So, when I heard that Ness had taken Moby-Dick and re-imagined it from the whales’ point of view – in fact inverted the narrative in the same way that the novella’s title inverts our perspective which is deeply unsettling – I was expecting something fantastic. I know that Moby-Dick is a bit of a marmite novel and people either love or hate it but I love it! Epic and mythic and haunting full of characters that are Shakespearean and vivid, poetic and lyrical and visceral. How did I not notice when it was released? I mean, I love Patrick Ness – The Chaos Walking Trilogy was magnificent, A Monster Calls was exceptional and pretty much my most recommended book ever! – and I adore Moby-Dick. Oh my goodness, this novella was extraordinary!
A name, I hoped, that would be free of prophecy, free of the burden of a future placed upon it, free of any destiny that would tear it from my hands and destroy worlds. The writing is as beautiful as you might expect, and its literary style, as well as some dark imagery, make it appropriate for older readers.It is not my name, but the name I use for this story. With a reversal of point of view (a literal one, with Rovina Cai’s exceptional illustration showing whales swimming upside down, with the ocean floor as their sky) comes Ness’ re-visioning of the patriarchal exploitation of the natural world, and of man’s destructive obsession to conquer what he falsely believes he is master of. In Patrick Ness’ amazing homage to the American literature classic Moby Dick, the worlds of ocean and sky are upturned, and it’s a whale that tells her version of the story of hunter and hunted.
When Bathsheba and her crew find a man ship, they also find a sign that puts them on the trail of Toby Wick, a devil that all whales grow up fearing. Trained as an apprentice, she finds herself the most junior member of a hunting party led by the formidable and infamous Captain Alexandra, who still has the rusted end of a human harpoon sticking out from her head. Bathsheba is a whale that is destined to hunt humans, even though the hunt is often deadly.
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