I just wasn’t a fan of this one. I was always expecting it to get more action packed, and when it did it was over. Also, it was very odd stylistically and very overly verbose for no reason. I ended up skimming a lot more than I was reading. Definitely going back to the used book store. ( )

I've read some of the 8 other comments, I am sorry that you didn't all appreciate what I think was a brilliant book.

It portrays four dolphins, eight sympathetic humans, around 4 exploitive humans and the rest of the human race at risk of "accidentally strangling the entire human race".

It is a work of science fiction there is no doubt, but it is very relevant today as it proposes another form of AI (Alternative Intelligence).

The dialogues of the humans with the dolphins, first in English then in whistling Dolphinese, expose the fundamental flaws in human intelligence - that being it is driven by self interest, and a massive sense of self-righteousness.

The predominant dialogue style (long, concatenated paragraphs where dialogue, thoughts, mixed speakers, flashback) illustrates the capricious and irrational nature of most of human thought. Even the sympathetic delphinologists display various degrees of personality weaknesses.

In contrast the AI in this book uses concise, to the point sentences - with abundant emotional tagging of the factual content.

I'd recommend you read it - you can understand why humans are still very much at each others throats now as they were 50 years ago. ( )

Well, that was a short one. 36 pages in, and I'm out. Why?

The writing.

Let me tell you about the writing...

First, for the initial 4 1/2 pages, the author does not use quotation marks whatsoever, then, about halfway down the fifth page, for no reason, he starts. He then uses them reasonably consistently for 20-ish pages, then drops and then uses them again. So...yeah, it's gonna be like that.

The second is the habit of writing a paragraph full of useless, stream-of-conscious thoughts that not only don't add anything to the plot, but they actually detract from the pacing.

And then there's the run-on sentences.

I'll just give you the first two sentences that open chapter two...that should give you enough to go on...

The room was hygienically empty, not a magazine, not a scrap of paper, just three armchairs, a small table with an ashtray, and on the painted walls three engravings of full-rigged ships in foul weather, C looked at the ships wearily, he felt a twinge in the vicinity of his stomach, the pain was not sharp but constant, it did not seem to come from the inside of the organs but from their walls, it was more like a painful contraction of the muscles, it radiated downward to the abdomen and upward under the ribs, at times it reached the vertebrae, C felt that if he could just lie down, flex his legs, and relax his muscles his painful organs would return to normal but this was not true, the pain never went away, actually it wasn't a real pain, more of a pressure, vague, diffuse, insistent, unbearable, he could forget it for over an hour at a time if his attention was concentrated, but it returned with disturbing regularity, even at night he could not sleep, everything was breaking down, his nerves were shot, he tired more easily, recovery was slower, C sank into a chair and closed his eyes.

As he did so the blond head of Johnnie rolled against his arm, there was a brief spasm, his lips sucked the air with a convulsive shudder, there was a sudden slackening of the legs and it was all over, they were lying in a rice paddy surrounded by a cloud of mauve mosquitoes, bullets, and mortar fire, behind me a GI said, "He's had it," we had to wait for night so the helicopters could land, the orderly in the copter removed the dog tags from the dead, his eyes met mine, he looked sad and bitter, he shuffled the dog tags in the palm of his hand and said, "They don't take up much space: a dozen Americans."

There's so much wrong with those two sentences. They skip around various topics. They switch point of view. And they're deplorable to read.

Now, having said all that, this book was originally published in 1967 in French language, and then translated and released in English two years later.

I picked this book up, because I read it when I was roughly 13 or so, so, ballpark, around 1975 or so. I remember enjoying enough that I picked up the only other Robert Merle book I ever found, Malevil, and I remember enjoying that one too.

Here we are, not quite fifty years later, and I can only think, damn, I was a lot more patient with crap writing back then.

Anyway, I couldn't bear the thought of wading through another 282 pages of this dreck, no matter if there is a good story buried in there somewhere.

And, because it's a DNF, no rating.

The Day of the Dolphin is a 1967 science fiction novel by French novelist Robert Merle. The book is set in Florida in the early 1970’s when the cold war was still on-going. I struggled with this book as it did not engage me, was quite dated, and, from today’s prospective the plot was hard to swallow. Of course, as with many science fiction books written in this era, the author uses the story to highlight his anti-war and anti-government feelings.

The first half of the book is spent in setting up the situation and explaining how the scientists have been researching dolphins and analyzing the sounds they make. They are trying to teach dolphins to speak English and of course, the government is watching closely and considering how these dolphins could be used in warfare. The second half of the book was more of a thriller but as I was never very engaged with the plot, I wasn’t able to get swept up in the danger and excitement.

The idea of dolphins being able to directly communicate with humans is an exciting and interesting idea, but having them learn to speak actual English just didn’t work for me. Overall I think the biggest problem with this book is that it just didn’t stand the test of time. ( )

While the book is probably a bit dated, (particularly in its attitude toward female scientists,) I enjoyed reading Robert Merle's "The Day of the Dolphin."

In this novel, scientists are working steadily to get dolphins to speak and understand English -- and two dolphins, Fa & Bi start to do so. It isn't much of a spoiler, given Merle says this early on, that the military has more sinister ideas about dolphins' capabilities.

I didn't care much for the relationships between the people in the book, but I did enjoy seeing the story about the dolphins unfold. ( )