A review by lyrareadsbooks
The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea by Philip Hoare

2.0

I wanted to like this book so much more than I did. Some of my disappointment stemmed from the book being as much if not more of a travelogue than a work of science or history. Parts of the book were enjoyable, but mostly I found it baffling. Hoare writes with a lofty style that would not be out of place in academia, but this is no piece of scholarship like those I'm familiar with. I could not identify sources on multiple occasions. Even more confounding, Hoare relied heavily on the literary work, Moby Dick, as a guide for his study of whales. Literature can be a useful tool for understanding the past and the present. I have no quibbles with incorporating literature and using fiction as an inspiration. I do take umbrage with treating Ishmael's observations as though they are of equal value to first hand witnesses to the past. In one place, we are told Melville never visited a certain city and yet Ishmael's impressions of the city are given greater believability and weight than those of Frederick Douglass, a man who actually walked the streets of the city. Something about the use of Moby Dick as evidence didn't sit right with me. If this had been presented as more of a travelogue or a memoir rather than scientific study, I might have enjoyed it more.