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44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Moore and his book are funny --- there's no fluke about that, June 28, 2003
I would read Christopher Moore based on the titles of his works alone. He has written fantastically odd and fun books for years, including ISLAND OF THE SEQUINED LOVE NUN, THE LUST LIZARD OF MELANCHOLY COVE, and LAMB: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BIFF, CHRIST'S CHILDHOOD PAL (which, in my estimation, is his best, most bedazzlingly kooky book yet). Once I get past the title page of a Christopher Moore book, I'm never disappointed. He always delivers the goods (the goods being odd characters, odd settings, and odd happenings). The latest Moore delivery is FLUKE: OR I KNOW WHY THE WINGED WHALE SINGS, and he will not disappoint fans. The odd characters include marine biologist Nathan Quinn, a lifelong researcher of the humpback whale and their song; Clay Demodocus, his associate; beautiful research assistant Amy Earhart; and Rastaman, Kona, a white boy from New Jersey. The settings, which are varied, include Maui, a giant whale ship and "Gootown." The odd happenings are too numerous to mention. There's some discussion of a whale calling a benefactor by telephone asking for a hot pastrami and Swiss on rye. There's an escape from an amorous Samoan. There's a situation involving a super-race of piscatorial mutants. And there's that one whale that had written on its tail "BITE ME." Of course, the book is not too thick with such heavy topics as the meaning of life and love. There is, however, some discussion about Canadian hockey violence. Moore won't give you long theories about the nature of man or the political implications of the Middle East. He will, however, give us some interesting cetacean sex, which is always titillating. It's a breeze to read. The reader will sit in a hammock, a drink by their side (with an umbrella in it), and happily read along chuckling mightily (hopefully not spilling said umbrella-laden drink). The one thing that Moore does well (on top of his writing antics) is the research he puts into his books. He knows about whales and cares about them (so much so, in fact, that at the end of the book he highlights ways in which the reader can help out with and address conservation issues). Just as in LAMB, where he studied mightily about the world in Jesus's time, Moore finds many interesting nuggets about whales, the ocean, and the like. If you want Norman Mailer or Leon Uris, you've come to the wrong place. But if you're in the mood for a quick laugh (along the lines of Tom Robbins, Dave Barry and their ilk) and a fun book to read on a sunny weekend, FLUKE is the way to go. Both the book and Moore are funny --- and there's no fluke about that. --- Reviewed by Jonathan Shipley
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45 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"The science you do not know looks like magic.", June 8, 2003
Christopher Moore's brand of humor, while always irreverent and sometimes off-color, also bursts through the constraints which might limit it to the real world. Moore has often explored other realities, and in this novel, we discover the underwater world of singing whales and the researchers who study them. Far more "straight" and less frivolous than in most of his earlier novels, Moore is clearly fascinated by cetacean biology and the research on which he focuses here.
Nate Quinn is a PhD. researcher who studies the subsonic songs of humpback whales and works the channel between Maui and Lanai, identifying and following individual whales, recording whale songs, and converting the songs into digitized computer programs in an effort to decode them. Three other researchers and numerous other wacky characters, allow the author plenty of room for hijinx at the same time that he is exploring serious issues. An old woman gets a phone call from a whale wanting a hot pastrami on rye with mustard, a researcher remains underwater for sixty minutes without breathing, an absolute ruler wants the navy to "nuke the goo," and mutants who look like aliens, known as whaley-boys, walk the land.
As Moore shifts from science to science fiction, the line between reality and fantasy disappears. The reader willingly suspends all disbelief and succumbs to the spell of Moore's non-stop flights of imagination as he explores underwater life. His famous sense of the absurd, his irony, and his humor, some of it black, never flag, and his imagination, given free rein, soars in this wild fantasy.
However playful it may be, this novel also marks a significant new direction for Moore. He is clearly fascinated by whales and the threats to their existence, and while the book is great fun and often very funny, it also has something serious and important at its heart--it is not frivolous entertainment. In an unprecedented move, Moore adds three separate Author's Notes at the end of the book, updating the reader on current whale research and acknowledging some of the world's great whale researchers. Readers will come away from this novel with broad smiles, a new appreciation for Moore's talents and his willingness to take risks, and, most significantly, new understandings of whales and the ecosystem in which they flourish. Mary Whipple
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Halfway through, Moore finds the edge, then he jumps., July 9, 2004
This is a readable, generally entertaining book. The funny bits - and there are a lot of them - are really funny. But about half way - maybe a little more - he goes from pleasantly wierd to a complete abondenment of any sense of believability. It was a bit like he'd started writing the book, came up with a couple of good gags, found himself in a spot he couldn't think of a way to get out of, and just started randomly inserting impossibilities to make the pieces stick together. The impossibilities bring out the paper thin personalities of the characters, and for me, it sort of unraveled from there. In some ways, the character development of the central characters is summed up on page one. Nate is a researcher, good hearted, obsessed with whales. Amy is young, hot and looks good in shorts. Things happen around these people, we get revelations about their past, but that's about it - the revelations don't lead to any better understanding. For me its unsatisfying - neither the story nor the characters nor the humor really grips.
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