The Apes of God

''The Apes of God'' (1930) is a striking and satirical novel by British artist and writer Wyndham Lewis, a satire of London's contemporary literary and artistic scene. The Sitwells, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury group are among the writers satirised. Tutored by a 60-year-old Albino dilettante, Dan travels through the London art world. He is horrified, confused and bored by the contrived "broadcasts" of the "apes", a series of pseudo-artists who resemble, on the one hand, absurd mechanical dolls, and on the other, specific personages of the era. It's a scathing (and 600 page) novel about the London world of arts and letters in the mid-1920s. The "apes" are dilettante artists, mimicking a real creator without knowing what they are doing.