"...Another thing that was forgotten was that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet. And since this is not a anturally tenabble position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come into terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with it not being a whale anymore. This is a complete record of its thoughts from the moment it began its life till the moment it ended it.Ah.....! What's happening? it thought.
Er, excuse me, who am I?
Hello?
Why am i here? Whats my purpose in life?
What do I mean by who am I?
Calm down get a grip now....oh! this is an interesting sensation, what is it? sort of...yawning, tingling sensation in my...my...well, I suppose I'd better start finding names for things if I want to make any Headway in what for the sake of what I shall call an argument I shall call the world, so lets call it my stomach. Good. Ooooh, it's getting quite strong. And hey, what about this whistling roaring sound going past what I'm suddenly going to call my head? Perhaps i can call that....wind! Is that a good name? It'll do...perhaps I can find a better name for it later when I've found out what it's for. it must be something very important beacause there certainly seems to be a hell of a lot of it. Hey! What's this thing? This...let's call it a tail--yeah, tail. Hey! I can really thrash it around pretty good, can't I? Wow! Wow! that feels great! Doesnn't seem to achieve much but I'll probably find out what it's for later on. Now, have I built up any coherent picture of things yet? No. never mind, hey, this is really exciting, so much to find out about, so much to look forward to, Im quite dizzy with anticipation... Or is it the wind? There really is a lot of that now, isn't there? And wow! Hey! What's that thing suddenly coming toward me very fast? Very, very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like...ow...uond....round.....ground! That's it! That's a good name--ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me?
And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence...."
3 comments:
awwwwww. it soudns kinda sad...but i dont know, i sorta like it. i makes the whale sound like a little kid, trying to figure out things on his own, and discovering things
oh gosh. this quote made me soo confused, I had to read it twice. So at the end the whale wandered onto the land, and just died? i was like "ohwow. that whale's life ended pretty quickly."
But I don't get what's with the whale. How does it relate to the plot of the book? or is it one of those "random" passages writers throw it to symbolize something else?
I loved this part as well! It was funny how the whale had to sound out words over and over again to get the word "ground".
Adams leaves a lot of footnotes and sort of rambles on about stuff, but it's quite witty and funny and, in my opinion, adds on to the book in a good way :)
-Shirley
Post a Comment