Thursday, July 26, 2018

book review: "Songs of the Humpback Whale"...

.. by well-know, prolific author Jodi Picoult. The publication date was 1992, but the recording was not released until 2009.Found at the library as a set of Cd's, in a big box, meaning there were twelve of the discs to plow through in order to be able to say I finished. It was interesting, but not something I would recommend. Having read other books by this author, I thought I would enjoy it more, but it got sort of tedious towards the end. I did finish, mostly because I had become so invested in the story, and curious about the resolution at the end.

The humpback part of the tale comes from a man who is an oceanographer, researching the habits of the whale as it migrates in the ocean from birthing areas to feeding grounds each year. Oliver and Jane met when her family went on vacation to Woods Hole where Oliver was a young scientist. They marry and move to San Diego. She leaves him after fifteen years taking their daughter Rebecca, and driving across the US to her brother who lives in Massachusetts. Her brother works with Sam Hanson in Sam's apple orchard, where most of the story takes place. Oliver, a man who seems unable to express his feelings, follows, driving, to find his family and persuade them to return to California. No spoiler here: but it was not the outcome I would have predicted.

The thing that was interesting about the book was the narrative was almost like reading a play. It was told from the viewpoints, in different voices of five different people. They could have been sitting on the stage, reading their stories from those different perspectives. Those individual voices, with unique inflections, made the characters much more believable, as opposed to one person's voice reading the entire book. The names of the readers were listed, but none were readily recognizable to me, though they could be well-known as voice-over professionals in the entertainment world. Intriguing to visualize the same scene, hear those different people who were actually 'there', interacting, telling their interpretations of scenarios as the story unfolds. But at the same time, occasionally confusing as the narrating voices would jump back and forth within the story, telling of events that had been related at an earlier point, or revealing circumstances that other characters had yet to reveal.

I have read some of Picoults' other writings and enjoyed her style of story-telling. This one  might have been easier to follow if I had been actually reading a book rather than listening as the tale was related by those varied voices. Too many characters that are coming and going withing a narrative can make it difficult to follow the thread of the tale. But having different people voicing those different viewpoints was helpful in keeping the individuals sorted out as the parts were read. I don't know if

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