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A review by atrinkl
Into Great Silence: A Memoir of Discovery and Loss among Vanishing Orcas by Eva Saulitis
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
Into Great Silence chronicles Eva Saulitis’ whale research in Alaska, starting in the 1980s and how the Exxon Valdez oil spill devastates and changes the course of one orca population‘s destiny over the course of twenty years. These orcas would have, likely, eventually died out — they were isolated, dignified in the way they kept to their own kind — but the oil spill depleted the whales who would’ve reproduced, and they still haven’t had a calf since or tried to mingle with others. So the remaining whales carry on, from 22 to now, only seven.
Eva is an exceptional and insightful writer, who dearly loves the Sound, where the whales roam, and who can feel the oil churn inside her as she watches the transient orcas begin to decline slowly but surely.
This was a heart-wrenching read, especially with the knowledge that Eva, herself, succumbed to breast cancer not long after the publishing of this book. As the book carries on, she mulls over what the Sound will look like in the future, if the orcas will outlive her or the opposite, and I’m honestly not sure which is worse. That seven whales remain, while the person who loved them so much, doesn’t. In a haunting journal entry near the end of the book, when Eva is pondering on the orca, Eyak’s death, whom she studied into adulthood, she wonders, “Does death take them by surprise? Or do they give themselves up to it? Is death already in them, the way building a web is born inside a spider? And is it in us, too? Do we already know how to die, but our brains clutter up with knowing with fear?”
I couldn’t help but wonder if Eva revisited this passage in her final days, or thought of Eyak and his passing, and felt any sense of knowing at that time.
Eva is honest in her portrayal of the orcas — she knows that we can never know the whole story. No matter how many photos are taken of their saddle patches, the sound bites recorded, the samples taken, the whales kept into captivity…. As Henry Beston wrote, and Eva quoted, animals are, “living by voices we shall never hear.” And Eva reiterated that orca language sometimes feels like a music we can’t translate, with nuances we can only wish to understand. Along with her team, Eva captured as much as she could at the surface and with her hydrophone, trying to better understand these beautiful creatures, despite man’s best interference.
Into Great Silence is a moving portrait, less focused on the science of it all, and more focused on what we owe to nature — our connectedness to the world — and in my eyes, how we carry on on this world knowing what we’ve done. It truly felt like I was reading Eva’s journal.
“Every day is like this, life and death, beauty and disaster,” Eva said, before even realizing just how much the oil spill would impact her beloved whales. Eva always returned to the Sound time and time again, despite the heartache, just hoping for a better glimpse into the orcas’ world — the other world, as she put it, with all its complicated layers.
Eva is an exceptional and insightful writer, who dearly loves the Sound, where the whales roam, and who can feel the oil churn inside her as she watches the transient orcas begin to decline slowly but surely.
This was a heart-wrenching read, especially with the knowledge that Eva, herself, succumbed to breast cancer not long after the publishing of this book. As the book carries on, she mulls over what the Sound will look like in the future, if the orcas will outlive her or the opposite, and I’m honestly not sure which is worse. That seven whales remain, while the person who loved them so much, doesn’t. In a haunting journal entry near the end of the book, when Eva is pondering on the orca, Eyak’s death, whom she studied into adulthood, she wonders, “Does death take them by surprise? Or do they give themselves up to it? Is death already in them, the way building a web is born inside a spider? And is it in us, too? Do we already know how to die, but our brains clutter up with knowing with fear?”
I couldn’t help but wonder if Eva revisited this passage in her final days, or thought of Eyak and his passing, and felt any sense of knowing at that time.
Eva is honest in her portrayal of the orcas — she knows that we can never know the whole story. No matter how many photos are taken of their saddle patches, the sound bites recorded, the samples taken, the whales kept into captivity…. As Henry Beston wrote, and Eva quoted, animals are, “living by voices we shall never hear.” And Eva reiterated that orca language sometimes feels like a music we can’t translate, with nuances we can only wish to understand. Along with her team, Eva captured as much as she could at the surface and with her hydrophone, trying to better understand these beautiful creatures, despite man’s best interference.
Into Great Silence is a moving portrait, less focused on the science of it all, and more focused on what we owe to nature — our connectedness to the world — and in my eyes, how we carry on on this world knowing what we’ve done. It truly felt like I was reading Eva’s journal.
“Every day is like this, life and death, beauty and disaster,” Eva said, before even realizing just how much the oil spill would impact her beloved whales. Eva always returned to the Sound time and time again, despite the heartache, just hoping for a better glimpse into the orcas’ world — the other world, as she put it, with all its complicated layers.