other side, and it is the only print. Ivan believes humans are clever, but poor hunters. No matter how full the bags, they always come back for more-an observation that touches on the theme of human greed. After watching the show, Ivan watches humans hunt frantically through the mall, clutching bags full of things. He says this is wrong, because he is never angry: silverbacks only use anger to warn their troop of danger, and in his domain there is no one to protect.Įvery day Mack, dressed like a clown, leads the other circus animals through trick routines. The billboard for the arcade depicts Ivan with his mouth open, as if letting out a ferocious growl. He describes his glass-enclosed domain, beyond which he can see the flashing arcade lights and cars moving down the freeway. Mack is his human boss, while Stella, an elephant, and Bob, a dog, are his dearest friends. Ivan introduces the other characters that live or work at Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade. He is a great ape, a distant and distrustful cousin to humans. He says humans don’t think gorillas can understand words, but, through patience, he has learned to understand human speech. He is a silverback gorilla who lives in captivity at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade. Narrated from the first-person perspective of Ivan, the novel’s protagonist, The One and Only Ivanopens with Ivan introducing himself. ![]()
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