Although I found the subject of Mowat's novel to be both interesting and horrifying I didn't get to the novel that I expected to read until the last portion of the book.The first two thirds of the book is all a, somewhat angry, rant about the evils of mankind, specifically of those who seek modernization. For a while Mowat was basically preaching that Frontiersmen = Good and Businessmen = Bad (women didn't figure into the equation at all). The good people of Burgeo (a very small and remote region of Newfoundland) relied upon themselves, they didn't need the distractions and wastefulness of catalog ordered speedboats or pure breed dogs. But then the evil modernizing bureaucrats had to move in and start developing business in the area, thereby destroying natural habitat, destroying the rugged living of the inhabitants and destroying a way of life that for years had gone without the meddling of government regulation.Although I sympathized with the Burgeo people wanting to get on with their ways and keep their traditions away from the fisheries and processing plants which pay extremely poorly, the way that Mowat went about describing it made me feel that he was celebrating ignorance and stubbornness, rather than valuing traditions.Of course, once we get to the real purpose of the novel, the story about the whale which gets trapped in Alridge's Pond (a look at Google Earth is illuminating, not only for a look at the 'pond' but also Mowat's own house!) it is the locals, as Mowat puts it, poisoned by the modernizing of the Island, who decide to turn the great creature into nothing more than a moving target.In his fight to save the whale Mowat alienates those with whom he'd been attempting to assimilate for many years. By voicing his opinion of their right to shoot anything that moves, he becomes just another city bloke trying to take away their native rights and traditions. It being well known that anyone who was hungry could take to the woods to get some 'country meat' (basically a euphemism for poaching elk or other game), a right that Mowat doesn't have a problem with, why should it not be the same with the large meat of the sea?It seemed to me throughout the narrative that it was more that the People of Burgeo feeling that they were beyond the law that endangered the whale. Maybe if the place had not been so far away from modernized society, there would not have been so many yahoos with guns shooting anything that moved. I also thought it was disheartening how even the towns people who didn't agree with the shooting of the whale couldn't even bring themselves to talk about it for fear that...someone wouldn't like them? Small towns are terrible places. It reminded me a bit of living in a small town in rural Iowa, except that bigger cities were always close at hand for me so I could escape the narrow minded outsider disdaining world of that town. I can't imagine wanting to become one of such a group.
I'm not sure that I can fault Farley Mowat's "A Whale for the Killing" for being "too preachy" since that is very much the intent of the book, but Mowat switches styles and tones a few times (particularly in the first 120 pages) which makes the read feel a bit uneven. He can't seem to decide whether he wants to tell the story of what happened with the whale in Burgeo, educate readers on the biology and families of whales, or simply write an essay on the evils of the whaling industry. He could have done all three seamlessly but he doesn't, frequently breaking off in the middle of one tangent or chapter of the story to completely change topic and tone.The overall effect of the book was one that, I would say, successfully rallies the reader to Mowat's cause. I was disgusted and brought to tears by the story of the whale that was trapped in the pond at Burgeo, Newfoundland in the late '60s. Rather than take this incredible, once-in-a-lifetime chance to study such an enormous creature at such a close range, the citizens of Burgeo chose to use the whale for target practice.The last 50 pages of the book read the way the rest of it should have - a non-fiction novel. Mowat certainly has the literary talent to tell a story, with a natural inclination towards beautiful, regional prose. But in that first half of the book he veers off too many times with fact-spouting and angry tangents for me to say that it was entirely successful as a piece of literature.
Do You like book A Whale For The Killing (2005)?
The first 100 pages of this book are pretty much a history of Newfoundland and a history of whaling. The stage thus set, we then move into Mowat's account of what happened when a 70-foot Fin Whale became trapped in a small cove near his tiny Newfoundland town. All together it makes for an amazing, although in no way uplifting, tale, which is really a plea for help for the "whale nation." Written in the early 70's this book is now nearly 40 years out of date, and the information the author provides makes it seem that there must not be any rorquals left in the world today. After finishing this book I immediately went to Wikipedia to assure myself that there are still whales swimming our oceans.
—Kim
This was a TOUGH read. Not because of the style, or lack of a story, but because of the subject matter. I had to put this book aside twice while reading it because I was just too upset to continue. That being said, I think this is a very important book that needs to be read by absolutely everyone. Farley Mowat tells a story of a time when he called Burgeo, Newfoundland his sanctuary. When he enjoyed the culture and the people, until a whale is trapped in a local pond and a line is drawn in the sand. Sometimes Mowat is almost entirely alone on his side of the line and other times the locals (and people from around the world) are with him and the whale, but the battle fiercely fought and tragic in its climax. A story of compassion and hate, ignorance and the thirst for knowledge, and in the end, no one really wins. "So long as I live I shall hear the echoes of that haunting cry. And they will remind me that life itself - not human life - is the ultimate miracle upon this earth. I will hear those echoes even if the day should come when none of her nation is left alive in the desecrated seas, and the voices of the great whales have been silenced forever."Heartbreaking and enlightening; just read this book.
—Kate
Sad book. What stops it from being a five star book is Mowatt's attempts to try to link the community's cruelty towards the whale to modernization. I think this is problematic and sets up a noble savage kind of thinking about rural people which is naive at best and insulting at worst. Native Americans slaughtered dozens of buffalo in stampedes - more than they could use. The Bible is full of cruelty towards animals both by the ancient Jews and their persecutors. Animals are helpless before human beings and human beings are prone to being weak to evil impulses like cruelty to those weaker than them. Period.If anything our globalized world has had the opposite effect. This story may not have been so tragic in an age of viral videos, twitter and a global mobilization around causes.It's a small point and my only qualm. Otherwise there has been enough said about this book in other reviews. It's a downer, it makes me sad and it's incredibly powerful. Well worth a read. Just don't expect Owls in the Family.
—J. Robert Larmer
