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the Complete Review
the complete review - fiction



Eye of the Monkey

by
Tóth Krisztina


general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

To purchase Eye of the Monkey


Title: Eye of the Monkey
Author: Tóth Krisztina
Genre: Novel
Written: 2022 (Eng. 2025)
Length: 300 pages
Original in: Hungarian
Availability: Eye of the Monkey - US
Eye of the Monkey - UK
Eye of the Monkey - Canada
Gli occhi della scimmia - Italia
from: Bookshop.org (US)
  • Hungarian title: A majom szeme
  • Translated by Ottilie Mulzet

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Our Assessment:

B : atmospheric but too diffuse

See our review for fuller assessment.



Review Summaries
Source Rating Date Reviewer
Financial Times . 7/10/2025 Matthew Janney
Irish Times . 9/11/2025 Declan O'Driscoll
The NY Times Book Rev. . 15/10/2025 Rebecca Makkai


  From the Reviews:
  • "There is, as you have probably gleaned, little to be optimistic about in the book’s dystopian cosmos. But there is great enjoyment to be found in Tóth’s artistry; in the precision of her images (...), in the originality of her characterisation (.....) What we are left with is not only a powerful impression of the alienating effects of authoritarianism, but a cautionary tale about individual self-deception." - Matthew Janney, Financial Times

  • "The writing style is cool, almost detached, but it is this precision that allows us to understand or repudiate the actions of the characters. More questionable, however, is the decision to locate the action of the novel in a dystopian future. This has little impact, and the portrayal of divided cities, where the wealthy and the impoverished reside separately, is cliched." - Declan O'Driscoll, Irish Times

  • "Novels that take on this assignment (Many characters ! Many walks of life ! A tortuous chronology !) tend to end up dissipated and confusing. Remarkably, Toth manages to hold our focus as the story forks in controlled, if mysterious, ways. A book that can be snaking and labyrinthine without sprawling aimlessly is -- like an author who can handle elusiveness without opacity or coyness -- quite a rare thing. (...) If I’ve made Eye of the Monkey seem like a dark book, that’s not without reason. Every single character is careening toward doom. But it’s also deeply funny, especially when Toth’s gift for metaphor claims its space." - Rebecca Makkai, The New York Times Book Review

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Eye of the Monkey shifts between a number of figures, the most prominent being Gizella (also called, among other things Gizi, and preferring to be called Giselle) -- with many of the chapters narrated by her in the first-person (while most of the novel is in the third person) -- and the psychiatrist she sees, Mihály Kreutzer. The setting is a totalitarian country, the 'Unified Regency' formed after a civil war, ruled by the Regent. The local miserable conditions come up along the way -- there are 'segregation zones' and great poverty; "the trains no longer stopped in the more dangerous districts where the poor lived"; there are only two newspapers -- but are not harped upon; they make for an ominous backdrop, but also one accepted by the characters, who try to make do as best they can, the conditions only one factor in their more general personal discontent.
       Giselle is a professor at the New University -- a heavily-promoted new institution to which:

Many students were signing up, albeit reluctantly, because, despite the promise of tuition-free education and a well-located, guarded dormitory for the out-of-towners, they had to sign a paper obligating them to work for a state-affiliated institution after graduation, regardless of other job offers. Additionally, every student had to pledge to volunteer thirty hours of their time each month while enrolled. Everyone knew this meant working in a government troll factory: Glittering advancement and a secure future awaited those industrious students who posted the wittiest and most hateful comments, who mobilized a maximum of people online to verbal attack -- just as everyone knew also knew that employees of state institutions had virtually no private life, no free will of their own.
       It is an institution founded on the principle: "Educational study should begin with complete forgetting; this was the university's motto" -- and the nation as a whole seems built on similar poor foundations, obviously destined to crumble.
       Eye of the Monkey begins as something of a mystery-thriller, as Giselle finds she is being shadowed by a young man. She doesn't know who he is or why he might be following her, but clearly he is. Regarding this, as well as the lingering trauma of her sister's death, Dr.Kreutzer isn't much help; in fact, his own issues get in the way of any professional help he might be able to offer, as he makes other, personal demands of Giselle which certainly complicate things.
       Dr.Kreutzer has any number of issues. Recently separated from his wife (the mother of their two children), he also has the death of his mother (and the clean-up of her apartment) to deal with. And Dr.Kreutzer also has some high-level connections -- none higher than the Regent himself, whom he knows and has worked with.
       The various threads unfold and come together slowly over the course of a novel that drifts in a variety of directions. We learn more about the young man following Giselle -- who turns to Dr.Kreutzer as well --, as well as the past and present of Giselle, and of Dr.Kreutzer.
       Above all then, too, is the fact that the Unified Regency is facing a calamity: something has gone wrong and the system is not equipped to handle it adequately (as the Regent realizes at one point along the way: "Three precious days had been wasted because of these impotent, idiotic people, incapable of making a decision, and they still hadn't taken any steps"). In the desperate attempt to try to deal with at least some of the situation, Dr.Kreutzer is charged with vetting people appropriate for the tasks -- while he increasingly more desperately looks for a way out for his family, and himself.
       It all makes for an oddly subdued kind of thriller -- the ominous feel always hanging over much of the story, but the story itself too diffuse to truly ever completely grip the reader. Dr.Kreutzer is a compelling enough protagonist -- it is him (and his fate) that ultimately are at the fore (certainly at least by the end) -- and the other threads are also of interest, but it all is perhaps simply not stark enough along the way.

- M.A.Orthofer, 10 November 2025

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