Der Gesang in den Meeren

by Doreen Cunningham

Von den Lagunen in Baja California bis zu den Gletschern des Nordpolarmeers legen Grauwalmütter mit ihren Kälbern jährlich Tausende von Meilen in dem sich aufgrund des Klimawandels erwärmenden Meer zurück. Es ist die längste Wanderung eines Säugetiers auf unserem Planeten. Doreen Cunningham, selbst alleinerziehende Mutter, folgt den Walen auf dieser gefährlichen Reise, zusammen mit ihrem zweijährigen Sohn Max – in Bussen, Zügen und auf Schiffen, allein und auf sich gestellt.

Den Plan zu diesem Abenteuer hat sie an einem Tiefpunkt ihres Lebens gefasst: Gestrandet in einem Heim für obdachlose Mütter, erinnert sie sich an ihren Aufenthalt bei den Iñupiat im Norden Alaskas, an die unbändige Natur, die ihr schon einmal im Leben half. Nun will sie es mit Max erneut versuchen, ihm zeigen, wie Mensch und Wal verbunden sind, was Freiheit und Liebe bedeuten. Doreen Cunningham ist mit diesem Buch eine einzigartige Mischung aus Memoir, Reisebericht und wissenschaftlicher Dokumentation gelungen.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Nature, Animals, Travel, Environment, Biography

342 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 3, 2022

Reviews

[Teres · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've wanted to read this since I heard Doreen Cunningham interviewed on NPR this summer. Honestly? I much preferred the interview to her book. Her vivid and beautiful descriptions of the bond that exists between whale mothers and their young are some of my favorites, but her storytelling felt very disjointed as she bounced between different times and places in her life. 🐋

[Kathie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book - a parenting memoir, a travel story, a book about whales, a treatise on global warming? It ended up being a little bit of all of the above, with a love story gently layered in. I learned more about whales, Iñupiaq culture and whale hunting than I ever thought possible (and, the 8 year old wannabe marine biologist still inside me was delighted).

The story is split between the author's time in Alaska living with an Iñupiaq family and learning about whale hunting and a trip she took with her two year old son to follow the grey whale migration up the west coast of the US. The timeline jumped around a lot in the first half of the book and although it wasn't hard to keep up, it felt abrupt and took you out of the core story. I think it could have been a much more straightforward narrative if some details were cut down a bit.

The last quarter or so of the book was my absolute favorite. Overall it's a beautiful read and well worth your time.

With thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

[Стефани Витанова · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Дълбини" от Дорийн Кънингам е роман, побрал в себе си изключителна художествена красота. Роман с научна обосновка, стояща зад всяко изречение. Истински академичен труд в сферата на екологията и околната среда, който ни разказва защо китовете имат огромна роля в опазването на океаните и климата.

Заедно с това, романът е една своеобразна изповед, мемоар на една майка, която тласната до ръба на бедността и отчаянието, взима двегодишния си син и заедно потеглят на пътешествие. Целта - да проследят отблизо миграцията на китовете, за да си припомни тя какво е издръжливост, адаптация и устойчивост. За да подари на детето си приключение. За да му покаже, че светът е огромен и красив, и не се заключва единствено зад вратите на хостела, където тя е била принудена да го отглежда от бебе.

Да бъде родител е най-голямото предизвикателство, пред което може да се изправи всяко живо същество на тази планета. Да родиш и отгледаш дете в свят, не особено толерантен към човешки проявления като слабост и беззащитност, е проява на особен героизъм.

"... всяка година източната популация (на сивите китове) преплува Северния ледовит океан и стига до мексиканските лагуни, където се размножава, а после отново мигрира на север заедно с малките си. Това са над 16 000 километра, все едно да преплуваш два пъти Луната... Майките се бият с хищниците, грижат се за малките си и им дават да бозаят, докато преплуват половината планета. Те са същинско превъплъщение на издръжливостта".

"Така се случва с някои места. Връщаш се различен човек или пък въобще не се връщаш".

"Имах чувството, че отново се уча да ходя и да говоря. Светът сякаш вече не ме разпознаваше, затова гледах да се грижа за центъра на собствената си вселена - едногодишния ми син".

"Държа погледа си на повърхността право пред мен в търсене на светлина. Припомням си, че китовете не знаят какво е надежда и безнадеждност, нито какво е стрес. Те се справят с живеенето, с това да си поемат дъх след дъх. Не спират да се движат. Плуват до края на света заради себе си и заради малките си".

[Olive Fellows (abookolive) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Click here to hear my thoughts on this book over on my Booktube channel, abookolive.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
Soundings is a dual narrative memoir, that recounts two journeys a woman make, pursuing her dream to see the grey whales that migrate up the coast from Mexico where her journey begins, to the northernmost Arctic town of Utqiagvik.

The Iñupiat have thrived there, in a place periodically engulfed in ice and darkness, for thousands of years, bound closely together by their ancient culture and their relationships with the animals they hunt, most notably the magnificent and mysterious bowhead whale. I hadn't just seen the whales there, I'd joined a family hunting crew, travelling with them in a landscape of astonishing beauty and danger.

The book is structured so that each chapter alternates the twin journeys, the first one when she is a young BBC journalist on a sabbatical, so the trip isn't for her job, she is winging it, not knowing ahead of time where she might stay, how she might join an indigenous subsistence whale hunt to be in a position to observe the whales. She would be there is listen, observe and with luck, participate.

The idea was that you could immerse yourself in a place and absorb more than if you were questioning people as a reporter and narrowing the world down into stories. I was supposed to take thinking time away from the relentless news cycle, open my mind and return bursting with creativity and new ideas.

The second trip is more of an escape from her current reality, that of a young single mother, recently awarded custody of her child, who can not afford to live in her home (due to high mortgage payments), who had returned to her parents home in Jersey - who then decides she wants to make a return trip and give her two year old son a formative experience of travel and whale watching.

I'd felt so alive then, so connected to other people and to the natural world? If only I could feel that way again and give that feeling to Max.

It made me remember reading Scottish poet and nature essay writer Kathleen Jamie's Surfacing, where she visits and brings alive a Yup'ik village in Quinhagak, Southern Alaska. Doreen Cunnningham's interest in whales and the environment inclines more towards the science, research and a personal desire for a sense of belonging and a large dose of wishful thinking, than the more poetic and philosophical Jamie, who went towards the tundra in search of surfaces that might reconnect us to the past.

I told myself I would relearn from the whales how to mother, how to endure, how to live.
Beneath the surface, secretly, I longed to get back to northernmost Alaska, to the community who'd kept me safe in the harsh beauty of the Arctic and to Billy, the whale hunter who'd loved me.

Once you realise that the narrative goes back and forth, it becomes easier to stick with it, the chapters in the more recent past focus as much on the logistics of trying to travel with a child, car seat and stroller, finding kindred spirits who might assist getting her on a boat to see the whales and trying to avoid fellow travellers who look askance at this young mother, attempting the extraordinary.

As they travel, she also shares something of the challenges in the past of reporting on climate change, the reluctance to report on the environment and the habit many broadcasters had of always finding a sceptic to present an alternative view to the facts.

In her earlier visit, she takes time to listen to their stories, of the first ships that came in, bringing equipment, alcohol and disease. She hears of the social problems of another indigenous people, of children sent away, of PTSD, of a sense of rage and powerlessness, of a need to educate themselves in order to better represent and protect their culture and ways. She also hears of the effect of the warming of the ocean, its impact on animals, on the ice, on patterns of behaviours, of the risk to their livelihood.

We also learn a little of her childhood experiences, of her wild pony Bramble, of an Irish granny and the songs she still sings that the whales seem to respond to. She injects enough of the personal story to keep the pace going, as the flow risks at times being overwhelmed by the facts and background research. However, as I go back and reread the passages I highlighted, I find it interesting to encounter some of this information a second time around, now that I've removed the expectation of a flowing narrative.

There is a something in this book for everyone, it defies genre and shows the gentle, yet vulnerable courage of a young mother persevering against the odds, seizing the reins, following her intuition and going on a grand adventure with a small boy, who is more likely the greater teacher to her than the elusive whales, on motherhood.

[Krista · Rating 4 out of 5]

The whaling captain’s wife gave me a beer, which came in a small can and a piece of whale heart to eat. The meat was chewy, did not easily shred or disintegrate into fibres. It was clearly part of a whole, carried a message about entirety. After I swallowed it, I sat still and quiet. It took me down into the ocean, sounding, down below the light where benign goliaths swam by.

Adding to the trend of memoir through scientific investigation, environmental journalist Doreen Cunningham, at the lowest point in her life — unemployed single mother, living in a women’s hostel on the island of Jersey, with no prospect for improvement — made the rash decision to take out a large loan and bring along her two year old son on a loosely-planned adventure: to follow a pod of grey whales, from their birthing grounds off the Mexico coast, to their feeding grounds in the Aleutian Islands. Although she had no prior interest in grey whales specifically, Cunningham was entranced when she learned that theirs was about the longest annual migration of any mammal. And she had a secondary motive: to make her way back to the small Alaskan village of Utqiagvik and the man she had met and fallen in love with there, seven years earlier. Soundings is the narrative of these two adventures — with frequent interspersals of the story of Cunningham’s childhood on the island of Jersey, up to the challenging relationship with her son’s father and subsequent custody battle — and I found the whole thing to be charming. I liked Cunningham’s voice, I admired her chutzpah, and although her connection to whales felt a little bit tenuous, as an environmental journalist, I appreciated her explanation that whales are signal species, and their fate is our fate. I loved everything about this.

From there everything happened quickly. A string was pulling me, out of the window, into the sky, across the sea. The next day I left the hostel and moved into a friend’s attic room. I got a loan, organised visas. We would follow the mothers and babies from Mexico to the top of the world, I told Max. They would swim, and we would take the bus, the train, and the boat alongside them. I told myself I would relearn from the whales how to mother, how to endure, how to live. Beneath the surface, secretly, I longed to get back to northernmost Alaska, to the community who kept me safe in the harsh beauty of the Arctic and to Billy, the whale hunter who’d loved me.

In Cunningham’s narrative “now”, we tag along as she attempts to wrangle an energetic toddler onto buses, trains, and charter boats along the western coast of North America; forever just making connections, cursing foggy views, and always just a day or two behind the migrating whales. This narrative is thoroughly human and relatable. In her intermittent story of seven years prior, she was on sabbatical from the BBC, with a bursary to help her study anything she liked, and initially, she intended to travel across the top of Alaska and Canada, asking the Indigenous peoples along the way about their lived experience with climate change. But when she arrived at her first stop of Utqiagvik and was invited by its Iñupiaq people to witness an upcoming bowhead whale hunt, Cunningham decided to stay put, soon finding a warmth and acceptance from these people that she had never before known. This narrative thread is engaging and exciting, with gorgeous nature writing of the frozen north, as well as a blossoming love story. The third thread — with stories from an unhappy family life and the fractious pony that was her only childhood balm — we learn something of what made Cunningham the woman she would become. Along the way, she shares facts about whales and climate change — although this really isn’t a science-forward book — and for me, this sort of adventure-as-memoir really works.

Here comes the grey whale from the beginning of time, say the fossils. They pose a question too: All this you know, now what? Human thought and intention are part of the global ecosystem, the most powerful driver of change, the most powerful obstacle that both we and the whales have encountered through millennia. We are writing the next chapter of the story of all life on earth.

This is more lyrical than one might expect from an “environmental journalist” (Cunningham is working at the BBC once more, encouraged that there’s no longer a policy in place to give time to a sceptic every time an actual climate scientist talks), and if the following doesn’t turn you off, you might enjoy this as much as I did (I’ll admit it’s a bit precious, but I like her):

I am woman, human, animal. I bore my child in water. We sang to the whales. We listened to them breathing. We listened to the sea. This book is what I heard.

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read a number of books about whales, as well as books about the Arctic, and that may have done this book a disservice: I had too much with which to compare it. Soundings weaves two threads of time together: it opens with an older Doreen and her young son Max, who are travelling the coast of the United States and Canada, following the great migration of the grey whales, the longest migration of any mammal. The book also meets a younger, childless Doreen who is Utqiagvik in Alaska, learning about bowhead whales, and joining Inupiaq people on their traditional whale hunt. Both of these stories are full of potential: there is space for the reader to learn about two fascinating species of whale, about migratory journeys, and about Inupiaq people and their relationship with whales. And Cunningham does touch on these subjects -- she writes in an interesting and persuasive way about how the Inupiaq, as subsistence hunters, understand the bowhead whales better than anyone else, and how their insight into, and respect for, the whale, is one of our more important examples of living alongside whales without destroying their habitats. However, everything in the book is filtered from Cunningham's perspective: we never learn about the whales without discovering what the whales mean to her, or learn a fact about climate change without it being filtered through a memory of Cunningham's own childhood. I was also frustrated by the emotional weight Cunningham places on the whales: she seems to expect their presence to heal her from a traumatic relationship and a difficult childhood, and looks to them for compassion and tenderness. It's important to resist the urge to anthropomorphize animals, and while studies have shown whales' complex language, societies and abilities, I do not believe they form special bonds with humans, or have a particular connection to us. Also, in most cases, the best thing we can do is leave the whales alone, and not try to pet them in their birthing lagoons or follow them in boots. If we truly loved them, we wouldn't follow them: Cunningham doesn't seem to understand that. I compared this to Sightings: The Gray Whales' Mysterious Journey by Brenda Peterson and Linda Hogan, which taught me much more about grey whales; to Fathoms by Rebecca Giggs, which is a careful, thoughtful study of whales and their history, and This Cold Heaven by Gretel Ehrlich, the most considered and thorough study of the arctic I've read, and found that Soundings was wanting every time. Too much of Cunningham's life is in this book, and she loses sight of the whales and of the Arctic culture she's writing about. It was nice to learn more about the bowhead though.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is very uneven in pacing. The parts about Alaska are wonderful, and I liked reading about the whales, but the narrative that Noreen tries to sell as the core story, about a single mother and her son, wasn't compelling.

[Naomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

At last. Thats what I felt when I read this book.
I knew there were insecure, foul mouthed and brilliant mothers out there doing amazing things - I just hadn't read them before.
Soundings is the memoir of an extraordinary woman and her young son. They are fellow adventurers. Together they migrate thousands of miles looking for grey whale mothers and pups. Like the ocean that fills it this story rolls with complicated currents of the personal and universal, life and death, the human and non human world, moving and migration. The cold hard stuff is laid bare and so too is love. All sorts of love.
The flow of Cunninghmans writing dives deep but gives you lots of air to take it all in. As a reader you too will go on a fabulous Soundings journey and you will not want it to stop.

[Lies.l · Rating 2 out of 5]

Von Grundsatz her ein gute Idee. Eine Frau begibt sich mit ihrem Sohn auf reisen zu den Walen um ihrem Leben zu entfliehen. Man lernt noch einiges Interessantes und Spannendes dazu. Was den Roman aber unglaublich trübt, ist dieses zweijährige Kind, welches die Protagonistin auf reisen mitnimmt. Ein Zweijähriger, der locker 6-Wort-Sätze spricht und sich gebildet ausdrückt. Unglaubwürdig und wirklich nervig.
Hätte sich die Autorin mehr auf die Wale, deren Lebensraum und den Umweltschutz fokussiert hätte es mich weit mehr angesprochen.

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doreen Cunningham’s memoir is told in three interwoven narratives: 1) significant events in her personal life, 2) her trip to Alaska in 2006 where she lived with an Iñupiaq family and got involved in their bowhead whale hunt, and 3) travel with her two-year-old-son Max in 2013 to follow the migration of the gray whales. It also contains a variety of scientific facts about how climate change is impacting marine wildlife. My first impression was that it was a bit of a mishmash, and it took me a while to get into the swing of it. Once I accepted that it was going to jump around among the different experiences in the author’s life, I decided to “go with the flow” and found it very enjoyable. She appears to be working through a variety of personal issues (difficult childhood, death of her beloved pony, custody battle with the father of her child) and writing has helped her move forward. It reads as a reflection on what is important to her in life. Her love for her son, whales, and ecology in general is evident.

[Christine Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Soundings is one of the most beautiful books I have read which isn't an easy thing to accomplish when the author is grappling with such important and difficult topics. The book artfully and poetically takes you on a journey through many different landscapes, the descriptions of the Arctic and the Utqigvik community we meet there are the ones that I really loved. The way that facts about global warming are woven in are subtly and masterfully done. I haven't read or felt a landscape so closely, almost as if it were a person itself. The relationship between the narrator and her son are especially moving and even though we travel through experiences that were sometimes incredibly difficult we also come to the end of this story feeling optimistic about the power of human relationships and the love and attachments we have with the natural world that carry us through.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author's journey with Max, her son, was not as engaging as her earlier time spent in Alaska.

[Esmé · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading, a perfect gem that I want to pass on to everyone else.

This book had been on my horizons for a while but some of the reviews put me off - mostly complaining about confusion from the shifting time frames and not understanding the point of the novel??? Both are obscene criticisms, I genuinely have no idea where they came from.

It is an amazing meditation on our relationship to the natural world, climate change, and love. It showed me worlds and situations that I had never even imagined, all through Cunningham's lucid and lyrical prose. I can't wait to read it again.

[Alison Zak · Rating 5 out of 5]

I binge-read this book. I couldn’t put it down! It is subtly heartbreaking in many ways, a beautifully written and compelling story.

Many of the negative reviews seem to be from people who thought the book would be primarily nonfiction about whales. It is clearly marked as a memoir and weaves the personal, the cultural, and the scientific in a skillful way.

(Also, small rant: people seem to be especially critical of memoirs by single mothers. I think our society needs to examine this bias...)

[Dessi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Книгата е с много хубав замисъл, историята на самотната майка, която тръгва с двегодишното си дете по следите на китовете е трогателна, а има и доста факти, свързани с кмиматичните промени, което е важна тема. И въпреки това четенето не ми върви. Струва ми се, че би могла да се събере и в половината обем тази книга и да се предаде историята в малко по-динамичен и концентриран вид.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed feelings about this one, quality content on whales, Inupiat culture and climate change is confused with personal memoir about single parenthood and family relationships. Still a good read but for a book about whales, a better choice would be Rebecca Giggs Fathoms; the world in the whale.

[Leigh Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Based on the other reviews this is obviously not the popular sentiment - but these people were not likeable at all.
Or maybe I'm just cranky like the old folks on the tour boat, who knows?

[Britta Böhler · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*

[Ruby O · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some really good parts. I thought the narrative of the author's time in Utqiagvik was a strong point. I also appreciated how passionate she is about gray whales and the arctic. The time jumps were a little confusing and brought me out of the narrative, and I just wasn't super into the storytelling--I think maybe too much was happening for any one point to really be hammered home.

[Annina Seiler]

dnf bei 71% ohne ersichtlichen Grund

[Hayley Chwazik-Gee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought Soundings to catch up on my gray whale knowledge before heading to Baja on my own gray whale adventure. I usually gravitate towards books about animals but I found this one a tad tiresome and sloggy. In this memoir author Doreen Cunningham decided to follow the gray whale migration path from Baja to the Arctic with her son in an attempt to find more meaning in her life. I felt like her storytelling was choppy as she bounced around from different traumas in her past to the present without divulging many details or transitions to help orient. Her writing and chapter summaries stuck me as trite and I had a hard time staying engaged. Overall, I could’ve done with more whales and less self-introspection. At least our own adventure proved fruitful with the whale sightings and facts!

[Pavlov813 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esattamente il mio genere di libro. Metà memoir, metà saggio ambientalista, intriso di zoologia, biologia marina e cultura eschimese inupiat, Doreen è la nostra ragazza delle balene. Come le balene si orientano e si ritrovano nel buio dell'oceano grazie ai loro canti, riuscendo anno dopo anno in una traversata di oltre 15.000 km, così Doreen trova la sua via. Il percorso di Doreen è tortuoso: figlia poco amata di una madre traumatizzata e che si porta dietro un enorme bagaglio, poi madre single che dorme in uno shelter anti-violenza, infine ingegnere e poi giornalista in giro per il mondo. Il suo happy place è quando a 25 anni ottenne una borsa di studio per vivere qualche tempo in Alaska e approfondire la questione climatica. La sorte la portò a vivere con una famiglia Inupiat, che la integrò in ogni aspetto della sua vita: la condivisione del cibo e delle scorte con le altre famiglie inupiat, la caccia alla balena, la lettura del cielo e del meteo, l'utilizzo per la caccia di tecnologie moderne insieme a barche coperte di pelli di foca confezionate a mano, la migrazione dei caribú. 7 anni dopo Doreen è una madre single, e prova a passare al figlio Max di 2 anni lo stesso imprinting che ha avuto lei con le balene: chiede un prestito e partono dal Golfo del Messico, luogo dove nella stagione calda le balene partoriscono, per poi seguire le rotte del krill e risalire fino alla ghiacciata Alaska in cerca di cibo. La vicenda autobiografica si intreccia con le questioni ecologiche e biologiche. Perché negli ultimi 50 anni la questione climatica è sempre stata, fino a pochissimo tempo fa, affrontata con scetticismo persino da esimie testate giornalistiche? Perché le balene cantano? Come vivono, come organizzano la resistenza agli attacchi delle orche e dell'uomo? Cosa ha dovuto subire la cultura eschimese inupiat negli anni, con i bambini strappati alle famiglie a 4 anni e costretti a frequentare scuole a migliaia di kilometri da casa, puniti se sorpresi a parlare inupiat e non inglese?

[Ashley : bostieslovebooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

SOUNDINGS: JOURNEYS IN THE COMPANY OF WHALES is a combination of things – memoir, travelogue, nature writing, and scientific journalism. It follows the author’s journey to track grey whale migration at two points in her life. For the first, she is living in Alaska with an Iñupiaq family. The second time is seven years later while she is traveling with her toddler.

The book bounces back and forth between the two timelines of the author’s trips. I had very polarized feelings about this book because of the dual timelines. I loved the sections about her time in Alaska living with an Iñupiaq family as she learned about the ways of the Indigenous whale hunters and how climate change affected the whales and the people. There was a lot of great scientific information given and I really enjoyed learning about the whales and the Iñupiaq culture. The writing of these sections contained emotion as well. You could tell how impactful the experience had been for her. Unfortunately, the sections about her travels with her toddler in search of grey whales on their migration route were comparatively underwhelming and not enjoyed. It felt like reading someone’s social media status updates – We’re on a boat looking for whales… We saw whales... People didn’t like my child… I changed a poopy diaper… We waited to see more whales... – There was a disconnect from the emotion that was shown in the sections about Alaska. I found myself hurrying through these parts as I really didn’t care about her standing on a boat with her child. I would have loved all of that taken out of the book and replaced with more about the time in Alaska and further information about the whales and Indigenous whale hunters.

Overall, SOUNDINGS: JOURNEYS IN THE COMPANY OF WHALES was an informative read. Although I didn’t like one of the timelines in the book, the other timeline was strong enough to keep my attention and provided enjoyment. I’d recommend this book to fans of memoirs, nature writing, whales, and pieces on climate change.

Thank you to Scribner for the finished copy.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you were writing a book specifically to target me, you might write a memoir woven into the journey of whales, because alongside tennis, taking off on an international flight and flowing conversation with friends, memoirs and whales* are some of my favorite things.

So, I stumble across this book in the charming Brewster Book Store on Cape Cod, and naturally I pick it up.

I thought I’d love it.

I did not love it.

I think maybe I was expecting Susan Casey after a few poetry classes? But instead it was a self-indulgent bore. Sigh.

And a note: authors, please don’t write in baby talk to demonstrate the speaker is a toddler. Barf.

For the 10,000th time, I really must get better at parting ways with a book that just isn’t doing it for me. I feel a sense of obligation to finish, to hear the author out, but lord. Sometimes it just isn’t meant to be.

*This is absolutely true — specifically orcas. I know this because when you have little kids, you get asked several times a week what your favorite animal is, and after some pondering, I realized it’s been orcas all along. My younger son once asked me what my favorite LAND animal is, and after rejecting my answer (“you and your brother”), he surmised it was “probably a dead orca.” 👀

[Corky · Rating 2 out of 5]

From the perspective of someone who reads a lot of memoirs, I would not recommend.
From the perspective of someone who is fascinated by whales, I would not recommend.
From the perspective of someone who is intrigued about indigenous traditions and stories - I would maybe recommend?? If you are alright with reading "Whales mummy!" a few hundred times, give it a go.
The best parts were her reflections back to her time in Alaska living among the locals and learning about their culture and the whales.
Unfortunately there was much more about the (self acknowledged) poorly planned chase of grays during their migration north. Visas aside - you can't expect a 4th of July firework show when you show up in early September.

Everything about the pony? Slightly weird and depressing and not all that interesting.

I also needed to know how we ended the memoir with more children while still fully wrapped up in the fantasy of a former lover. Huh??

[Nick Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very beautiful book about emotional recovery after a failed relationship through love of animals, particularly whales and ponies, and just being a mum. Single parenthood becomes a balm rather than a chore in a chase to follow whales on their migration from Baja in Mexico to Northern Alaska and the Inuit family the writer becomes friends with . I loved it.

[Lisa Konet · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was better than I thought it was going to be. I love learning anything about whales and also Alaska. The personal side of the story was lacking and at times, tedious and boring. Props to the bits about whales and Alaska. Glad this was a library book.

[Dory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two travel stories + climate change findings + personal history = a complex book. I wasn’t sure that Cunningham was going to be able to pull it off, but in the end, it came together in an impactful way. I’ll be thinking about this one for a while.

[Nicole Nikolova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Рядко посягам към пътеписи, но когато попадна на нещо като “Дълбини. Едно пътешествие в компанията на китове” си казвам, че трябва да го правя по-често. Защото има някаква магия, по-различна от онази в художествената литература, в това да вървиш по стъпките на някой друг и да прочетеш за истинските му преживявания, мисли и емоции. 


Пътуваме заедно с Дорийн Кънингам по западното крайбрежие на Северна Америка от Мексико до Аляска в търсене на сиви китове. Не какви да е, а сиви. Защо точно в тях се влюбва тя? Защото са издръжливи и успяват да се справят в различни ситуации, въпреки всичко. В известна степен авторката се открива в тях. Или поне иска да бъде като тях. 


Връзката й с китовете и въобще морската шир е силна още от ранна детска възраст. Като по-млада тя работи като репортер и поема по едно такова пътуване, което я отвежда в малко градче в Аляска. Там тя намира покой, щастие, любов и дори може да се каже, смисъл в живота. Но после, въпреки всичко, напуска мястото. 


Години по-късно, вече с 2-годишния си син, иска да извърви този път отново. Да види китовете. Може би да усети всичко онова, което е изпитала преди години. Иска да намери себе си, да пребори някои демони. Иска да покаже на сина си, че животът може да е и това. А не само тесни общежития и домове за самотни майки. 


Пътуването на Дорийн със сина й ми беше интересно. Като майка на 2-годишно дете, аз не спирах да се чудя как е възможно сама жена да се справи с това предизвикателство. Всичко е възможно, стига да го искаме достатъчно силно. 


Но всъщност, не това ми беше най-интересната част от книгата. Авторката паралелно с разказа за последното пътуване с дете, споделя и преживяванията си от предишното. И между двете, вмъква какво се е случило с живота й междувременно. Разказва за злополучната си връзка, от която се появява синът й и на какви ситуации попада като самотна майка без достатъчно доходи. 


Макар че действието се прехвърля от едно време в друго, всичко някак си пасва на мястото, докато сглобяваме парченцата от пъзела в живота на Дорийн, за да си обясним защо тя решава да предприеме това пътуване. 


Този пътепис има и друга страна и тя е екологичната. В него научаваме много за живота и привичките на китовете - информация, която на мен ми беше много любопитна.

Но са засегнати и проблемите с околната среда и обиталищата на китовете и как те са застрашени. 


“Дълбини” на Дорийн Кънингам от издателство “Ерове” може да се разгледа като екологичен пътепис за миграцията на китовете. Може да е и мемоар за майчинството и предизвикателствата пред една майка, която търси своя вариант как да бъде най-добрата такава за детето си. А може и да е просто личната и емоционална история на една жена, която иска да открие своята сила и я търси там, където вярва, че ще я открие - в компанията на китовете. 

При всички положения, на мен ми беше интересно да надникна в живота на тази жена и да науча нови неща. За китовете, а и за живота въобще. 

Можете да поръчате “Дълбини” с 15% отстъпка от сайта на издателство “Ерове” с промокод CATWOLF

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Всички мои ревюта можете да прочетете в блога Catwolf's Writings.