THE ROSIE PROJECT (2014)
Graeme Simsion
Simon & Schuster,
305 pages. ISBN: 978-1476729091
* * * * *
Imagine someone who's as handsome as Gregory Peck, as
logical as Star Trek's Mr. Data, as numbers-driven
as Raymond Babbitt (Rain Man), as
practical as Thomas Gradgrind (Hard
Times), as quirky as Ignatius Reilly (A Confederacy of Dunces), and as prone
to Asperger's meltdowns as Christopher Boone (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime). Do this and
you're still a buck and some change short of Don Tillman, the protagonist of
Graeme Simsion's runaway best seller The
Rosie Project. This book has wowed reviewers around the globe and was
recently optioned to Sony Pictures. Believe the hype for a change—The Rosie Project is both a heart-warming
and a guffaw-out-loud kind of book.
It's been said that academia is a place where possession of
a major character disorder is not necessarily a disqualifying characteristic
for job candidates. That's certainly true for Don Tillman, a University of
Melbourne genetics professor. He's a brilliant researcher, but a person with
the social graces of a schoolboy. Don is seldom in trouble, though, because he
is a stickler for rules, routine, and procedure. Boy, is he ever! He eats the
same meals each week because it's more efficient to do so and he schedules
everything from his martial arts exercises to lab research time down to the
second. Don never sees his routines as, well, routine; they are simply
pragmatic ways of maximizing his time. Ask Don how long he has owned a shirt
and he can tell you down to the day. It's just one of many ways in which he is
blissfully unaware of himself. Nor does he think it's odd that he has but two
friends, a womanizing colleague named Gene, and his psychologist wife, Claudia
who doubles at Don's informal therapist. Don doesn't realize Claudia is also
analyzing him, but no matter; he also doesn't realize that his guest lecture on
Asperger's was better received by those who suffer from the syndrome than those
who don't because he was speaking to his own tribe in the first instance.
About the only thing that troubles Don is that he's single,
and that's an issue he approaches as he would any research conundrum. I defy
you to read the chapters on designing a questionnaire for what Don dubs
"the Wife Project" without snorting aloud. Or to remain stoic when he
rejects one candidate as totally unsuitable because of a dispute over apricot
ice cream! In an effort to get Don to loosen up a bit, his horn-dog friend Don
tries to fix him up with Rosie Jaman in the sexist belief that getting Don laid
will help him relax more around women. But Rosie flunks just about every
category on Don's list–she's a smoker, vegetarian, slob, and non-exercising bon
vivant. (She's also Goth gorgeous and whip smart.) Don doesn't see Rosie as a
mate, but he is intrigued by her desire to discover her biological father. What
better challenge for a geneticist than the "Rosie Project," a quest
that will take the two of them across Australia, to New York City, and to some
personal places neither of them anticipated?
This book is a charmer from start to finish–a wondrous
balance between riotous humor, gasping embarrassment, and sweetness. You will
snicker and laugh, but you will also find yourself yelling at the characters to
see what's in front of their faces. Both Don and Rosie are unforgettable. The
latter, in fact, might be the most seductively inappropriate mate since Alvy
Singer fell hard for Annie Hall.
I cannot emphasize strongly enough that you should read this
book before the film comes out as there are nuances, exchanges, and internal
thought processes within the text that I doubt will be as effective on the
screen. Simsion has written a follow-up titled The Rosie Effect, which is set for North American release very shortly.
I may delay reading that one–partly because of my distrust of sequels, but also
because I'm still savoring act one.
Rob Weir
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