Book Review: The Porpoise by Mark Haddon

Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Genre: Fiction, Adventure, Thriller, Historical Fiction

Publisher: Vintage

Review in one word: Exhilarating

* Contains no spoilers

I am full of awe and deep respect for this fictional work. It’s incredibly well put together and I can’t fault it at all actually. I am really surprised that it hasn’t won a massive slew of literary prizes because it really deserves to. If you are looking for an unexpected, fun, absorbing and yet edge-of-your-seat historical fiction read then this is it!

In case you were wondering, there is no literal porpoise animal in the book. Instead The Porpoise is a seriously majestic ship sailing from England across oceans and aeons of time and carrying time-shifting people, memories and interwoven stories on its undulating sails.

The Porpoise is beautiful – polished oak, polished brass, everything singing with little bursts of sunlight. There is a ship’s wheel with protruding handles at which you could stand and be Barbarossa or Vasco da Gama, there are cream canvas sails which belly and ripple and slap, there are portholes and winches, there are proper ropes of twisted sisal.

There are so many layers to this novel that it’s hard to even assign it a definite genre or mood. There are lightning quick gear changes from one era to another and one mood to another. Yet the cohesive whole of the novel never feels confusing, forced or contrived.

Instead the entire book feels like one fluid and flowing story effortlessly weaving between worlds and characters. This is surely a sign of Haddon’s immense skill. He is the author of the A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (which many readers will be familiar with for its remarkable and vivid depiction of a youth with Asperger’s attempting to unravel a mystery)

The Porpoise is a real departure from this previous subject matter. You can read my review Red House on this blog, which I loved as well.

This novel is ambitious in scope and literally pushes the boat out and attempts to weave in elements of historical fiction, thriller, crime novel, mind-bending and time melting magic realism, coming-of-age tale, family saga, Greek tragedy, feminist tale of resistance.

There are beautifully rendered observations like the below:

“He does not understand yet that sometimes the monster is other people, sometimes the monster squats unseen inside one’s own heart, and sometimes the monster is the brute fact of time itself.”

“Perhaps this is what all prayer is, when the ceremony and the theology are peeled away, a serious stillness in which one talks quietly to one’s own best self.”

The overall novel is informed by legendary ancient fables remixed and retold for a post-millennial generation with a short attention span. This is a captivating novel with strokes of literary genius, painterly big skies, endless seas and characters that loom larger than life and time itself.

I can’t write in detail about the story itself without giving away its core premise. What I will say is that this novel is completely devoid of cliche, as so many other historical novels fall into and it’s well worth your time.

Mark Haddon is an immensely skilled and exciting writer and I loved this book on so many levels and for so many reasons.