The Whale Caller: A Novel (Paperback)

by Zakes Mda (Author) "THE SEA IS BLEEDING from the wounds of Sharisha..." (more)
Key Phrases: whale caller, ostrich baron, kelp horn, Bored Twins, Lunga Tubu, South Africa (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From 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 naïve 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. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The Washington Post
Zakes Mda's fifth novel, The Whale Caller, is an oddball love story, wonderfully timeless and familiar: Boy meets whale, boy loses whale, boy meets wino lovechild with missing front teeth. . . . Quixotic and doomed, Mda's charming romantic leads are obsessed with the unattainables of life. The leading man, a misanthropic whale-watcher in the tourist-ridden village of Hermanus, on the west coast of South Africa, is so infatuated with the southern right whale he's named Sharisha that his entire lifestyle, livelihood and identity are based on his adoration of her. Tuxedoed like a suitor, keeping vigil on a rocky spit, he dances and blows a horn to lure her closer. His intentions are purely to adore her -- un-Ahab-like, the Whale Caller wields neither harpoon nor malice, only his heart. Tourists occasionally toss him coins for the spectacle he presents, but it's clear he would continue this ritual with no remuneration. He is a man enthralled by a whale.

To his annoyance, he has also enticed Saluni, a baffling, sour-smelling, dentally deficient -- though nonetheless beautiful and enchanting -- barfly who trails him wherever he goes, watching him as he watches the whale. When she develops a bad rash and stays away for days, he grows curious and eventually anxious. He begins to miss her stalking and finally searches the town for her, marking the beginning of many volleys of pursuit and counter-pursuit. When he locates Saluni, she's busy with a new affliction, picking lice off herself in the surf, and their love affair begins when he takes her home and administers sheep dip. Yes, delousing is their first date, and her attempts at detoxing and casting a voodoo love spell on him constitute their prolonged courtship. But once she has him, she develops an uncontrollable jealousy: "You must dream about me, man, willy-nilly!" Winning her man isn't enough for Saluni. Tragically, she goes on to demand his full attention. "I am not going to be part of any triangle," she says. "The fish must go."

On the one hand, The Whale Caller is a sweetly thoughtful fable about a simple love triangle between a rigid and ritualized man, a captivating town drunk and a spectacular whale. But as a satirical structure, it also serves to lampoon all the banalities, constraints and tribulations of standard romantic love. There are, in this cross-species affair of the heart, outbursts of jealousy, bitterness, desire and squabbling to outdo even Jerry Springer:

" 'I say leave him alone, you foolish fish,' she shouts. 'He is mine!' She turns her back to the whales. The level of water is just below her knees. She lifts up her wet dress and lowers her underpants to the knees. She moons Sharisha, slapping her bottom and screaming, 'Take that, you lousy fish!' And then she pulls up her underpants and walks away, leaving the poor whale looking scandalised."

Love, in all its varieties, appears here as equal parts euphoria and pain. When the Whale Caller and Saluni finally manage a physical relationship -- his initial impotence is caused by his inability to stop thinking of the whale -- Mda writes of a "sickness" these wobbly lovers feel. But this isn't some tropical disease. This is love. At one point, Saluni frets because "there is no anguish. True love is supposed to be accompanied by profound pain."

And it is, so be prepared: Despite the lighthearted and often hilarious antics, this love triangle, like so many others, is tragically unsustainable. Perhaps this is where The Whale Caller defies expectation: If it is a morality play, these are unusually funny, richly developed characters. If it is a quirky, romantic comedy, it's dispensed with a heaping helping of human frailty, tragic behavior and self-destruction. With an offhanded mastery of lyrical language, this gifted storyteller's prose shimmers without extravagance. As if awash in unremitting sun, The Whale Caller begins as a reverie, illuminating the beauty of imperfect love and the thrill of struggling to maintain it. Yet in the end, beyond the whimsy and whales, the deeper, darker concern here is not so much the fragility of love, but the fragility of life itself when one surrenders wholly to the foolish heart.

Reviewed by Steve Amick
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Picador (October 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312425872
• ISBN-13: 978-0312425876
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,129,104 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, March 11, 2009

By	Milan R. "zzz" (Serbia) - See all my reviews

I really wanted so badly to like this book but ... I just couldn't related with anything there. Those obsessions were simply impossible to understand. Obsession towards the whales, toward obviously retarded kids, whale obsession toward human... the only thing that looked realistic was obsession between main characters toward each other and complexity of their relationship is probably the only thing that is good. But all the rest ... it just doesn't go anywhere.

4.0 out of 5 stars loving whales and humans can both be tough, January 25, 2008

By	David B. Rothenberg "David Rothenberg" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

There are a handful of novels on close relationships between
whales and humans, and this is certainly the best.
Beautifully written, full of odd and fascinating characters,
it is an intimate novel more about connections: between people,
and between people and nature. Read it and wonder...

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Magical ... or empty?, August 6, 2007

By	Mark Smith "downstreamer.com" (Lake Leelanau, MI USA) - See all my reviews

There is very little that can be said about this book without bending over backwards to find reasons to praise it. "Magical realism" implies the richness of Marquez, but what Mda has done with "The Whale Caller" is bland and generic. The description evokes no sense of place, and as far as offering a comment on "post-Apartheid South Africa" as the book jacket claims, don't expect it. Mda has written an allegory - a thin story which cannot support the weight of its design. Once again, instead of reading the blurbs on the back, take a few minutes and dip into the book anywhere - it doesn't matter where - and you will discover the empty sameness which permeates the entire book. It just doesn't go anywhere.