A review by notablebird
Not Forgetting the Whale by John Ironmonger

informative medium-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

I very much wonder what I would have thought of this book if I had read it pre-Covid; I think I would have been much more alarmed about Covid when it happened than I was. It's a well-constructed book with a wonderfully apt central motif in the whale, a great way of exploring economic and resource dependencies through the character of a brokerage house data analyst, and some wonderfully descriptive writing that is neither hurried nor overly verbose. It was mostly an engaging read - even post-Covid. However, the circumstances and townspeople were mostly caricatures, and this is the departure point between this book and one of Fredrik Backman's: Backman writes complex characters (albeit sympathetically) and this book barely had one. Sure, caricatures made the book endearing in some ways and device-wise helped move the story along, but condescension loomed large at times, pointedly exemplied by the character of Aminata which was eye-raisingly poorly handled.  The complexity of certain sexually aggressive women and their effect on timorous men is also an uncomfortable element of the book and rather too dragged out.