April 1982 RAIN Page 3 Whalesong, by Robert Siegel, 1981,143, pp., $9.95 hardcover from: Crossway Books 9825 West Roosevelt Rd. Westchester, IL 60153 The waves shone emerald, with frothy caps; the sky, blue and sun-drenched. Now that 1 had made the decision and given the pod hope, I felt exhilarated. My despair was entirely gone. Sun glinted from the whitecaps. It was a fine morning on which to die. I felt a tremendous defiance of steel ships and cruel men rise up within me. The lust of battle was upon me—the joy of the terrible Leviathan who haunts the dreams of men. I could do little to stop those steel prows—that I knew—but perhaps I could dent one, and the decoy action would save cow and calf. For this I had been made. I felt rise within me the joy of being, and with it a cry from my whole nature—a wave-shattering bellow to rattle the heads of men listening in the ships. Then I began my death song. A lyrical look at the life and death of whales from the whales' point of view? It's natural to expect a sort of deep sea Bambi— just another anthropomorphized animal story for children. But Whalesong is much more than that. This beautifully written epic tale of a great species' struggle for survival deserves to be widely read by adults as well as children. Its special ability to elicit empathy and provoke outrage from readers could prove as powerful as all the voyages of Greenpeace in assuring that the whales will continue to sing their song. —John Ferrell The Oceans: Our Last Resource, by Wesley Marx, 1981352 pp., $13.95 hardcover from: Sierra Club Books 530 Bush Street San Francisco, CA 94108 While troublesome problems like pollution, overpopulation and diminishing resources tempt some people to dream of building colonies in space in lieu of sustainable communities on earth, others turn seaward and conjure visions of Aquapolis—a carefree colony set down amidst a boundless, if somewhat soggy, cornucopia of seabed mineral nodules, oil platforms and protein-rich life forms. Wesley Marx warns of the self-deception and ecological danger inherent in viewing the oceans as humankind's resource (and garbage dump) of last resort. In so doing, he familiarizes his readers with the technology of seabed mining, the history of beaches as recreation areas, the role played by kelp in complex marine ecosystems, the problems arising from nationalist approaches to fishery management and a host of other topics relating to human impacts on oceans, sealife, and shorelines. For those of us whose attention tends to be focused inland, this book is a good introduction to the problems and promise, the power and fragility, of the watery 71% of our planet's surface. —John Ferrell Finned Gandhians Resist Slaugher In early March [1980J, some 4,000 dolphins staged what appeared to be a protest swim-in, surrounding a small island off southwestern Japan one day after fishermen slashed and stabbed about 200 of their comrades to death. The fishermen say the dolphins threaten their livelihood by feeding on schools of fish they must catch for a living. They have recently been herding the dolphins into a bay and killing them, selling the dolphin meat as fertilizer or as food for pigs. The mass action by the dolphins temporarily prevented futher killing and forced the fishing boats back to port. Craig Van Note, a Washington, D.C. environmentalist, suspects that the fishermen may have planted the story to gain sympathy for their plight. But Van Note reports that the dolphins were "screaming and crying" during the "bloodbath" and that he "would not doubt that the dolphins [who escaped! were smart enough to see what was going on and to communicate with their fellow cetaceans." —reprinted by permission from May 1980 issue of Sojourners, 1309 L Street, Washington, D.C. 20005.
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