Book Review: “Whalefall”, by Daniel Kraus

Reading time: 3 mins

((((WHERE ARE YOU))))

★★★★★

Whalefall by Daniel Kraus was not exactly what I was expecting, but I was in!

Man versus ocean. It’s not a fair fight. It never was.

Diving is not a stroll on the beach, and Jay Gardiner knows it better than others – he was the one his father Mitt always woke up early in the morning with the dreadful and never-changing “Sleepers, arise!” in his ears, just to engage in his favourite activity. Favourite of Mitt, that is. As soon as Jay starts to dive on his own in the most dangerous zone in the area, Monastery Beach, and thinking he could have really enjoyed diving (if it weren’t for his father), things go wrong. Very wrong.

This is a beautiful story of both survival and coming to terms with trauma. Like I said before, the latter was something unexpected, but in the great scheme of Whalefall, it was absolutely perfect. This is going to be a tough review.

What do you know about cruelty?

Jay had a tough childhood – his father Mitt Gardiner was a legend in the diving community, a man who was kind to others, but strict with him. Jay doesn’t understand why he had to endure all those early mornings or taxing quizzes, more like military drill, his father subjected him to.

This is the reason for him being misunderstood by strangers and his family, after he runs away and in the aftermath of what happens next. This story is Jay’s way to prove and redeem himself, but it will also be a way to come to terms with his trauma, and it will turn out to be a suffering way towards understanding and acceptance.

Maybe I should kill you. Before you kill me.

Roughly past one third of the book, after Daniel Kraus’ book presents all its flashbacks and its need to set the story up properly, the tale of the boy swallowed by a whale begins.

Contrary to what somebody might think, especially taking the dimensions of this giant of the sea into account, whales have never swallowed people. Well, at least not on purpose, and without immediately spitting them out. This is certainly the case of Michael Packard, the lobster diver of Cape Cod who claimed to have been “swallowed” by a humpback whale. I found the interview with Joy Reidenberg, a biologist specializing in whales, quite informative.

Daniel Kraus’ hypothesis of a sperm whale exceptionally large combined with a 17-year-old teenager is interesting, but most unlikely. He claims that it could work, and I don’t mind working with that.

The author’s description and fictional situations are well researched, and it shows. By the time you finish this book, you’ll feel like an expert on sperm whales: both on their habits and their anatomy. That is, if you’re not squirmish. And if you’re not claustrophobic.

In the book blurb we read: “The Martian meets 127 Hours“, and although I agree that the ability to escape is of a MacGyver-ish nature, not unlike in The Martian, I would argue that this book is closer to Buried, starring Ryan Reynolds, than 127 Hours, due to the feeling of enclosure.

The old father of the sea

It strikes immediately that the species of whale in this book, a sperm whale, was the same one as in Moby-Dick. Of course Melville’s whale was albino, not to mention where the metaphor White Wale comes from. But we’re also dealing with Jay’s obsession, so it’s a perfect fit. I refuse to believe the choice was merely taken on the account of credibility, due to the nature of the book itself.

The book takes such a sudden turn when Jay is swallowed by “his” whale, that I initially thought it was a case of nitrogen narcosis, an effect that alters a diver’s consciousness, which was mentioned earlier. The more the book progressed, the more I realized that not only that is probably not the case, but I wanted it not to be. The relationship between the boy and the leviatan is so intimate and poetic, it has to be authentic. It’s thanks to the whale that Jay went through such a transformative journey.

Final Thoughts

Whalefall by Daniel Kraus is not only a tale of survival, but also a dreamlike journey of a young man into life.

No one carries the best part of themselves. The best parts are those held inside of others.