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Description
The Whale CallerAs Zakes Mda's fifth novel opens, the seaside village of Hermanus is overrun with whale watchers foreign tourists determined to see whales in their natural habitat. But when the tourists have gone home, the whale caller lingers at the shoreline, wooing a whale he has named Sharisha with cries from a kelp horn. When Sharisha fails to appear for weeks on end, the whale caller frets like a jealous lover oblivious to the fact that the town drunk, Saluni,
As Zakes Mda's fifth novel opens, the seaside village of Hermanus is overrun with whale-watchers--foreign tourists determined to see whales in their natural habitat. But when the tourists have gone home, the whale caller lingers at the shoreline, wooing a whale he has named Sharisha with cries from a kelp horn. When Sharisha fails to appear for weeks on end, the whale caller frets like a jealous lover--oblivious to the fact that the town drunk, Saluni, a woman who wears a silk dress and red stiletto heels, is infatuated with him.
The two misfits eventually fall in love. But each of them is ill equipped for romance, and their relationship suggests, in the words of The Washington Post, that "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."
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Picador USA
Published: 10/17/2006
ISBN: 9780312425876
Pages: 230
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.50w x 0.70d
Review Citations: New York Times 11/19/2006 pg. 28
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4.5 ★★★★★
Based on 2006 reviews
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Product Reviews
★★★★★ 5
Good Guide to Writing in General
Format: Paperback
What Gardener says about fiction can equally apply to writing any good prose. He was a master teacher and this book definitely shows his skills in conveying the underlying knowledge to others.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2024
★★★★★ 5
First Aid for Writers Seeking to Tell Stories
Format: Paperback
This is such a wonderful tool for anyone who has a yearning to write fiction. Gardner's voice is challenging, nurturing and extremely informative for those who have a passion to jump on the path for mastering the art of story telling. He can be curt and dismissive for those who get 'lazy,' even taking to task some very skilled and famous writer's more feeble attempts (Hello, Mr. Faulkner). Gardener is a strong advocate of W.W. Watt's masterpiece for beginning writer's "An American Rhetoric," a book that is out of print , but can be found in many larger public libraries.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2016
★★★★★ 5
” shows what it is like to be young and irresponsible
Format: Paperback
This book offers relatable poems about youth all the way up to adulthood. No matter the readers’ age, they can find something relatable in this book.
One of the first poems, “River Gods,” shows what it is like to be young and irresponsible. This poem describes an instance where two young guys are walking on top of a railroad trestle, which is above the Tennessee River. “Since no one wants to cheat a foolish death alone, / I convinced my friend to leave his satchel on the bank / and we stepped out a hundred feet over the night” (“River Gods,” 13-15). This stanza shows that the two guys knew that what they were doing was dangerous and potentially deadly. This poem in comparison with other poems in this book really demonstrates recklessness in youth.
While in that poem readers see the recklessness associated with youth, “Piano Key,” a later poem in the book, provides an insight into a more serious adulthood. In this poem, the narrator is dealing with the memories associated with his grandmother’s piano.
I plunk my way left to right, up from the deep-forest
Bass notes toward the bright high registers,
Just past middle C, a dead spot I remember as a child,
A crucial note that will not sing. (“Piano Key,” 13-16)
The narrator does not provide much insight into his emotions, besides the fact the narrator is remembering something from when he was a child, but there is a sense of longing created because his grandmother is likely dead, which is why he is reminiscing about the piano. Going from “River Gods” to “Piano Key” provides different narrators. The first narrator does not care about his future; he only cares about what he is doing right at that moment. The narrator in “Piano Key” is thinking about the future and the past. If these narrators are the same, readers can definitely see how the narrator has changed and grown up.
In “Digging the Pond,” there is a notable shift where the narrator, a young teenager, notices that him and his dad are different.
He can name every species of tree, wild root,
the compounds of the soil in every field,
and knows that I stood off to the side too often
to learn what he was born knowing. (“Digging the Pond,” 21-24)
In this part of the poem, the narrator is realizing that he does not know something that his dad knows really well. When a child notices that they are different than their parent, it is usually a significant moment in that child’s life. The narrator in this poem seems to be realizing that he is growing up and changing; he knows he is no longer doing everything his parents are doing or enjoying it.
Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine is a great book for poems about growing up and changing. This book grows with readers as the readers grow. I highly recommend this book.
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Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2017
★★★★★ 5
A fine performance
Format: Paperback
You see an old pocket knife on the cover, maybe a Case; it may have even belonged to Jesse Graves, but he has certainly used it
in sculpting his poetry. "Tennessee Landscape" is pure plain speech, and all the more evocative for it. Graves uses language not to shock, not incite and not to transgress; he uses it to bring home simple and time worn truths that never go away. In the poem that is the book's title, Graves recounts his family history and ends telling us "The dead move through us at their will, their voices chime/just beyond our hearing...alone in the field, and never alone." He pays homage to a farming tool"(Elegy for a Hay Rake), not with a tone of jaundiced cynicism, speaking to it instead in a voice filled with thanks and appreciation, as if the hay rake, too,knew how worthwhile its job had been.
The second part of the volume expands Graves' geography from East Tennessee to New Orleans, North Carolina, points beyond, and the cast of subjects becomes a little broader as well, but the language remains firm and precise. "The Night Cafe: North Rendon, New Orleans": diction so perfect I feel I was there that night too. "My Sister at Sea": likely my favorite here. It feels personal, a short glimpse into a private heart; the glimpse is snatched away in a hurry but not before Graves tells us "...wishing I could bring/ you to this shore...Make your illness a small boat we could burn/Sailing out in ashes on the current."
Whether it is a landscape, a hay rake, a bar or a loved one, Jesse Graves is a poet of things that last, one who writes quiet confessions with confidence in a spare quiet and sure voice.
Very highly recommend this book.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2013
★★★★★ 5
Fine Contemporary Poetry--Just Happens to Be Appalachian
Format: Paperback
The poems in Jesse Graves' TENNESSEE LANDSCAPE WITH BLIGHTED PINE express an indebtedness to a way of life that we contemporary Appalachians have watched transform at an accelerated pace over the past few decades, as we see the beloved old ways of our culture adapt to the demands of a society marked with the pervasiveness of media, the incursion of corporate demands, and the poignant recognition that as much as family prepares us to face the world outside our community, the impact of that world can blur the impressions our homes have made on us. Graves' work approaches these themes from various directions, as a son looking to the legacy of his family, as a youth and young man balancing education--both formal and that gleaned from personal experience--and as a family man weighing what he shares and offers in embodying those values.
In this consistently fine volume, it is difficult to select favorites, but there are "River Gods," where an inebriated student and his companion cross the high railway trestle over the Tennessee River in Knoxville, Tennessee, "Deep Corner," where the speaker contemplates how his life has turned out differently than his brother's, "Mother's Milk," where the speaker weighs how much his mother has contributed to his life (including, sweetly, "an ear for slightly off-pitch singing"), and "Digging the Pond," where the speaker and his father silently acknowledge that the son will not preserve all his father's values:
. . . I stood off to the side too often
to learn what he was born knowing.
The doing and the undoing.
I can find in his face what he reads
about the future in the tea-colored water,
his eyes and mine trying to avoid it.
Graves' love for these gifts, those accepted and those only acknowledged, resonates throughout TENNESSEE LANDSCAPE WITH BLIGHTED PINE.
Graves' appreciation for lyric poetry, his talent for finding the expressiveness of everyday language, and his offering scenes with great depth of meaning and feeling make this collection memorable, worthy of high recommendation.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2011