Group Read, September 2018: The Day of the Dolphin

Our September group read is The Day of the Dolphin by Robert Merle. Please join the read and post any comments on this thread.

So far I could only get my hands on a French edition. I'm still considering whether I'm ready for that.

>2 Henrik_Madsen: Mais oui

my review from back in 2010... a little bit spoilerish... although I thought Merle himself did most of the spoiling by writing it in the first place...

http://arukiyomi.com/?p=2432

Can't do the group challenge and the group read! Hopefully can get 1 of them completed in September. I have some real big ones working on right now....

I thought that I was going to have to pass on this one but I found a copy of the book and will be starting it in a week or so.

>4 arukiyomi: Ha!

I’ve made a start on this and it is one of those books that has you reaching for Boxall to work out why it’s one of the 1001 books to read before you die. Apparently it’s because it is a “perfectly crafted spy novel....poses some deep questions about the human capability for good and evil. Fascinating, at times disturbing and overall deeply moving”.

So far all I’ve read is novelisation of bits of dolphin research, and it is none of the above. I’ll give it more time...

The one peculiar aspect of the book is the random switches in punctuation and format. Parts are in normal quotation marks, others in unpunctuated solid paragraphs, others in play script, and scanning ahead I see some good old fashioned letters thrown in. I imagine this has something to do with the central theme of the difficulties of inter species communication, but I’m lost with it so far.

Good grief. Without venturing too far in to spoiler territory there is a news conference around page 170 that requires much more than a leap of faith. Whatever pretensions this book had of being taken even semi-seriously have been destroyed for me beyond this point (unless this turns out to be a dream sequence or some such thing).

Ah well, I made it without tipping any beverages on the book (annamorphic) though I was sorely tempted to on many occasions.

There were many things that irritated me about this novel (love interests that didn't interest me, gratuitous descriptions of female scientists' bodies ("her muscular thighs filled her short shorts to bursting" - what has that to do with anything???), the whole future of the world in the hands of one person....) but two irritations stand out.

The lesser of these was the annoying changes in paragraph structure, with regular shifts to long unpunctuated passages - why was this done?? (would be interested if anyone saw the point of this).

The major irritation though was the sudden step change I alluded to in >9 puckers: above. for the first part of the book the dolphin can make 40 one syllable sounds. They have a break through where he is able to string these together in a "sentence". Shortly afterwards they have a press conference to reveal this to the world. There the dolphins have long conversations using many advanced multi-syllable words, and can discourse to the public on many subjects including the movies of Anita Ekberg!! . For goodness sake. Does the author expect this book to be taken even semi-seriously or not?

Positives are few. There is the whole theme of hysteria pushing nations to war which absent the dolphins had a certain tension. Also a passage mocking the possibility of Ronald Reagan becoming US President which produced a rueful smile (he became President 14 years after the book was published).

Started my German edition today and am only a couple of pages in (no dolphin yet), but found the style so confusing that I thought I'd check here if it's just my translation. Seems it isn't. And in German we are used to endless sentences, it must read much worse in English.

"her muscular thighs filled her short shorts to bursting" - what has that to do with anything???

er... you do realise he's French, right?

Loved your comments though!

I have started my read of The Day of the Dolphin, I am only on page 20 but hope to get some reading time in this evening.

I am finding it a fairly quick read, sat and read about half tonight (decided to give myself a night off from school work). There are issues - it has not aged well and the press conference is rather far-fetched. However, there are more philosophical questions posed, such as nature vs nurture, ethics of experiments on animals and whether scientific research should be turned over to the military. I am wondering where it is going! Hope to finish it by the weekend, maybe all will be revealed in the second half!

I read this one last month. The sexism in the book was grating but this was the state of literature back then. I also agree that the author being French may have had a part in the sexism, not sure. It is a political statement against the US by a French author. This followed events like the Cuban Missle Crisis. I found it interesting that the main character was kind of based on the scientist in Minnesota (my state) that was working on dolphin language. I also found the statement about Ronald Reagan very interesting.

I found the book very dated and, for a thriller, rather boring. The author, like many from that time, uses his story to get across his anti-government sentiments. I don't understand how this book made the list as I found the writing rather mundane. As we know more about dolphins today, the plot has not stood up over time, and reading this book today makes it seem almost ridiculous. I think the sexism was the norm of the day - just look at the James Bond books!

actually the only Bond book on the list (Casino Royale) surprised me in regard to how it treated the so-called Bond girl. It also surprised me for its graphic description of an approach to torture I'll never forget.

Anyway... totally agree that how this made the list is a mystery. But it's apparently better than any of the 10 that were recently removed.... NOT!

Another example of the sexism in books Heinlein's Stranger in A Strange Land 1961. The women in the book reminded me of Charlie's Angels.

I have finished it now, still no idea why it is on the list.

I'm at 67% now and find it hard-going. Not sure about the sexism (that was more blatant in the Bond), every character is described so drastically, the men as well, it's like it used to be a comic book turned into novel and every extreme feature (big breasts, big muscles, hairy arms) has to be mentioned. I keep seeing those people while reading, not like real people, more like illustrations. The women here so far aren't weak (in the context of the book's time), they're just either very feminine or not, as the men are very male - or not. Bond, I felt, deeply despised women.

The language is difficult, maybe it's partly the translation, but the story has become so terrible since the dolphins started talking like humans. Is it a bad thing to say I don't like Fa and Bi?

It's interesting that the government critique (all governments, just read the reaction of the UK and France) can be more or less applied to our times.

>20 Deern: I agree with you re the physical descriptions of both women and men. I could maybe understand or take on board this aspect if there was sexual tension etc at the heart of the story. Here though it just seems completely gratuitous - “here is a female scientist who is unlikeable and by the way she has large breasts and thighs”

PS even though no one seems to be loving this book it is nice to see it sparking a lot of discussion; a group read doesn’t necessarily have to be a good read,

and there are plenty on the 1001 list that aren't good reads! Don't think anyone will be nominating Gargantua and Pantagruel anytime soon...

I think The Day of the Dolphin was a great choice for a group read - this way we can all suffer together and get this one ticked off the list. :)

I somehow always find myself on the opposite end of the spectrum of opinion on our group reads and this was no exception. I actually liked this book and found it mostly interesting (though I'll admit the descriptions of the female scientists were grating.)

I thought it was interesting to see how the dolphins' abilities progressed and they moved to the inevitable conclusion.... I enjoyed seeing how Merle got there.

I gave this one a solid three stars, and can think of quite a few list books I liked a lot less.