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A review by annemaries_shelves
Fathoms: The World in the Whale by Rebecca Giggs
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.5
"We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours."
4.5 stars
As a story of how humans have related to whales and what we have done to them, this was so wonderfully written and horrifying to confront.
I wasn't quite sure what to expect with this book to be honest. I had anticipated more of the science of whales - how they grow and develop, how they live and socialize and communicate. There was some of that but not enough for my liking. What I got instead was a natural history of humanity and whales - past, present, and a little bit of future.
Throughout the book, Giggs explores the history of whaling (in one century we stole 3 million cetaceans from the oceans), the role of plastics and industrialization on oceans and whales (the sheer amount of trash found in their stomachs and pollutants in their blubber is awful), the charisma of whales and why/how we feel such a connection to whales and the deep blue wildness they live within, how whales communicate through sound and the ongoing noise pollution that disrupts their lives. She takes many facets of whale existence and modern human behaviour and pulls apart the details and demonstrates how far reaching and unexpected/unintended our impacts on are on whales and their ecosystems. A lot of the details were hard to read, but important.
Giggs doesn't focus a lot on the future - a mixed blessing since the present was so hard to grapple with. But what the data shows isn't promising. There is some hope though - hope that whales that do survive will adapt, and hope that humans will continue to fight for whales and all the unseen species in the world.
Her writing was a nice balance - mostly focused on the whales' stories with some authorial inserts of her experiences and stories. I appreciated that she's Australian and brought a lot of that context to the data and stories (whale and human) that she shared - it's a refreshing change from the sheer amount of American-centric nonfiction out there.
Overall, I wish she had included more about whales themselves and how they live independent of humanity. Though, considering how intertwined we've made ourselves with our environments, and how much we've integrated whales into our products and cultures, that may be asking for too much.
I recommend pairing this with Voices in the Ocean: A Journey in the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins by Susan Casey for a similar exploration from the dolphin perspective.
4.5 stars
As a story of how humans have related to whales and what we have done to them, this was so wonderfully written and horrifying to confront.
I wasn't quite sure what to expect with this book to be honest. I had anticipated more of the science of whales - how they grow and develop, how they live and socialize and communicate. There was some of that but not enough for my liking. What I got instead was a natural history of humanity and whales - past, present, and a little bit of future.
Throughout the book, Giggs explores the history of whaling (in one century we stole 3 million cetaceans from the oceans), the role of plastics and industrialization on oceans and whales (the sheer amount of trash found in their stomachs and pollutants in their blubber is awful), the charisma of whales and why/how we feel such a connection to whales and the deep blue wildness they live within, how whales communicate through sound and the ongoing noise pollution that disrupts their lives. She takes many facets of whale existence and modern human behaviour and pulls apart the details and demonstrates how far reaching and unexpected/unintended our impacts on are on whales and their ecosystems. A lot of the details were hard to read, but important.
Giggs doesn't focus a lot on the future - a mixed blessing since the present was so hard to grapple with. But what the data shows isn't promising. There is some hope though - hope that whales that do survive will adapt, and hope that humans will continue to fight for whales and all the unseen species in the world.
Her writing was a nice balance - mostly focused on the whales' stories with some authorial inserts of her experiences and stories. I appreciated that she's Australian and brought a lot of that context to the data and stories (whale and human) that she shared - it's a refreshing change from the sheer amount of American-centric nonfiction out there.
Overall, I wish she had included more about whales themselves and how they live independent of humanity. Though, considering how intertwined we've made ourselves with our environments, and how much we've integrated whales into our products and cultures, that may be asking for too much.
I recommend pairing this with Voices in the Ocean: A Journey in the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins by Susan Casey for a similar exploration from the dolphin perspective.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death