The Day of the Dolphin

Well, that was a short one. 36 pages in, and I'm out. Why?

The writing.

Let me tell you about the writing...

First, for the initial 4 1/2 pages, the author does not use quotation marks whatsoever, then, about halfway down the fifth page, for no reason, he starts. He then uses them reasonably consistently for 20-ish pages, then drops and then uses them again. So...yeah, it's gonna be like that.

The second is the habit of writing a paragraph full of useless, stream-of-conscious thoughts that not only don't add anything to the plot, but they actually detract from the pacing.

And then there's the run-on sentences.

I'll just give you the first two sentences that open chapter two...that should give you enough to go on...

The room was hygienically show more empty, not a magazine, not a scrap of paper, just three armchairs, a small table with an ashtray, and on the painted walls three engravings of full-rigged ships in foul weather, C looked at the ships wearily, he felt a twinge in the vicinity of his stomach, the pain was not sharp but constant, it did not seem to come from the inside of the organs but from their walls, it was more like a painful contraction of the muscles, it radiated downward to the abdomen and upward under the ribs, at times it reached the vertebrae, C felt that if he could just lie down, flex his legs, and relax his muscles his painful organs would return to normal but this was not true, the pain never went away, actually it wasn't a real pain, more of a pressure, vague, diffuse, insistent, unbearable, he could forget it for over an hour at a time if his attention was concentrated, but it returned with disturbing regularity, even at night he could not sleep, everything was breaking down, his nerves were shot, he tired more easily, recovery was slower, C sank into a chair and closed his eyes.

As he did so the blond head of Johnnie rolled against his arm, there was a brief spasm, his lips sucked the air with a convulsive shudder, there was a sudden slackening of the legs and it was all over, they were lying in a rice paddy surrounded by a cloud of mauve mosquitoes, bullets, and mortar fire, behind me a GI said, "He's had it," we had to wait for night so the helicopters could land, the orderly in the copter removed the dog tags from the dead, his eyes met mine, he looked sad and bitter, he shuffled the dog tags in the palm of his hand and said, "They don't take up much space: a dozen Americans."

There's so much wrong with those two sentences. They skip around various topics. They switch point of view. And they're deplorable to read.

Now, having said all that, this book was originally published in 1967 in French language, and then translated and released in English two years later.

I picked this book up, because I read it when I was roughly 13 or so, so, ballpark, around 1975 or so. I remember enjoying enough that I picked up the only other Robert Merle book I ever found, Malevil, and I remember enjoying that one too.

Here we are, not quite fifty years later, and I can only think, damn, I was a lot more patient with crap writing back then.

Anyway, I couldn't bear the thought of wading through another 282 pages of this dreck, no matter if there is a good story buried in there somewhere.

And, because it's a DNF, no rating. show less

I've read some of the 8 other comments, I am sorry that you didn't all appreciate what I think was a brilliant book.

It portrays four dolphins, eight sympathetic humans, around 4 exploitive humans and the rest of the human race at risk of "accidentally strangling the entire human race".

It is a work of science fiction there is no doubt, but it is very relevant today as it proposes another form of AI (Alternative Intelligence).

The dialogues of the humans with the dolphins, first in English then in whistling Dolphinese, expose the fundamental flaws in human intelligence - that being it is driven by self interest, and a massive sense of self-righteousness.

The predominant dialogue style (long, concatenated paragraphs where dialogue, show more thoughts, mixed speakers, flashback) illustrates the capricious and irrational nature of most of human thought. Even the sympathetic delphinologists display various degrees of personality weaknesses.

In contrast the AI in this book uses concise, to the point sentences - with abundant emotional tagging of the factual content.

I'd recommend you read it - you can understand why humans are still very much at each others throats now as they were 50 years ago. show less

Never heard of this until, scanning my copy of the 1001 list at a flea market, I came across the title. It seemed a bit obscure and, for the life of me, I cannot recall ever even hearing about the ‘sensational’ film that was supposed to have been made from this. Probably just as well. I’ve no idea how they would do it. This has dolphins talking English and people talking Dolphinese and, in a word, it’s bonkers.

Some guy’s researching dolphins and being funded by the US govt. He’s got them as far as monosyllables in English. Quite why they’d persevere in English is beyond me. I mean, if you’re going to tackle a language with another species, there are far simpler phonemic systems out there, not to mention grammar. show more Esperanto springs to mind… but hey, that’s what Frenchman Robert Merle has them do. At the same time, there’s an incongruent romance going on which doesn’t lend anything to the story at all I thought.

Well, he suddenly has a breakthrough and, meanwhile, in the background, there’s this disjointed political intrigue brewing with mine-laying dolphins at it’s centre. The Russians are in on it and the US is trying to beat them to it and deal with the debacle of Vietnam at the same time (the novel was published during the American War). Everything comes to a rather predictable climax when a US ship explodes for no obvious reason.. da duh daaaaaahhhhh

Anyway, the novel kind of peters out with everything hanging. It’s like he planned a sequel and never finished it. Quite honestly though, I didn’t care. I was just glad to get to the end. It may simply be the translation but I found it difficult to follow and quite difficult to read at times. Why this is on the 1001 list is beyond me. Maybe one of you can tell me… show less

I tracked this book down and read it because it's on the 1001 List, one of the few spy thrillers to make the list. I was curious as to why it earned that honor. It's the story of a research program, funded by the government, to teach dolphins to talk--not merely to "communicate"--with humans. When the program proves successful, evil elements from the government abscond with the dolphins to force them to do evil deeds.

There's a lot of information about dolphins in this book, but since it was written in the 1970's I'm sure a lot of the information is outdated. In particular, I believe it is now thought that dolphins are not as intelligent as was once believed, although they are certainly intelligent. And, while I don't know one way or the show more other for sure, I can't believe that dolphins would have the anatomical capability to "speak" in grammatical English. (And since the novel was written in French, I'm not sure why the dolphins were taught English, rather than French, or even Esperanto :)., although the research facility was in the US.)

Nevertheless, I enjoyed this book. It is written in a strange stream of consciousness style, with a constant shifting of the point of view character. And the characters were well-developed, including some rather strange individuals, some at the training facility, and some in the government. I guess one of the whole points was how wonderful, innocent and good dolphins are--in this book dolphins in the wild looked on humans as somewhat Godlike--and how horrible it was for them to awaken to the evil that lurks in the heart of man.

3 stars show less

While the book is probably a bit dated, (particularly in its attitude toward female scientists,) I enjoyed reading Robert Merle's "The Day of the Dolphin."

In this novel, scientists are working steadily to get dolphins to speak and understand English -- and two dolphins, Fa & Bi start to do so. It isn't much of a spoiler, given Merle says this early on, that the military has more sinister ideas about dolphins' capabilities.

I didn't care much for the relationships between the people in the book, but I did enjoy seeing the story about the dolphins unfold.

The Day of the Dolphin is a 1967 science fiction novel by French novelist Robert Merle. The book is set in Florida in the early 1970’s when the cold war was still on-going. I struggled with this book as it did not engage me, was quite dated, and, from today’s prospective the plot was hard to swallow. Of course, as with many science fiction books written in this era, the author uses the story to highlight his anti-war and anti-government feelings.

The first half of the book is spent in setting up the situation and explaining how the scientists have been researching dolphins and analyzing the sounds they make. They are trying to teach dolphins to speak English and of course, the government is watching closely and considering how these show more dolphins could be used in warfare. The second half of the book was more of a thriller but as I was never very engaged with the plot, I wasn’t able to get swept up in the danger and excitement.

The idea of dolphins being able to directly communicate with humans is an exciting and interesting idea, but having them learn to speak actual English just didn’t work for me. Overall I think the biggest problem with this book is that it just didn’t stand the test of time. show less

[book:The Day of the Dolphin|94499] is a 1967 novel, 1001 Book, written by the French author, [author:Robert Merle|54354]. It is set in Florida during the period of time referred to as the cold war (1970 to 1973). The book itself is not that engaging and certainly dated as a sixties book and the treatment of women (often referred to as girls) is certainly grating. This is a work of science fiction and in this book the SF part is that man is teaching dolphins to talk and learning to talk in dolphinese and dolphins. As often is the case with science fiction, this is a political statement against war, against government, politics and government involvement in research science.

I found it interesting to read a novel written by a French show more author that was set in the US. I found it interesting to compare this book to another book I read this month, [book:Libra|400] by DeLillo, also a book espionage in the US. Both books question the assassination of JFK along the same points of logic. Both books also discussed the Bay of Pigs and how the CIA may have been manipulating the president. This book talks about a fictional election of a man that in all descriptions sounds like a Hollywood star. At this time Ronald Reagan had been elected as governor of California and the book mentions that. The US is engaged in fighting in Vietnam. A US ship is sunk and the US blames China and gives China an ultimatum. This is a story of how the agencies that are around the president can manipulate that position by what information is given, distorted, and withheld. There is mention of the sinking of the Maine by unknown etiology in the harbor of Havana that led US to declaring war on Spain in the Spanish American War.

Quotes:
"Freedom of the press is quite real, but it is ineffectual. In a country where all the new media are in the hands of money, the still small voice of truth is quickly drowned out by the powerful organs of falsehood and confusion."

"...issue of Le Monde (French newspaper) expressed this view with a clarity that would have impressed even the Americans if they had attached any importance to either the information or the opinions given in the European press. But American newspapers quoted only other American newspapers or, at the most, the British newspapers, in their columns."

"If there's one thing a President can neither reform nor control it's his own political police force, they are the real rulers, since it's they who give him information..."

"I am sure the CIA knew that the Bay of Pigs would be a failure. I'm sure the plan was to confront John (JFK) with a setback so serious, a loss of face so terrible that John would send the marines to Cuba, and John came close to doing it, such a disaster at the beginning of his Presidency, he was so mortified, so humiliated, so upset, but he pulled himself together, he said no, he knew how to say no, no to war against Cuba, no to war against China, no to segregation, they killed him because he knew how to say no, send him to Dallas and we'll take car of the rest, in Dallas we have policemen who can slice a cigar in two at thirty yards..."

I found it so interesting that I ended up reading two books so similar in themes. One written in 1967 by a foriegn author and the other in 1988 by an American author.

The book was set on the work of scientist John Lilly, a Minnesotan scientist who worked on dolphin language. Rating 3.3 show less