Pan satyrus

Pan Satyrus is a new name that Chimpanzee Mem chooses for himself after he begins to speak humanly. In his own explanation:

Pan Satirus is the specific name for black-faced chimpanzees in Latin. <...> It was written on a metal plate attached to my mother’s cage. When I was still a little monkey, I thought that her name was that.

In the modern classification of the Common Chimpanzee, there is the Black-faced chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes troglodytes ), and not the more elegant “black-faced” one. A subspecies of West African chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes verus ) in the old Schwartz classification until 1934 was called Pan satyrus verus ^[4] . A little liberty with terms and classifications gives the author of the story a sonorous name ^[5] . Later, it is also used to beat the topic of racial problems in the USA (the “black face” of origin allows Pan Satyrus to personally relate to the problems of blacks in the USA ).

The original Latin name Pan satyrus was composed by Schwartz from the names of the deity Pan and the forest deities of the satyrs . For the Russian-speaking reader, “pan” in front of the name is usually associated with a homonymous form of appeal , because of which the title of the story can take on an unintended “Polish flavor” . For this or another reason, the first journal edition of 1966 was named with the clarification: "Pan Satirus in space." In a separate edition of the same year, this clarification was refused, but returned to it in a reprint of 2001 ^[6] .

Chimpanzee Mem - one of the monkeys used in the US space program (a reference to real events ). People have no idea that monkeys are a much higher stage of evolution compared to humans . Meme perfectly understands the language of people, but, like other monkeys, sees no reason to communicate with them. He himself learned to write and read by the age of two, professionally knows the Morse code , thoroughly studied the Mem Saib ship on which he was launched into space, and hates his nickname Mem, coined by the wife of the project manager.

On the 13th launch, Meme is sent with a flea under a spacesuit and in orbit from west to east, so that the whole flight of the sun shines directly into his eyes. This overflows the cup of his patience. Morse code, he informs the Earth about a turn to the west and accelerates the movement of the ship. At the same time, he changes the settings so that the ship inexplicably moves at superluminal speed . As a side effect of such a movement, Mem gains an irresistible desire to communicate with people in their language (he “regressed,” by his own definition). He begins to communicate from the moment the US Navy ship “Cook” picks up his ship in the ocean, and from the very beginning declares that from now on his name is Pan Satirus.

Now Pan Satirus is the owner of the most valuable military secret, a movement with superluminal speed, which he does not consider it necessary to share with the primitive race of people. Nevertheless, he makes friends among them: warrant officers (“ warrant officers ” in Russian translation) from the Cook team, this is the radio operator Bronstein, nicknamed Lucky and miner Bates, nicknamed Gorilla. Their adventures on land in confrontation with the military and high-ranking politicians constitute the further plot of the story.

On the cover of the first American edition of 1963 is:

A hilarious sci-fi parody of one chimp in a capsule that launched with an adjustable wrench ( eng. Monkey wrench , “monkey wrench” ) into the American space program!

Original text

An hilarious science-fiction spoof concerning a capsulated chimp who threw a monkey wrench into America's space program!

Indeed, Richard Wormser takes realities well known to the American reader at that time ( the Mercury program and the Chimpanzee Ham ) and turns them inside out. Now the monkey has knowledge and conducts research, pushing more primitive people into the background. It also provides a place for receiving “ removal ”, evaluation and analysis of human actions and social institutions from the side of the thinking animal .

In the USSR, critics proposed a much deeper reading of the story: as an ostro-social criticism of the “American political system and the military-industrial complex” ^[1] , where the monkey is more human than the people themselves. Later, in the article “Laughter and sorrow," the translator of the story D. A. Zhukov wrote ^[7] :

Human sailors, nicknamed Gorilla and Lucky, and assigned to Pan Satyrus. Human and smart is the doctor of “shimponaut” Aram Bedoyan. The mechanism of the system into which Pan Satirus falls into the wheels is inhuman.

Whether this was an unnecessarily deep reading of the text, a way to “calm” Soviet censorship, or were Soviet, not American, critics right, the final choice should be left to readers of the story. In any case, just such a reading made it possible to publish in 1966 the author’s novel for pulp magazines , full of specific naval humor (“ Damn it, the infantry even says ... so why not talk to the chimpanzee? ”) And even bold situations for a “ thaw ” and statements .

• Sergey Sobolev. Be a monkey! (unspecified) . New newspaper . Exlibris (04/11/2002). Date of treatment February 2, 2016.
• “Pan Satirus": a book that did not fail (neopr.) . F5.ru.