Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings
by Christopher Moore
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Marine biologist Nate Quinn is in love with the majestic ocean-dwelling behemoths who have been singing their haunting song for twenty million years. But why do the humpback whales sing? That's the question that has Nate and his crew filming, charting, and recording every whale that crosses their path. Until one day when a whale lifts its tail to display a message spelled out in foot-high letters: Bite Me.... No one has ever seen such a thing; not Nate's longtime partner, not world-renowned show more photographer Clay Demodocus, not their saucy young research assistant, Amy, not even spliff-puffing white-boy Rastaman, Kona. And when the film returns from the lab missing the crucial tail shot--and their research facility is trashed--Nate realizes that something very fishy is going on. It only gets weirder when a call comes in from Nate's big-bucks benefactor, saying that a whale has phoned her, asking for a hot pastrami and Swiss on rye. Suddenly the answer to the question that has driven Nate throughout his adult life is within reach. And it's not what anyone would think. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
Dr.Science The English author Tom Holt is relatively unknown in America, but very popular in England. If you enjoy Jasper Fforde or Christopher Moore you will most certainly enjoy Tom Holt's wry sense of English humor and the absurd. He has written a number of excellent books including Expecting Someone Taller, and Flying Dutch, but they may be difficult to find at your library or bookstore.
10
JessyHere Similar wacky characters.
Staramber A little less surreal and a bit more sweet but the same pace and sense of the absurd.
02
Bookmarque A detective novel with ties to the supernatural. Not as humorous as this, but not completely serious either.
03
Member Reviews
A whale researcher and his attractive young assistant (assuming there is such thing as a young researcher that isn't attractive) are cruising the waters off Hawaii when a whale surfaces with "Bite me" written across its fluke. Nathan Quinn, the researcher, has a bit of a mental breakdown as he tries to wrap his mind around how something like that could happen. Little does he know what sort of completely absurd slope he's about to slip down.
First his place is broken into. Then the research funder, lovingly referred to as The Old Broad, tells him she talked to the whale and it wants a hot pastrami and Swiss on rye. You'd think it couldn't get much stranger when Amy (that's the attractive young assistant) locates a whale by sticking her show more head under the water and listening for its call...but that's really only the beginning.
I really liked it. It's charming, it's witty, a little quirky, and of course incredibly dirty, but in a charming/witty/quirky way. Moore seems to consistently have strong protagonists, and once again I loved all the ones in this book. Even the ones that I didn't at first, like the annoying white Rastafarian/surfer guy.
It did, however, make me sad that I don't have a prehensile penis. show less
First his place is broken into. Then the research funder, lovingly referred to as The Old Broad, tells him she talked to the whale and it wants a hot pastrami and Swiss on rye. You'd think it couldn't get much stranger when Amy (that's the attractive young assistant) locates a whale by sticking her show more head under the water and listening for its call...but that's really only the beginning.
I really liked it. It's charming, it's witty, a little quirky, and of course incredibly dirty, but in a charming/witty/quirky way. Moore seems to consistently have strong protagonists, and once again I loved all the ones in this book. Even the ones that I didn't at first, like the annoying white Rastafarian/surfer guy.
It did, however, make me sad that I don't have a prehensile penis. show less
I save my 5 star reviews for books I think are so excellent that they just might rekindle your love for all that is bookish.
That said, if I could give Fluke by Christopher Moore 4.5 stars, I would. This is an almost offensively well-written book considering the daftness of the still-quite-engaging plot. I often wanted to rush to my computer to quote my favorite lines to friends, to encourage them to read it too.
The drawback is that Christopher Moore likes plots so out there (see the 'lost years' chapters in Biff: The Story of Christ's Childhood Pal) (or just see Biff: The Story of Christ's Childhood Pal) that if you're not into his style of writing or his characters you might just respond with a 'what in the what, now?' and stop show more reading.
Moore's women characters are also sometimes a tad under cooked. Some of their back stories come in quick parenthetical updates, as if an editor said to Moore 'I know you have a reason in mind why she responded this way; care to fill the rest of us in?' Still, his women are both smart and strong (if anything, he has trouble introducing faults with them). For this reason, I wasn't bothered by the women characters, I just wish the dial on them had been turned up a notch.
My only real complaint with this book is I just couldn't wait to read it on a vacation near water, as the well realized setting of Hawaii just screams 'beach read.'
tl;dr: If you like funny books with well-crafted turns of phrase and don't mind outlandish tales this is a book you may well come to love. show less
That said, if I could give Fluke by Christopher Moore 4.5 stars, I would. This is an almost offensively well-written book considering the daftness of the still-quite-engaging plot. I often wanted to rush to my computer to quote my favorite lines to friends, to encourage them to read it too.
The drawback is that Christopher Moore likes plots so out there (see the 'lost years' chapters in Biff: The Story of Christ's Childhood Pal) (or just see Biff: The Story of Christ's Childhood Pal) that if you're not into his style of writing or his characters you might just respond with a 'what in the what, now?' and stop show more reading.
Moore's women characters are also sometimes a tad under cooked. Some of their back stories come in quick parenthetical updates, as if an editor said to Moore 'I know you have a reason in mind why she responded this way; care to fill the rest of us in?' Still, his women are both smart and strong (if anything, he has trouble introducing faults with them). For this reason, I wasn't bothered by the women characters, I just wish the dial on them had been turned up a notch.
My only real complaint with this book is I just couldn't wait to read it on a vacation near water, as the well realized setting of Hawaii just screams 'beach read.'
tl;dr: If you like funny books with well-crafted turns of phrase and don't mind outlandish tales this is a book you may well come to love. show less
A great book! Christopher Moore is funny, imaginative and a great writer to boot.
Nate Quinn is a Canadian marine biologist studying the song of humpback whales in Hawaii. Sounds like an ideal job for a Canadian. (I remember when I was in my last year of undergraduate university when I was trying to figure out what to do next receiving a brochure from the University of Hawaii around the middle of January. Given that I was attending the University of Manitoba and that it was, as always in Winnipeg in January, about -30 deg. C. with 5 feet of snow outside, it's a wonder I didn't hop a plane immediately.) However, Nate has his problems in paradise. He's been studying the whale song for years and he is no closer to understanding why they show more sing than he was when he started. He has a new female research assistant, Amy, that he is attracted to even though he realizes it is highly inappropriate. His partner, Clay, has hired another helper who failed to show up for his first morning of work. But what is even more disturbing is that when he was out with the whales he saw (or thought he saw) the words "Bite Me" in foot-high letters on a humpback's tail. He thinks he got a picture of it but has to wait until the film is developed (obviously prior to the days of digital photography) to be sure. Meanwhile he goes back to the compound to find that it has been trashed and all the research of decades has been destroyed. Then up pops Kona, the missing helper, who talks in a mixture of Rasta, pidgin and surfspeak that is barely understandable. The fact that Kona is white and high on dope makes him even more suspicious but Nate decides to give him the benefit of the doubt.
So that's the main characters of the story. From the subtitle you can guess that Nate figures out why the whales sing but the path to enlightenment is circuitous, to say the least. Moore had to learn a lot about scientists and research and especially whales and, although I can't speak about the whale info, he gets the stuff about scientists and research right. And I love the fact that he made Nate a Canadian. At page 40 he has this to say about Canadians "...Canadians hate, above all things, to offend. It was part of the national consciousness. 'Be polite' was an unwritten, unspoken rule, but ingrained into the psyche of an entire country. (Of course, as with any rule, there were exceptions: parts of Quebec, where people maintained the 'dismissive to the point of confrontation, with subsequent surrender' mind-set of the French; and hockey, in which any Canadian may, with impunity, slam, pummel, elbow, smack, punch, body-check, and beat the shit out of, with sticks, any other human being, punctuated by profanities, name-calling, questioning parentage, and accusations of bestiality, usually--coincidentally--in French.)" How can you not like someone who writes like that about one's nationality? show less
Nate Quinn is a Canadian marine biologist studying the song of humpback whales in Hawaii. Sounds like an ideal job for a Canadian. (I remember when I was in my last year of undergraduate university when I was trying to figure out what to do next receiving a brochure from the University of Hawaii around the middle of January. Given that I was attending the University of Manitoba and that it was, as always in Winnipeg in January, about -30 deg. C. with 5 feet of snow outside, it's a wonder I didn't hop a plane immediately.) However, Nate has his problems in paradise. He's been studying the whale song for years and he is no closer to understanding why they show more sing than he was when he started. He has a new female research assistant, Amy, that he is attracted to even though he realizes it is highly inappropriate. His partner, Clay, has hired another helper who failed to show up for his first morning of work. But what is even more disturbing is that when he was out with the whales he saw (or thought he saw) the words "Bite Me" in foot-high letters on a humpback's tail. He thinks he got a picture of it but has to wait until the film is developed (obviously prior to the days of digital photography) to be sure. Meanwhile he goes back to the compound to find that it has been trashed and all the research of decades has been destroyed. Then up pops Kona, the missing helper, who talks in a mixture of Rasta, pidgin and surfspeak that is barely understandable. The fact that Kona is white and high on dope makes him even more suspicious but Nate decides to give him the benefit of the doubt.
So that's the main characters of the story. From the subtitle you can guess that Nate figures out why the whales sing but the path to enlightenment is circuitous, to say the least. Moore had to learn a lot about scientists and research and especially whales and, although I can't speak about the whale info, he gets the stuff about scientists and research right. And I love the fact that he made Nate a Canadian. At page 40 he has this to say about Canadians "...Canadians hate, above all things, to offend. It was part of the national consciousness. 'Be polite' was an unwritten, unspoken rule, but ingrained into the psyche of an entire country. (Of course, as with any rule, there were exceptions: parts of Quebec, where people maintained the 'dismissive to the point of confrontation, with subsequent surrender' mind-set of the French; and hockey, in which any Canadian may, with impunity, slam, pummel, elbow, smack, punch, body-check, and beat the shit out of, with sticks, any other human being, punctuated by profanities, name-calling, questioning parentage, and accusations of bestiality, usually--coincidentally--in French.)" How can you not like someone who writes like that about one's nationality? show less
Fluke is a little more serious than most of Moore's work, however don't let that stop you from enjoying a complex and funny story about marine researchers and whales. It's a slow builder, with nothing but brooding mystery and character development for two hundred pages. Like Carl Hiaasen, Moore's characters are all slightly screwy, or completely nutty which means getting to know the book's players is always entertaining. The book has plenty of twists, and in fact the actual real plot is hidden away until (too close to?) the end. Moore is a master of wit and words, a literary genius, and although Fluke is not full of belly laughs, it's a well crafted tale which will keep you riveted until the very last page.
Awesome, as usual. Funny and lewd, but deep in its own way.
Nick Quinn is a marine biologist in Hawaii, researching humpback whale songs. What are they saying? Why do they sing? Who are they singing to? He's accompanied by an amazing cast of characters, including his pretty young research assistant Amy, a stoned wannabe-Hawaiian surfer named Kona, an old woman who claims that the humpback whales called her on the telephone and want Nick to bring them a pastrami sandwich, and his ex-wife who became a lesbian after being stuck in the middle of two dueling prehensile Blue Whale penises.
One day, while snorkeling with a particularly obliging humpback, Nick gets smacked in the head by a tailfin that definitely has the words "BITE ME" painted show more on it. He's unconscious, without an oxygen tank, and sinking fast. And then shit gets really weird . . .
I can't say much more without spoiling it, but this book is great. It's extremely scientific, and extremely crazy, and extremely enjoyable. show less
Nick Quinn is a marine biologist in Hawaii, researching humpback whale songs. What are they saying? Why do they sing? Who are they singing to? He's accompanied by an amazing cast of characters, including his pretty young research assistant Amy, a stoned wannabe-Hawaiian surfer named Kona, an old woman who claims that the humpback whales called her on the telephone and want Nick to bring them a pastrami sandwich, and his ex-wife who became a lesbian after being stuck in the middle of two dueling prehensile Blue Whale penises.
One day, while snorkeling with a particularly obliging humpback, Nick gets smacked in the head by a tailfin that definitely has the words "BITE ME" painted show more on it. He's unconscious, without an oxygen tank, and sinking fast. And then shit gets really weird . . .
I can't say much more without spoiling it, but this book is great. It's extremely scientific, and extremely crazy, and extremely enjoyable. show less
Just why do humpback whales sing? That's the question that has marine behavioral biologist Nate Quinn and his crew poking, charting, recording, and photographing very big, wet, gray marine mammals. Until the extraordinary day when a whale lifts its tail into the air to display a cryptic message spelled out in foot-high letters: Bite me. Trouble is, Nate's beginning to wonder if he hasn't spent just a little too much time in the sun. 'Cause no one else on his team saw a thing -- not his longtime partner, Clay Demodocus; not their saucy young research assistant; not even the spliff-puffing white-boy Rastaman Kona (né Preston Applebaum). But later, when a roll of film returns from the lab missing the crucial tail shot -- and his research show more facility is trashed -- Nate realizes something very fishy indeed is going on. By turns witty, irreverent, fascinating, puzzling, and surprising, Fluke is Christopher Moore at his outrageous best. show less
Christopher Moore writes humorous fiction on a variety of topics, but this one feels close to his heart. Set in Hawaii, and the surrounding Pacific Ocean, Fluke is the story of Nathan Quinn, a marine biologist studying humpback whale songs. His team includes Amy, a talented young research assistant for whom Nate tries to repress his attraction to, his genial older partner Clay, and a white surfer who has appropriated Rastafarian culture named Kona.
Nate’s troubles begins when he witnesses a whale with the words “bite me” on it’s fluke. This is soon followed by his offices being trashed and one of his boats scuttled, among other things. As Nate tries to unravel the mystery, he ends up being swallowed by a whale. And then things show more get weird.
I won’t go into details, but what follows is a fantastical and absurd story somewhere between Jules Verne and Leonard Wibberley. I feel like the book does run on a bit long and Moore gets overly invested in his world-building. But the book never loses its humor nor its underlying message of whale conservation. show less
Nate’s troubles begins when he witnesses a whale with the words “bite me” on it’s fluke. This is soon followed by his offices being trashed and one of his boats scuttled, among other things. As Nate tries to unravel the mystery, he ends up being swallowed by a whale. And then things show more get weird.
I won’t go into details, but what follows is a fantastical and absurd story somewhere between Jules Verne and Leonard Wibberley. I feel like the book does run on a bit long and Moore gets overly invested in his world-building. But the book never loses its humor nor its underlying message of whale conservation. show less
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Author Information
27 Works 65,225 Members
Christopher Moore was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1957. He studied at Ohio State University and Brooks Institute of Photography. Before becoming a full-time author, he worked as a roofer, a grocery clerk, a hotel night auditor, an insurance broker, a waiter, a photographer, and a DJ. His first book, Practical Demonkeeping, was published in 1992. His show more other works include Bloodsucking Fiends, Island of the Sequined Nun, Lamb, A Dirty Job, You Suck, Fool, Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art, and Secondhand Souls. In 2014 his title, The Serpent of Venice, made The New York Times Best Seller List. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Distinctions
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings
- Original publication date
- 2003-06-03
- People/Characters
- Nate Quinn; Clay Demodocus; Rastaman Kona / Preston Applebaum; Amy Earhart; Clair Demodocus; Growl Ryder
- Important places
- Lahaina, Hawai'i, USA; Pacific Ocean; Hawai'i, USA
- Epigraph
- Fluke (flook) 1. A stroke of good luck
2. A chance occurrence; an accident
3. A barb or barbed head, as on a harpoon
4. Either of the two horizontally flattened divisions of the tail of a whale - Dedication
- For Jim Darling, Flip Nicklin, and Meagan Jones: extraordinary people who do extraordinary work.
- First words
- Amy called the whale punkin.
"The science you don't know looks like magic," Kona says in Chapter 30. (Author's Notes) - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"Ha!" Amy said.
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)When in doubt, assume I made it up. (Author's Notes) - Publisher's editor
- Brehl, Jennifer
- Blurbers
- Dorsey, Tim; Hiaasen, Carl; Sparks, Nicholas; Campbell, Ramsey; Beagle, Peter S.; Maguire, Gregory (show all 9); Cabot, Meg; Fitzhugh, Bill; Sandlin, Tim
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- 4,260
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- Reviews
- 123
- Rating
- (3.65)
- Languages
- 6 — English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 24
- ASINs
- 22