I have at last completed this book, which is the final one I read on the Women’s Prize shortlist for this year. The publisher’s blurb describes it as “An immersive and transformative new novel of an ocean world – its extraordinary creatures, mysteries, and mythologies – that is increasingly haunted by the cruelty and ignorance of the human race.” Its main character is Ea, a dolphin who makes the difficult decision to leave her pod, believing that her disability (a form of deafness that prevents her from performing the special ‘spinning’ rituals unique to her kind) has made her responsible in large part for a tragedy that struck the pod and resulted in the death of her mother.
I was attracted by the theme of a marine world threatened and disturbed by the crisis facing our oceans. I hoped it might explore this profoundly important theme, one of the most critical issues facing the human race today, in a unique and innovative way. I thought it might be interesting to deal with it from the perspective of sea creatures and was curious about how the author might deal with that without it becoming trivial or childlike. Well, the answer is that she introduces strong violence and an erotic dimension. The characters have names and they communicate. They also operate in communities and there are both inter and intra-species rivalries. The communities are ordered in hierarchies and often these hierarchies are brutal. In the pod of dolphins that Ea joins for example, or rather is captured and forced into, there is a strong male leader who has his own harem, and rape and sexual exploitation are part of life for the younger female members.
I cannot summarise the plot of the novel any further than this because, in truth, I’m not actually sure what it was all about! I have never watched Game of Thrones, but you would have to have been living under a rock these last few years to be unaware of it. Well, I think Pod might be a literary, dolphin version of Game of Thrones! I dislike writing negative reviews, I’d rather not post a review at all (except I am also a completer-finisher and have to finish all six reviews of the Women’s prize shortlist!), but I am afraid I really struggled to finish this book. Yes, it is well-written, yes it is imaginative and yes it is certainly unusual, but for me, it just didn’t work. I didn’t really care for any of the characters, mainly because I didn’t feel I could connect with them. They were animals, but they spoke, but some understood each other and others did not. It felt incoherent, confused and confusing. The descriptive passages, such as the accounts of rape and of full-blown underwater battles, were powerful in their way, but I was unable to see these in my mind. I struggled to envision the world the author was trying to create.
I wonder if science fiction fans might find this book more engaging than I did. Perhaps followers of this genre might be better than me at stretching credulity, buying into a landscape completely unfamiliar. I’m not sure. I have read science fiction that I felt was more successful than this novel.
I’d be keen to hear from anyone else who has read this book, would love to hear your views, because I really feel like I have missed something with this novel. I did not read it consistently, which was perhaps part of the problem and perhaps why it felt inconsistent. But unfortunately, I did not feel motivated to read it, it just did not capture my interest. I was relieved to get to the end! Hmm, such a shame when a book does not work for a reader.
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