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A review by squid_vicious
Not Forgetting The Whale by John Ironmonger
4.0
You know all those dystopian books about how hopelessly screwed we are because humans are selfish, dumb and weak? This isn’t one of them. This is a hopeful book and it acted like a wonderfully soothing balm on this old punk’s frayed, fatalist nerves. Sure, it’s about what would happen if the world you took for granted suddenly collapsed. But it’s also about the idea that bad circumstances can bring out the best out of people if you give them a chance.
This is a fable about a small, sleepy Cornish village. It is rather predictably populated by quirky characters who, for a myriad reasons, would rather stay away from the busy parts of the world and live a quiet life by the sea. But one day, a stock trade analyst from the big city (London) washes up on the village beach, in his birthday suit, along with an almost beached fin whale. The villagers rescue the whale and take the mysterious stranger under their wing, and luckily for them, they believe him when he starts talking about the end of the world…
This book was a very pleasant surprise: my husband pointed it out in the book store and yes, I totally bought it because it had a whale on the cover. But sometimes, beautiful covers hide beautiful works!
Joe Haak worked for a big investment bank and in an attempt to design a program that could calculate investment risks by reading the news from all over the world and connecting the dots, he came to the conclusion that a pandemic was an inevitable and oncoming catastrophe. A strange series of events leads him to the shore of St. Piran, where he gets to know the close-knit community, befriends them and does everything in his power to help them cope with oncoming threat that will soon rattle the world as they know it.
Now I am not a particularly optimistic person: people are really not my favorite thing and I am pretty cynical. But reading about this little village and how they face up this global catastrophe with love, support and tolerance moved me very much. The characters are endearing, atypical and finely drawn. They have their differences, but they won’t let that get in the way of helping each other through this pandemic. The story is peppered with flashbacks of Joe’s job at the bank and his colleagues’ ruthlessness are cleverly contrasted with the St. Piran’s inhabitants’ simplicity and spirit of community. Joe’s determination to do the right thing by the people who helped him is wonderfully heart-warming. The idea that these people survive because they love and care for each other makes this a rather unique book in the usually very bleak genre of post-apocalyptic tales, and as such, it has a very special place on my shelf.
The themes of community, the inevitability of change, human nature and the ways it can surprise you really delighted me. The computer program (aptly named Cassandra, or Cassie for short) predicted the end of the world, but the machine doesn’t understand or take into account the human heart and it’s infinite potential for goodness. The obvious references to Jonah and the whale and to biblical prophets are not overstated; they simply give the story an almost mythological tone that somehow manages to remain grounded and believable.
I loved the very realistic apocalypse the book describes. I’ve read so many dystopian tales and most of them love the idea of nuclear catastrophe, global warming and flooding or alien invasion as their trigger-event for the end of the world as we know it. This was much more simple and also much more frightening, because it could happen at any time.
I docked half a star because the writing style, while clever and witty, sometimes lacked a bit of polish, but do not let my 4 ½ rounded-to-4 stars rating discourage you! This is a unique, lovely, hopeful read that might just restore your faith in human nature – just as the cover promises! Warmly recommended.
This is a fable about a small, sleepy Cornish village. It is rather predictably populated by quirky characters who, for a myriad reasons, would rather stay away from the busy parts of the world and live a quiet life by the sea. But one day, a stock trade analyst from the big city (London) washes up on the village beach, in his birthday suit, along with an almost beached fin whale. The villagers rescue the whale and take the mysterious stranger under their wing, and luckily for them, they believe him when he starts talking about the end of the world…
This book was a very pleasant surprise: my husband pointed it out in the book store and yes, I totally bought it because it had a whale on the cover. But sometimes, beautiful covers hide beautiful works!
Joe Haak worked for a big investment bank and in an attempt to design a program that could calculate investment risks by reading the news from all over the world and connecting the dots, he came to the conclusion that a pandemic was an inevitable and oncoming catastrophe. A strange series of events leads him to the shore of St. Piran, where he gets to know the close-knit community, befriends them and does everything in his power to help them cope with oncoming threat that will soon rattle the world as they know it.
Now I am not a particularly optimistic person: people are really not my favorite thing and I am pretty cynical. But reading about this little village and how they face up this global catastrophe with love, support and tolerance moved me very much. The characters are endearing, atypical and finely drawn. They have their differences, but they won’t let that get in the way of helping each other through this pandemic. The story is peppered with flashbacks of Joe’s job at the bank and his colleagues’ ruthlessness are cleverly contrasted with the St. Piran’s inhabitants’ simplicity and spirit of community. Joe’s determination to do the right thing by the people who helped him is wonderfully heart-warming. The idea that these people survive because they love and care for each other makes this a rather unique book in the usually very bleak genre of post-apocalyptic tales, and as such, it has a very special place on my shelf.
The themes of community, the inevitability of change, human nature and the ways it can surprise you really delighted me. The computer program (aptly named Cassandra, or Cassie for short) predicted the end of the world, but the machine doesn’t understand or take into account the human heart and it’s infinite potential for goodness. The obvious references to Jonah and the whale and to biblical prophets are not overstated; they simply give the story an almost mythological tone that somehow manages to remain grounded and believable.
I loved the very realistic apocalypse the book describes. I’ve read so many dystopian tales and most of them love the idea of nuclear catastrophe, global warming and flooding or alien invasion as their trigger-event for the end of the world as we know it. This was much more simple and also much more frightening, because it could happen at any time.
I docked half a star because the writing style, while clever and witty, sometimes lacked a bit of polish, but do not let my 4 ½ rounded-to-4 stars rating discourage you! This is a unique, lovely, hopeful read that might just restore your faith in human nature – just as the cover promises! Warmly recommended.