BY ELLA PERCIVAL

 

Graeme Simsion’s first-time novel, The Rosie Project, makes for amusing and light-hearted reading. It covers love, autism and genetics as the author makes a seamless shift from the world of database modelling to popular fiction.

Beginning life as a screenplay, the plot is a romantic comedy told from the unexpected perspective of genetics professor, Professor Don Tillman, who has trouble interacting with women. (Just don’t challenge him on ice-cream flavours!) He begins ‘The Wife Project’ – a targeted questionnaire that aims to establish compatibility - to try and find someone who shares his love of organised time schedules, the Standardised Meal System and science. When the fiery Rosie walks into his life in search of a father she’s never known, all scheduling goes out of the window and Don is left trying to reconfigure himself into a life of late-night meals, too many bottles of wine and spontaneous trips to New York. Could such an unsuitable, jewellery-wearing, cigarette smoking woman ever become a ‘suitable’ wife?

Free-spirited Rosie picks up on the innocently misogynistic undertones of Don’s plan and challenges him in ways he could never have expected. It is by no means a novel that advocates such a project. In fact, quite the opposite. Don slowly realises that emotion and scientific reasoning don’t mix well and that ‘The Wife Project’ slowly morphs into ‘The Don Project’ as he sets out to make himself an eligible ‘Gregory-Peck-style’ husband. Although the novel suggests the uplifting idea that love and happiness are attainable for everyone, Simsion perhaps places too much energy into the ‘self-improvement’ of his protagonist but, eventually, as in the best rom-coms, love will out.

The beauty of the novel lies in its perspective. Written in a conversational, first-person style and almost a lab report in itself, the infinite logic of Don and the way in which it is constantly flawed by the illogic of human interaction provides humour and heart-warming sympathy. While not as ground-breaking as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Simsion successfully avoids mocking the autistic main character, although could be criticised for ever so slightly romanticising a serious condition – but, hey, that’s Hollywood!

A few slight plot loopholes towards the end can be overlooked in the overall enjoyment of the novel as a read. A high-paced, cross-continent adventure that will keep you turning pages on a journey of love and self-discovery in the modern, cold-hearted world of scientific logic.

 

This book was published by Penguin and is available to buy for £7.99. It can also be borrowed from The Hive as well as other Worcestershire libraries. Click here to check availability and check it out.