Acquire Fathoms: The World In The Whale Constructed By Rebecca Giggs Shown In Manuscript

book transformed me into a fountain of whale facts, It also had me rolling out multiple rolls of measuring tape that stretched from the living room to the dining room, knowing full well I was short by at least four more rolls, but attempting anyway to make more concrete the unparalleled

colossus that is the blue whale.
Rebecca Giggs is thorough in her exploration of the whaling industry, how whales got their charismatic fauna designation in the cultural imagination of much of the world plus the distinct traits of different cetaceans that got jumbled in the process, like of course humpbacks are not the only sea singers, hello!, and the ecological perils that threaten the future of whales, without losing a drop of the poetic and marvelous pulse that surges through Fathoms.
I admire a question she poses early on: “The duty of awewasnt itcare” And I feel that she is persistent in confirming that yes, indeed it is.
I found out about FATHOMS by browsing at a Barnes amp Noble, I was captured, of course, by its gorgeous cover, but also by the description in the front flap, It was a bit of a gamble but I like to live my life on the edge,

The book is absolutely spectacular, and the only person whos happy Ive finished it is my wife, whos had enough of hearing me blurt out “woah”, followed by a whalerelated fact that she absolutely didnt ask for.


Giggs manages to write about nature in a way that engages both the scientific and the literary dimensions, the left and the right brain hemispheres, with a deep respect for both.


By the section called “Whalefall” I was mesmerized,

Since its not a term that most of us use everyday, what is this “whalefall”

In brief, its what happens when a whale dies in the ocean and is not washed into the shallows.
For weeks, or even more than a month, it will float on the surface, pecked at by seabirds, fish, etc, Then it slowly goes down,

“ Then, sometimes, the entire whale skeleton will suddenly burst through the cloud of its carcass, For a time, the skeleton might stay hitched to its parachute of muscle a macabre marionette, jinking at the spine in the slight currents, Later, it drops, falling quickly to the seafloor, into the plush cemetery of the worms, ”

Its like reading DeLillo, only this is a nonfiction book!

Giggs talks about the many ways in which humans have polluted the oceans to the extent that its already coming back to us big time via toxins found in fish or even microplastics and all sorts of unhealthy stuff, and she gives a shocking at least to me but very wellresearched overview of the nefarious impact of human activity on whales, even beyond whale hunting.


However, never once she talks about environmental or conservation topics without losing the elegance and the delicate lyricism that pervades the book, She never comes across as an aggressive Greenpeace activist, or a “how daaarre you” greenparty warrior, She lays out the facts and, sometimes, the horrors of what our economy has done to the global whales population, always with the careful intelligence of a scientist and, at the same time, with the love of metaphor and of unusual connections of a poet.


The subtitle “the world in the whale” comes from the realization that whales can actually “contain” the world, One whale was found with an entire greenhouse in its stomach plant pots, hose pipes, glass, the whole lot, Like Giggs says: “ We struggle to understand the sprawl of our impact, but there it is, within one cavernous stomach: pollution, climate, animal welfare, wildness, commerce, the future, and the past.
Inside the whale, the world, ”

Did you know that:

in theth century people were almost constantly in contact with whalegleaned products, in much the same way as most people today are never far from plastic objects.


by the end of thes, the whaling industry had almost killed all the whales in the southern hemisphere,s activism was successful in stopping that massacre, and a transnational effort made whaling illegal with a global moratorium in, with some exceptions, like Iceland, Norway, Japan and Russia that still allow whaling within some limits.


the circulation of plankton accounts for the absorption and displacement of about half the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels, Whalefalls bring about two tonnes of carbon each to the bottom of the sea carbon that would otherwise take,years to accrue on the sea floor, The removal of so much whale mass from the oceans during theth century, therefore, had an indirect effect on the composition of our atmosphere.
Researchers have projected that increased numbers of whales can help offset a measurable quantity of emissions,

humpbacks feed their young on pink milk, due to their diet of rosy krill,

on some islands off Australia the bodyweight of some birds ispercent plastic,

worldwide, there areplastic gyres in the seas that stretch for miles, swirling with the refuse of modern lives,


If there is one main thing Im taking away from this book is that, from whales changing the air quality, to inuit women finding toxins from fish in their breasts, to wild belugas contracting a disease from house cats, in our world EVERYTHING is deeply interconnected, much more than what we assume or can even imagine.


“ We are all tumbled together, human and nonhuman, the far and the nearby, deeply in torsion, inhabiting this change of state, . ”

Fathoms is a real gem, An astonishingly beautiful book about whales, humanity, wildness, ecology everything basically, Giggs writes gorgeous, poetic prose and packs a miraculous amount intopages, The introductory essay may be the best piece of writing I've read all year,.I love whales, so I really wanted to love this book, but I ended up giving up on it after aboutpages, On the surface, it seemed like it would be fascinating, and the bit I read did contain plenty of interesting information, but I just couldn't take the author's writing style.
She constantly uses words and metaphors wrong, in ways that, even with poetic license, make no sense, Apparently many readers have found the writing lyrical and beautiful, I found it bizarrely convoluted and at times nonsensical, I hate not finishing a book, especially when the subject matter really interests me, but in the end this one wasn't worth the frustration,

Another reader posted a link to this review in a comment elsewhere: sitelink com/revie It sums up a lot of my thoughts about this book,,
Kuo daugiau skaitau apie gyvūnus, tuo labiau mano nemeilė žmonijai didėja,

Banginiai, didžiausi Žemės gyvūnai, protingi, bendraujantys, mylintys, sielvartaujantys, . . ant išnykimo ribos. Mokslininkai teigia, kad jų neteksim per ateinančius porą dešimtmečių,  
Ši knyga ne tiek apie pačius banginius nors kažkiek informacijos, žinoma, yra, kiek apie jų naikinimo istoriją, Anot autorės, šios knygos tikslas yra atkreipti visų mūsų dėmesį į tragediją, Tai banginių pagalbos šauksmas.  

Aktyvistų prieš banginių medžiojimą didžiausias susirūpinimas yra apsaugoti besilaukiančias bangines, Kovojama, kad banginius medžiojančios kompanijos testuotų bangines dėl nėštumo, Tai, žinoma, komplikuota, bet kito būdo išvis nėra, O sumedžiojamos dažniausiai būtent lėtai judančios besilaukiancios milžinės,   

Beje, man labai makabriškai nuskambėjo Mio Bryce, Head of Japanese Studies Macquarie University išsakyta frazė, pasiremiant Shinto Budizmo etika: "Well, better to kill one whale than many, many other sea creatures to satisfy the appetites of the same number of people".
 

O už tai, kas randama jų skrandžiuose tai jau tikrai atsakingi mes,


Rekomenduoju besidomintiems aplinkos apsauga, Fathoms is perhaps the finest book written about whales since Moby Dick was publishedyears ago, Its also one of the best accounts Ive ever read of the interaction, intended and unintended, between humans and other species a work of genuinely literary imagination.

Verlyn Klinkenborg , New York Books

Fathoms is a marvel: a glorious, prismatic, deeply affecting hymn to the beauty, majesty, and extremity of whales and the human imagining of them.

James Bradley

Fathoms reads like a poem, Its virtuoso thinking is a revelation, I cant think of many books in which love for the world and uncompromising, everdeepening rigour come together in this way, Time slows down. This book makes a permanent dent in the reader,
Maria Tumarkin

Fathoms took my breath away, Every page is suffused with magic and meaning, Humanitys relationship with nature has never been more important or vulnerable, and we are truly fortunate that at such a pivotal moment, a writer of Rebecca Giggss calibre is here to capture every beautiful detail, every aching nuance.
She is in a league of her own,
Ed Yong, author of I Contain Multitudes

A lyrical, wideranging meditation on whales and their complex relationship with humanity Meticulously researched and full of fascinating information.

BooksPublishing

In Fathoms, Rebecca Giggs rips the metaphors off whales and brings us closer than we can usually get to the creatures themselves.
Along the way, she shows us how intimately whales are shaping our lives, how they change air quality, and crime, and even our conception of time.
I can't stop thinking about the connections she has unearthed, how a whale is connected to a meteor, a mother's breast, a landfill, Under the spell of her deliciously evocative prose, you get the sense that you are truly, finally, glimpsing a whale in full glory, Like the busks she writes abouttiny missives carved into whalebone corsets by sailorsthis book leaves an imprint,
Lulu Miller, author of Why Fish Dont Exist and cofounder of NPRs Invisibilia

Seafaring scrutiny of whales, their oceanic environment, and the dangers to their survival Giggs presents scholarship in crisp, creatively written chapters addressing the many layers of the whale populations unique physiology and evolutionary history, sociality, abovewater balletic athleticism, and enigmatic biophony of their vocalisations.
Most importantly, she analyses how their behaviour can be predictive for the Earths future Giggs reiterates that the whale and its life, legacy, and precarious environmental state are reflective of the greater issues the Earth faces, from ecological upheaval to overconsumption.
Whether describing the majesty of the blue whale or the human assault on sea ecology due to paper and plastic pollution, the authors prose is poetic, beautifully smooth, urgently readable, and eloquently informative.
Her passion for whales leaps off the page, urging readers to care andeven more sobecome involved in their protection and preservation, Throughout the book, the authors debut, she brilliantly exposes how regular human life seeped into the habitats of wildlife, and how wildlife returned back to us, the evidence of our obliviousness.
Refreshingly, she also reveals glimmers of hope regarding what whales can teach the human race about our capacity to ecologically coexist with the natural world.
A thoughtful, ambitiously crafted appeal for the preservation of marine mammals, STARRED REVIEW
Kirkus s

Astonishing, . . utterly original Fathoms is an attempt to interpret our contemporary moment and in particular our relationship with the nonhuman world through the glistening figure of the whale in all its myriad aspects.
. . The language of Fathoms has a remarkable, almost gothic intensity, The style is vivid and estranging and luridly compelling, full of weird lights and unexpected textures, . . A remarkable literary event because it is a new and hugely ambitious kind of nature writing, verging on poetry, It is itself a whale cure, thrusting us into the dark intestine of the whale, among the indigestible plastics and other pollutants, the better to hear the conscience of tomorrow.

Andrew Fuhrmann, The Monthly

In Fathoms, Rebecca Giggs unravels a powerful nonfiction narrative, masterfully blending history, philosophy and science.

Dan Shaw, Happy Magazine

This book is nothing less than a small masterpiece, Rebecca Giggs Fathoms the world in the whale is a remarkable meditation on, nominally, whales, but through them the delicacy and intricacy of human relationships with the environment, and the history and legacy of our intimate and devastating impact upon ecosystems The book is a striking piece of narrative nonfiction, philosophical and personal at once wrestling with liminal vulnerabilities, fantasies, conceits and projections, and it deserves global attention.
.STARS
Anna Westbrook, ArtsHub

Fathoms is horrific, poetic and profound a morbid dirge shot through with celestial light.
As well as being an extensively researched and deeply considered study, the book is also a wunderkammer of tales that illustrate the hot mess of human aggression, obliviousness and folly Fathoms is a vast book, the scale of which brings to mind the blue whale, anatomically mysterious and the largest creature to have lived.
Giggs weaves together cosmological phenomena with their deepsea reverberations to give us a book that feels universal,
Justine Hyde, The Saturday Paper

With remarkable detective work, author Rebecca Giggs explores the habitats and migratory patterns of whales to reveal a great deal about them, and even more about us.
It is a hauntingly beautiful examination of the moral force of animals, offering hope as well as despair,
Jeff Maynard, Herald Sun

A work of bright and careful genius, Equal parts Rebecca Solnit and Annie Dillard, Giggs masterfully combines lush prose with conscientious history and bootsonthebeach reporting, With Giggs leading us gently by the hand we dive down, and down, and down, into the dark core of the whale, which, she convincingly reveals, is also the guts of the world.

Robert Moor, New York Times bestselling author of On Trails: an exploration

Rebecca Giggs Fathoms is a triumph, a deliciously rich work of art that, as if by magic, combines exquisite prose that floats off the page and into your heart with scientific accuracy and epic scope.
This is by far the best book about whales I have ever read, What an achievement!
Wendy Williams, author of The Language of Butterflies and New York Times bestseller The Horse: the epic history of our noble companion

One of the most beautifully written nonfiction books I have read in a long time.
It's so hard to do justice to the immense importance of whales and the lessons they have for us all, Rebecca Giggs does an extraordinary job of bringing together the science, the history, and the brilliance and fragility of whales,
Christine Kenneally, author of The Invisible History of the Human Race

Fathoms is a work of profound insight and wonder.

xpressmag, com. au

Not only the creatures at the heart of this book come alive on these pages, but a whole ecology.
Fathoms immediately earns its place in the pantheon of classics of the new golden age of environmental writing,
Stephen Sacks, Literary Hub

The book is a masterpiece, I am astonished that it is Giggss first, for it reads like the work of a far more experienced author, . . Giggss exquisite prose is so striking as to be almost poetic, pulling the reader up constantly, either to savour a particularly apposite phrase, or to ponder a deep, unexpected connection.
If a whale warrants a pause, then Fathoms warrants many,
Tim Flannery, The Australian

An astonishing, desolating, exasperating, utterly original debut, . . The language of Fathoms has a remarkable, almost gothic intensity, The style is vivid and estranging and luridly compelling, full of weird lights and unexpected textures, . . a remarkable literary event.
Andrew Fuhrmann, The Monthly

Lyrical, meditative and deeply researched, this gorgeous book by WA writer Rebecca Giggs is one to linger over.

The Weekend West

This is a heavy read, but a fascinating and vital one,
Ellen Cregan, Kill Your Darlings

Fathoms is beautifully written, always aiming for the bigger picture: what it means to live in the world and what it means to be enthralled by the world we live in and destroying it Fathoms is a glorious, beautiful and deeply important book.

Magdalena Ball, Compulsive Reader

Truly remarkable Each page is full of wonder and revelation,
Grey Kelly, Talking Heads Magazine

This is an unforgettable, meticulously researched work that examines the ways that were all connected with whales, with the, environment and each other.

Eliza HenryJones, Organic Gardener Magazine

Meticulous research and stunning prose unique, introspective and poetic,
Zoya Patel, Canberra Times

A moving homage to the whale A book that begins with obsequies for a whale ends by enlarging our knowledge of, and sense of wonder about, this magnificent species.
It is nonfiction told with the vivacity and moral authority that was once reserved for fiction,
Australian Financial

Giggs meticulous research is itself awesome, Every page has its breathtaking revelations For all this wondrous detail, the whale remains a lens through which to consider humanitys relationship with the environment Fathoms exhilarating poetic language is richly allusive and orchestrated this marvellous work of haunted wonder ends with a fiercely unabashed vision of humanity moved 'from indecision to action', for whales, for love, for the world.

Felicity Plunkett, Sydney Morning Herald

A delving, haunted and poetic debut, Giggs is worth reading for her spotlight observations and lyricism alone, but she also has an important message to deliver She uses whales as invitations to consider everything else: the selfieisation of environmentalism, the inherent worth of parasites, Jungian psychoanalysis, solar storms, whale songs records going multiplatinum and so much more.
In the cascade of miniessays that results, Giggs comes off as much as a cultural critic as a naturalist,
Doug Bock Clark, The New York Times Book

There is much to marvel at here Deeply researched and deeply felt, Giggs intricate investigation, beautifully revelatory and haunting, urges us to save the whales once again, and the oceans, and ourselves.
STARRED REVIEW
Booklist

In the whale, Giggs truly does find the world, She finds clues that unlock how humans have engaged nature tales of greed, aggression, wonder, desperation, longing, nostalgia, love, curiosity and obsession, Her prose is luminous tracing humankinds continuing intersection with these alluring creatures, Giggs ultimately uncovers seeds of hope and, planting them in her fertile mind, cultivates a lush landscape that offers remarkable views of nature, humanity and how we might find a way forward together.
STARRED REVIEW
BookPage

A profound meditation Giggs explores how whales have permeated our lives and the many ways we have invaded and transformed theirs.
Each chapter orbits a different aspect of this long and fraught relationship commodification, pollution, voyeurism, adoration, mythology swerving wherever Giggss extensive research and fervent curiosity take her Giggss prose is fluid, sensuous, and lyrical.
She has a poets gift for startling and original imagery The lushness of her sentences and the intensity of her vision inspire frequent rereading not for clarity, but for sheer pleasure and depth of meaning.

LA Books

Widens the aperture of our attention with a literary style so stunning that the reader may forget to blink.
. . In a story that extends across several continents, Ms, Giggs marshals lapidary language to give the crisis a compelling voice, Her prose, like the oceans in which her subjects roam, is immersive her sentences submerge us in a sea of sensations More descriptive than prescriptive concerning the plight of whales and, by implication, the health of the Earth.
But as with George Orwells Shooting an Elephant and E, B. Whites Death of a Pig, Ms, Giggs, tending the final hours of a humpback on an Australian beach, reminds us that paying attention to the close of another creatures life can be its own form of moral instruction.

Danny Heitman, The Wall Street Journal

Immersive Illustrating the interconnectedness of all life and the ways man's depredations travel from the smallest creatures to this largest of Earth's animals In lyrical language, Giggs leads readers on a journey through underwater cultures and the place of whales in the chain of life.
Recommended for readers interested in nature, ecology, and environmentalism,
Caren Nichter, Library Journal

A searching debut Giggs displays a keen awareness of what it means to write about a creature whose future is just as uncertain as our own.

The Nation

Combining reportage, cultural criticism and poem as a call to action in the spirit of Rachel Carson, Giggs is an assured new voice in narrative nonfiction.

The Irish Times

Fathoms is brilliantly full of wonder,
The Economist

Masterly,
The New Yorker

Glorious and astounding,
Robbie Arnott

This remarkable study of whales examines much more than the magnificent creatures of the deep, Through brilliant detective work, Giggs explores the habitats and migratory patterns of whales to reveal a great deal about them, and even more about the human impact on the oceans.

The Advertiser

Some of the most alive, inventive writing on the planet is nature writing, and Giggs Fathoms is glorious proof.
Ostentatious, mythic and strange, this is the kind of book that swallows you whole, Entirely fitting for its subject,
Beejay Silcox, The Guardian

Fathoms is the result of years of research and contemplation: a cultural, historical and ecological exploration of whales and their place in human life and thought It is simply one of the most miraculous and illuminating accounts of animality Ive come across.
Read it, read the whole magnificent tome: youll leave it filled with renewed awe for cetacean existence,
Geordie Williamson, The Australian

A book like this shows the best of what reflective, creative nonfiction can do.

Kate Evans, ABC News

Giggs' work Fathoms on whales, climate change and pollution has been one of the most affecting books I've read in a while.

Sophie Overett, The CourierMail,