The Whale Caller
The collected columns of madness and subtle finger-pointing
-
- $5.99
-
- $5.99
Publisher Description
The Whale Caller, in his tuxedo, spends his days on the cliffs of the small coastal town of Hermanus blowing his kelp horn to the whales that visit in the summer months. In particular, he blows for Sharisha, a southern right whale who always responds to his call. With each surfacing of her giant head and each thrashing of her tail, the Whale Caller's connection to Sharisha deepens. Then Saluni enters his life. Saluni - the feisty village drunk, a passionate but self-destructive woman who frequents the taverns and consorts with passing sailors. She cannot understand nor tolerate his fixation with the whales, and as the relationship between her and the Whale Caller grows, she finds herself vying with Sharisha for his attention. The tension builds to a devastating climax that has terrible and lasting consequences. With inimitable style and great lyricism, Zakes Mda tells a story that is at once a haunting love story and a lament for a lost wilderness.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this follow-up to last year's excellent The Madonna of Excelsior, the title character, in leading an off-shore "dance" with a whale named Sharisha by blowing a kelp horn, spills his seed in his trousers. Things pretty much go downhill from there in Mda's unconvincing fifth novel, a hodgepodge of allegory, pop psychology, faux na ve diction and occasional references to the new South Africa. The Whale Caller, as he is called wearyingly throughout, is torn between his very real lust for Sharisha, whom he courts from the shore, and his inarticulate affection for Saluni, the town drunk. Saluni herself is torn between love for the Whale Caller, love of the bottle and what she calls an "addiction" to a pair of singing, nine-year old sisters whom she has dubbed the Bored Twins. Aside from Saluni's jealousy of Sharisha, all goes well until the Bored Twins get to record an LP, Saluni's lust for fame is fabricated and disappointed within the space of a few pages, and tragedy befalls both of the Whale Caller's leading ladies. But the symbolism at the heart of this novel (the unattainable whale) is pushed so ludicrously far and left so carelessly unmoored to believable characters or real-world specifics that the novel drifts away from the reader.
