Last Friday, Philip Hoare appeared at the Edinburgh International Science Festival, giving a talk called “The State of the Whale.” The author of many wonderful and fascinating books, Hoare has most recently found fame with his latest book “Leviathan”, which deservedly won the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction last year.
Reminiscent of another great writer, the late W.G. Sebald, Hoare’s “Leviathan” is wonderful for its fusion of fact, history and literature with the personal, resulting in a quite extraordinary book. Leaving the bookshop after buying it, I promptly buried my head in it — slowly wandering home reading it, and almost in tears before I was thirty pages in. Upon realising that I had reached the half-way ‘tipping’ point brought genuine distress that it would soon be over, but even then I couldn’t stop myself from reading on, devouring the second half of the book in a single day.
Having looked forward to “The State of the Whale” for weeks, I am happy to report that Hoare’s talk was excellent. As someone who has read “Leviathan”, I was delighted to finally hear from the man who wrote it; to see pictures of his studies and to hear more about his personal experiences with whales. We were told about different types of whale and their behaviour, shown shown real teeth and baleen and treated to images from Hoare’s own whale-watching. The highly personal way that Hoare spoke about his own obsession with whales and about his travels around the world to watch and learn about them was utterly engaging, and I sat enraptured.
Hoare’s talk was wonderful in conveying the scale of these wonderful, elusive mammals and revelling in their mysterious nature — for such large creatures, they are seen only in glimpses at the ocean’s surface and as yet have not been monitored or filmed at depth. The talk was tragic too, in revealing the devastation inflicted on these huge, intelligent beasts by mankind’s long history of whaling. With many species hunted to the point of extinction by the twentieth century, the anti-whaling movement and anti-whaling legislation have done much to aid the recovery of certain species. For others, like the North Atlantic Right Whale, it may already too late. As whalers targeted large males as prized catches, they removed the strongest individuals from the gene pool. The species may never recover.
In a world awoken to the importance of conservation and caring for our fragile environment and ecosystems, we need the voices of passionate individuals to ring out and remind us of the intrinsic power and beauty of the natural world. In an age when our lives are dominated by the artificial and constructed realities of electronic media and life in modern cities, we must not forget our sense of wonder at the natural world — the world that gives life and sustains us all.
An eye-opening, informative, fascinating and entertaining talk, “The State of the Whale” reminded me of the wonderful abundance of life on our planet; life that is beautiful, brutal, mysterious, and perpetually struggling for survival. Evolved to the point that we have, it is our duty to protect and support these other forms of life. With the possibility of a return to whaling coming as early as next year, is it not time to think about the intrinsic value of the natural world around us, instead of its value as a commodity to be captured, traded, and capitalised on?
After the talk I kicked myself for not bringing my copy of “Leviathan” with me to be signed, and my mum obligingly stepped in a bought me a new copy. I spoke to Philip briefly, and told him that I find his writing magnificent. Now that my new copy of “Leviathan” has taken its place on the mantlepiece, it’s time for my unsigned copy to go on a journey of it’s own: being passed first to my mum and then from friend to friend, most highly recommended. I urge you to read it.
