A Whale For The Killing
by Farley Mowat
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Book Summary Information
Author: Farley MowatEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2005-09-10
ISBN: 0811731863
Number of pages: 214
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Book Reviews of A Whale For The Killing
Book Review: A moving story well-told
Summary: 4 Stars
Newfoundland is the easternmost outpost of Canada in the North Atlantic, and in 1962, Farley Mowat, already a well known writer, moved to the town of Burgeo on its desolate south coast. The area was remote, reachable only by the weekly steamer and an occasional chartered seaplane. Mowat loved it there, and in the first fifty pages says much about the beauty of the place and the friendly inhabitants.
The local economy was based on fishing, with a recently opened fish-freezing plant. Mowat is scornful of the fish-freezing plant, and generally of much of the modern influences he sees around him -- he calls it "compulsive consumerism, the universal sickness of modern society". In early 1967, the contrast between his views on the world and those of his fellow-villagers were brought shockingly into focus when a seventy foot pregnant Fin whale was trapped in a "natural aquarium" called Aldridge Pond.
It was several days before Mowat found out about the whale. In that time numerous locals had used up almost all the ammunition in the village shooting the whale with high-powered rifles, and had rammed it in a speed boat to carve open its back, for sport. When Mowat found out he tried with little success to get the local authorities to protect the whale, and sent some information to a Canadian news organization to try to get academic interest in the chance to study a big Fin whale up close. That led to a flood of publicity, and simultaneously to much of the village turning against Mowat for being an "outsider" and refusing to let them do as they pleased. Mowat tried to keep their boats from Aldridge Pond and their bullets away from the whale, and many of the locals saw him as an interfering foreigner.
The whale died, ultimately, hungry and in agony from innumerable infected bullet wounds. The last few chapters show Mowat almost out of his mind with rage and frustration at the bureaucratic hurdles in his way and at the bloodthirstiness of his fellow men.
Mowat has been criticized for tailoring his stories to fit his agenda: his motto is "Never let the facts interfere with the truth". However, I'm not aware that this particular story was much changed -- the whale really did exist and did die as he describes. The book is certainly propaganda for the view that humans should live and let live, but it is also a terrific story.
The book is well-written, and is a stirring and depressing read; although one would like to think a modern community would be less bloody in its response to a whale. Recommended.
Summary of A Whale For The Killing
A PLEA TO STOP THE SLAUGHTER NOW...When an 80-ton Fin Whale became trapped in a Newfoundland lagoon, conservationist Farley Mowat rejoiced: here was the first chance to study at close range one of the most magnificent animals in creation. Some local villagers thought otherwise. They blasted the whale with rifle fire and hacked open her back with a motorboat propeller. Mowat appealed desperately to the police, to marine biologists, finally to the Canadian press. But it was too late. Ravaged by an infection resulting from her massive wounds, the whale died.
World-renowned for his passionate tales of survival, Farley Mowat wrote his new book to symbolize the plight of all whales preyed on by man for commercial profit. A Whale for the Killing is an urgent, eloquent plea to stop the massacre now...before the entire species is doomed to extinction.
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