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smidgetburn's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
peter0472's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
4.0
avalon111's review against another edition
3.0
Well this was a revelation.
It had sat on my bookshelves for (again) likely four decades, but can't remember it at all.
And rarely, this is novel where the movie adaptation is better than the source material. Quite unlike say, the Harry Potter novels, which are consistently better than the movies, which themselves are nonetheless very good.
TDotD is pretty good until chapter 8. The stream-of-consciousness-like writing is a tad irritating, particularly where dialogue is included. Plus there are quite a few run-on sentences that never seen to stop. If you read such pages aloud you'd asphyxiate yourself! Regardless, for a thriller, and it certainly is a thriller, it is pretty good. Until, as mentioned, you get to chapter 8.
Which is when the wheels fall off and the novel goes into the well, territory of the unbelievable. A lengthy Press Conference scene is so out-of-kilter with what has gone before, that its like Robert Merle had written up to that point, then run-out-of-steam and returned to his draft months later, having lost the thread of what he'd been writing.
Because from Chapter 8 the novel drops right off the deep end, into a long speculative and faintly absurd narrative that recovers only just before the end. It makes it worthwhile persisting with, but you might want to save yourself the bother; Buck Henry, who wrote the screenplay for Mike Nichols 1973 adaptation, removed all of the gumpf and certainly all of the sheer unbelievability (from chapter 8 onwards) of the novel and delivered the story that Merle would have perhaps found too sensible. Watch the movie. It's way better.
It had sat on my bookshelves for (again) likely four decades, but can't remember it at all.
And rarely, this is novel where the movie adaptation is better than the source material. Quite unlike say, the Harry Potter novels, which are consistently better than the movies, which themselves are nonetheless very good.
TDotD is pretty good until chapter 8. The stream-of-consciousness-like writing is a tad irritating, particularly where dialogue is included. Plus there are quite a few run-on sentences that never seen to stop. If you read such pages aloud you'd asphyxiate yourself! Regardless, for a thriller, and it certainly is a thriller, it is pretty good. Until, as mentioned, you get to chapter 8.
Which is when the wheels fall off and the novel goes into the well, territory of the unbelievable. A lengthy Press Conference scene is so out-of-kilter with what has gone before, that its like Robert Merle had written up to that point, then run-out-of-steam and returned to his draft months later, having lost the thread of what he'd been writing.
Because from Chapter 8 the novel drops right off the deep end, into a long speculative and faintly absurd narrative that recovers only just before the end. It makes it worthwhile persisting with, but you might want to save yourself the bother; Buck Henry, who wrote the screenplay for Mike Nichols 1973 adaptation, removed all of the gumpf and certainly all of the sheer unbelievability (from chapter 8 onwards) of the novel and delivered the story that Merle would have perhaps found too sensible. Watch the movie. It's way better.
tobin_elliott's review
Well, that was a short one. 36 pages in, and I'm out. Why?
The writing.
Let me tell you about the writing...
First, for the initial 4 1/2 pages, the author does not use quotation marks whatsoever, then, about halfway down the fifth page, for no reason, he starts. He then uses them reasonably consistently for 20-ish pages, then drops and then uses them again. So...yeah, it's gonna be like that.
The second is the habit of writing a paragraph full of useless, stream-of-conscious thoughts that not only don't add anything to the plot, but they actually detract from the pacing.
And then there's the run-on sentences.
I'll just give you the first two sentences that open chapter two...that should give you enough to go on...
The writing.
Let me tell you about the writing...
First, for the initial 4 1/2 pages, the author does not use quotation marks whatsoever, then, about halfway down the fifth page, for no reason, he starts. He then uses them reasonably consistently for 20-ish pages, then drops and then uses them again. So...yeah, it's gonna be like that.
The second is the habit of writing a paragraph full of useless, stream-of-conscious thoughts that not only don't add anything to the plot, but they actually detract from the pacing.
And then there's the run-on sentences.
I'll just give you the first two sentences that open chapter two...that should give you enough to go on...
The room was hygienically empty, not a magazine, not a scrap of paper, just three armchairs, a small table with an ashtray, and on the painted walls three engravings of full-rigged ships in foul weather, C looked at the ships wearily, he felt a twinge in the vicinity of his stomach, the pain was not sharp but constant, it did not seem to come from the inside of the organs but from their walls, it was more like a painful contraction of the muscles, it radiated downward to the abdomen and upward under the ribs, at times it reached the vertebrae, C felt that if he could just lie down, flex his legs, and relax his muscles his painful organs would return to normal but this was not true, the pain never went away, actually it wasn't a real pain, more of a pressure, vague, diffuse, insistent, unbearable, he could forget it for over an hour at a time if his attention was concentrated, but it returned with disturbing regularity, even at night he could not sleep, everything was breaking down, his nerves were shot, he tired more easily, recovery was slower, C sank into a chair and closed his eyes.
As he did so the blond head of Johnnie rolled against his arm, there was a brief spasm, his lips sucked the air with a convulsive shudder, there was a sudden slackening of the legs and it was all over, they were lying in a rice paddy surrounded by a cloud of mauve mosquitoes, bullets, and mortar fire, behind me a GI said, "He's had it," we had to wait for night so the helicopters could land, the orderly in the copter removed the dog tags from the dead, his eyes met mine, he looked sad and bitter, he shuffled the dog tags in the palm of his hand and said, "They don't take up much space: a dozen Americans."
There's so much wrong with those two sentences. They skip around various topics. They switch point of view. And they're deplorable to read.
Now, having said all that, this book was originally published in 1967 in French language, and then translated and released in English two years later.
I picked this book up, because I read it when I was roughly 13 or so, so, ballpark, around 1975 or so. I remember enjoying enough that I picked up the only other Robert Merle book I ever found, Malevil, and I remember enjoying that one too.
Here we are, not quite fifty years later, and I can only think, damn, I was a lot more patient with crap writing back then.
Anyway, I couldn't bear the thought of wading through another 282 pages of this dreck, no matter if there is a good story buried in there somewhere.
And, because it's a DNF, no rating.
kingfan30's review against another edition
3.0
I had no idea what this book was about when I picked up and after reading a few pages and realising it was dolphins in captivity I wondered if I could carry on - its something I don't agree with. But I decided to stick with it for a bit before closing it up for good. As it turned out there is something about this book that made me want to carry on reading. I liked the fact there were the different formats, the letters, recoded conversation and the main story, it helped to break things up a bit. On a negative, the main story was huge paragraphs with very little punctuation and no speech marks to indicate when people were speaking, you had to keep your with a out you to stay on track of who was saying what. I also found some of the reports a bit long winded to. Overall not a bad read though and I believe there's a film which I may have to track down for a watch.
cnyreader's review
3.0
The Vietnam War is on, and WWIII might be imminent. Henry Sevilla, the main character, and his team have been researching dolphins and language, and are trying to teach the dolphin they raised from birth to speak English. There are rumors that the Soviets are in a similar place in their work with dolphins, and could be training them as soldiers. Sevilla, while subsidized by the federal government, has no interest in anything of that nature, though he suspects he is being watched and monitored constantly.
While my synopsis seems quite political, the politics are mostly a backdrop- an ever present backdrop, but backdrop all the same. The characters of Sevilla and his team all have distinct personalities and the dolphins... part of me wishes this story were real. It would be so COOL! This book is part science fiction, part thriller, part social commentary, and a great overall story.
Food: a steak dinner with a little molecular gastronomy. Meaty and satisfying, with a bit of a twist that you weren't expecting.
While my synopsis seems quite political, the politics are mostly a backdrop- an ever present backdrop, but backdrop all the same. The characters of Sevilla and his team all have distinct personalities and the dolphins... part of me wishes this story were real. It would be so COOL! This book is part science fiction, part thriller, part social commentary, and a great overall story.
Food: a steak dinner with a little molecular gastronomy. Meaty and satisfying, with a bit of a twist that you weren't expecting.
riduidel's review against another edition
1.0
Première lecture
Aux frontières de la science-fiction et de la politique-fiction (comme le dit l’auteur dans la préface) ce roman est pourtant éminement intéressant, et ce à plus d’un titre. D’abord, et de manière évidente, pour sa thèse principale : que se passerait-il si un scientifique arrivait à faire accéder les dauphins à un langage humainement compréhensible(1) ?
Elle seule suffit à produire des situations assez facilement exploitables (en témoigne la saga de [a:David Brin|14078|David Brin|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1352956147p2/14078.jpg]). Et son exploitation est, qui plus est, très intelligente avec les tâtonnements du héros (scientifique, évidement) et ses multiples questionnements. Par son écriture, ensuite, qui m’a rappelée d’une certaine manière celle du [b:Festin Nu|6771706|Le Scénario Du "Festin Nu"|David Cronenberg|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1501733474s/6771706.jpg|6971186], avec ces phrases sans démarcation visible, ni entre les différentes propositions, ni même entre les différents intervenants d’un dialogue, ce qui est pour un partisan d’une écriture bien ponctuée comme moi très perturbant, mais indéniablement séduisant. Enfin, [a:Robert Merle|54354|Robert Merle|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1216158704p2/54354.jpg] place son récit, pour une raison qui m’échappait initiallement, aux Etats-Unis. Dans la mesure où il le place également à une époque contemporaine de l’écriture, c’est-à-dire à la fin des années soixante, il est logique qu’on contexte géopolitique spécifique influence grandement le récit. Ainsi, la guerre du Vietnam, qui n’apparaît initialement que comme une toile de fond assez déplaisante, entre peu à peu dans le récit pour finalement rejoindre sa trame principale d’une manière assez tragique. Tragique, dans le récit, mais très agréable pour le lecteur, car ces dauphins, qui n’apparaissent tout d’abord que comme les jouets d’une expérience assez éloignée des nécessités de la guerre, deviennent d’un seul coup des armes on ne peut plus meurtrières. Est-il nécessaire d’en dire plus ? Sans doute, car ce roman est tout de même aux frontières de plusieurs genres, et risque donc de louper son public.
Pour moi, il s’agit avant tout d’un excellent roman d’anticipation, partant de postulats très intelligents, et posant avec beaucoup de style de vraies questions fondamentales, dont au moins une est implicite et, à mon sens, laissée intentionnellement ouverte par l’auteur : "Faut-il apporter le langage aux espèces animales ?" ou, dit autrement, qu’ont à gagner les dauphins et autres cétacés à nous comprendre ? Peut-être rien, mais en tout cas, ce roman offre une fascinante piste de réflexion.
(1) En l’occurence, l’anglais
Deuxième lecture
En ce moment, je me paye des tonnes de relectures de fonds de placards. Pour changer, et parce que je m’en souvenias plus trop, j’ai donc repris cette histoire de dauphins parleurs qui aurait pu inspirer Brin pour son cycle de l’élévation … Enfin, je dis ça juste pour créer un buzz inutile, parce que ça n’est pas le sujet de cet avis. Quand j’aurais fini de vous dire ce que j’en ai pensé, j’irais comparer avec mon avis précédent, pour voir comment j’ai évolué.
Toujours est-il que, cette fois-ci, j’ai été franchement déçu. je ne me souvenais plus que l’auteur faisait à ce point assaut de phrases mal construites, mal ponctuées, et tout bonnement illisibles. Je comprend bien que, dans de nombreux cas, l’auteur a utilisé ce procédé pour nous faire rentrer dans la tête des protagonsites et que, dans un certain sens, c’est un succès.
C’est un succès en un sens car on comprend bien les ressorts de ces personnages, leurs pensées les plus secrètes.
Mais c’est aussi un échec pour moi car, franchement, ce qu’ils pensent m’indiffère la plupart du temps, quand ça ne me révulse pas tout simplement. Qu’il s’agisse de C(1), d’Adams, ou d’autres, on a toujours l’impression, quand l’auteur emploie ce procédé, de tomber dans un marigot fangeux où aucune pensée n’est réellement intelligente, mais plutôt de l’ordre de la pulsion. Et, bien sûr, ces pulsions sont toujours à la fois sexuelles et empreintes d’une honte toute puritaine. (2). Et ça, c’est agaçant.
Surtout que ça ne sert vraiment pas le récit, l’alourdissant dans une couche moralisante qui n’est pas vraiment en rapport avec l’idée de départ, plutôt bien fichu.
Et puis, il y a les personnages. Entre la lesbienne, le métrosexuel et la mocheté, on est bien loti. C’est dit crûment, et c’est précisément ce qui manque à ce bouquin : un peu de clarté. Parce queles allusions, les sous-entendus, les bidules, les machins, et les choses, on s’y retrouve difficilement.
Et quel fouillis que ça nous fait, tout ça.
En fait, le bouquin a failli me tomber plus d’une fois ddes mains et vient de passer dans ma pile “à faire disparaître”. Pile où naguère se trouvaient les tomes de l’assassin royal, pour donner une idée du niveau où je le place maintenant.
Auto-débat
Pour rire, je vais comparer avec mon avis précédent. Dans cet avis, j’en disais pas mal de bien.
[un roman fascinant] Par son écriture, ensuite, qui m’a rappelée d’une certaine manière celle du Festin Nu, avec ces phrases sans démarcation visible, ni entre les différentes propositions, ni même entre les différents intervenants d’un dialogue, ce qui est pour un partisan d’une écriture bien ponctuée comme moi très perturbant, mais indéniablement séduisant
En vieillissant, on se sclérose, semble-t-il, ou alors je lis moins et suis donc moins tolérant. Toujours est-il que j’ai cette fois-ci trouvé le procédé artificiel, un peu grotesque et, surtout, complètement inutile dans le récit. Car jamais Sevilla n’a ces appartés (si, une fois, mais pas longtemps, et dans un moment de stress où c’est – presque – compréhensible). Et jamais ce procédé ne nous apprend quelque chose de plus signifiant que tiens, j’ai oublié de fermer le gaz..
Pour moi, il s’agit avant tout d’un excellent roman d’anticipation, partant de postulats très intelligents, et posant avec beaucoup de style de vraies questions fondamentales,
A la réflexion, je suis d’accord. Mais hélas, le roman est desservi par un style qui, franchement, n’apporte rien d’autre que des dizaines de pages inutiles.
(1) Cet espèce d’espion sur le retour
(2) Parce que comme le disait Anne Archet sur son blog pas plus tard qu’il y a pas longtemps,
Je ne sais pas pourquoi mais j’ai longtemps confondu les mots puritain et putain. D’ailleurs, il me semble toujours que les deux termes sont inséparables, ontologiquement liés.
abomine's review
challenging
dark
funny
tense
fast-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This was...strange.
What I expected: something rather like Into The Deep by Ken Grimwood, with the gentle and intelligent dolphins saving foolish and violent humanity from themselves, except with more espionage and a deathly fear of communists. Nothing mind-blowing, but some good old trope-filled fun.
What I got: an absolutely scathing, vicious satire of Cold War America, so bleak, paranoid, and pessimistic in tone that it's almost NOT a satire, except for the hilarious contempt with which Robert Merle describes the world-spanning political games, and the inherently funny concept of dolphins that can speak perfect English.
Speaking of dolphins, they were the only likable characters in this book. They didn't have any steep competition from the human characters, though, as pretty much every single one of them, even the 'heroes', were either reprehensible or only slightly awful. I suppose that was largely the point, setting up the dishonest, scheming humans as a foil for the innocent dolphins (funnily enough, according to marine biologists, dolphins aren't nearly so innocent in real life). I was reminded of the contrast between noble, sentient Houyhnhnms and the repulsive, bestial Yahoos from Gulliver's Travels.
But what separates Gulliver's Travels (a satiric masterpiece) from Day of the Dolphin (a good effort) is that Gulliver's Travels is an absolutely brutal satire with an extremely cynical view of humanity, but it's consistently hilarious. Day of the Dolphin has an amusing undercurrent (the talking dolphins and sarcastic portrayal of world leaders), but overall, it's just not quite funny enough to compensate for the book's largely hopeless and negative perspective.
What I expected: something rather like Into The Deep by Ken Grimwood, with the gentle and intelligent dolphins saving foolish and violent humanity from themselves, except with more espionage and a deathly fear of communists. Nothing mind-blowing, but some good old trope-filled fun.
What I got: an absolutely scathing, vicious satire of Cold War America, so bleak, paranoid, and pessimistic in tone that it's almost NOT a satire, except for the hilarious contempt with which Robert Merle describes the world-spanning political games, and the inherently funny concept of dolphins that can speak perfect English.
Speaking of dolphins, they were the only likable characters in this book. They didn't have any steep competition from the human characters, though, as pretty much every single one of them, even the 'heroes', were either reprehensible or only slightly awful. I suppose that was largely the point, setting up the dishonest, scheming humans as a foil for the innocent dolphins (funnily enough, according to marine biologists, dolphins aren't nearly so innocent in real life). I was reminded of the contrast between noble, sentient Houyhnhnms and the repulsive, bestial Yahoos from Gulliver's Travels.
But what separates Gulliver's Travels (a satiric masterpiece) from Day of the Dolphin (a good effort) is that Gulliver's Travels is an absolutely brutal satire with an extremely cynical view of humanity, but it's consistently hilarious. Day of the Dolphin has an amusing undercurrent (the talking dolphins and sarcastic portrayal of world leaders), but overall, it's just not quite funny enough to compensate for the book's largely hopeless and negative perspective.
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