This book is Haddon's contribution to the already pretty vast canon of reworkings of the Appolinus / Apollonius tale - illustrous authors like Gower, Wilkins and Shakespeare already took the ancient Greek material and remixed it, always slightly changing the plot, introducing new characters and twisting the themes (see "Pericles" and "Emaré", e.g.). Haddon now sets out to create a pastiche, connecting and partially overwriting what's already out there with his own ideas. He lets his characters wander through different scenes and time frames, connecting their stories through mirror images and plot details - you better pay close attention, this is no beach read.

Haddon can write a beautiful sentence and I have to give him marks for ambition, but trying to make sense of this novel made my head hurt.

I feel very conflicted on this novel. On the one hand, it wasn’t for me and the themes aren’t something I would usually enjoy. But on the other hand, it’s a book that draws you in and you want to keep reading until the end.

Not necessarily a book I would recommend but an intriguing read all the same.

This book is entirely different from anything else I have ever read. A strange, rich, emotional experience. So different from Nighttime but did not disappoint!

It's been weeks since I finished this utterly unique but disturbing novel & I still don't know what to make of it. I think 'enjoy' is the wrong word although I found the writing very clever & was completely gripped throughout. Reality is suffused with surrealism & it seems the author is trying to highlight that abuse of the vulnerable by the powerful is a part of the narrative of the human condition. Occasionally magic and human kindness transform the characters but I do feel compelled to add a TW for some might find the content disturbing

I very much enjoyed this book. It has a good story and excellent main characters. I would definately recommend this book.

The Porpoise is a moribund retelling of the Apollonius/Pericles story, originally told in John Gower’s Confessio Amantis in 1393, and later in Shakespeare’s play in the 17th century.
At heart, it is a about escapism. A lonely modern-day girl, abused by her father and kept hidden from the world looks to the old stories and tells herself a tale which imagines herself as a character, freed from her situation. It is, however, a bizarre fantasy for her to conjure up and an odd role which she casts herself in, without any obvious parallels with reality and lacking any kind of happy ending, much less the freedom and the romance which she apparently desires.
The story takes a very weird and unexpected left turn early on which, though unusual and intriguing, does leave the reader struggling to find their footing afterwards.
Haddon seems to have founded the novel on an opposition to the handling of a minor character in the opening scenes of Shakespeare’s Pericles. In one incongruous scene, the ghost of William Shakespeare appears to the recently deceased George Wilkins, thought to be his co-writer on the play, and ushers him onto the next plane where he faces the consequences of his misogynistic and exploitative lifestyle. It doesn’t have much to do with the rest of the book and is very much out-of-place.
The novel’s biggest problem is that it does very little to engage the reader in the story. It is written in an uninteresting way with little inventiveness. The language far too often takes the form of “He did this … He did that… He thought about this…”. This is a fatal move in the retelling of a story; it suggests that Haddon has little interest in this borrowed narrative and the reader feels removed from what is happening. Character development is a similar weak point.

I received this book from Net Galley via my Book Club.

It is not my usual genre, but I am happy to read any for my Book Club. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this book at all. It started off very promising, and I was looking forward to the story involving Phillipe and his beautiful daughter, Angelica. However, before very long I was suddenly reading about Pericles, and Ancient Greece. There was also mention of Shakespeare and a man called Wilkins. I kept turning back the pages to check where I had missed the connection to the main characters, but to me there are no connection. I was going to give up altogether, but instead found myself skimming through the book looking for passages about Phillips and Angelica, and unfortunately, there was very few of them.

This book was not for me - I just didn’t get it.

I think I can best describe this one as a bit weird, but rather compelling.

The first chapter covers the birth of a girl who the eventual telling of the Pericles story rests upon, except it sort of doesn't at the same time.

Angelica's father in the pain and sudden loss of her mother clings to her, keeping her isolated and ultimately leaving her unaware of the levels of abuse he perpetrates against her until the day Darius the son of one of her fathers aquaintances comes to their home and piques her interest as she does his. A thing her father cannot stand resulting in his attacking Darius and the drift from solid real world in to the retelling of the Shakespeare story of Pericles.

I found it generally hard going, maybe because of my unfamilarity with the original story of Appolonius/Pericles, maybe because I do find I struggle with time slipping narratives. The random "cameo" by Shakespeare in the middle was out of place in both the modern and ancient settings.

I've not actually read any of Haddon's previous work and if you're familiar with him then you might find this isn't what you expect - unless what I've seen in reviews of other work are all carefully hiding elements of each of those.

I probably wouldn't recommend this but at the same time wouldn't say that you shouldn't give it a go.

Really boring. Another one of those modern takes on old stories, this dull novel about stories didn't do much for me. Fantasy rarely does. Pseudo-poetic fantasy even less so. Competently written but completely unengaging, slow-moving, and uninspired, I wanted to like this as much as Curious Incident but it looks like Mark Haddon is a one-trick pony.

Since his gargantuan 2003 hit, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon has steered away from children’s literature and genre-hopped in each of his novels since. The Porpoise carries on this trend, turning to a mix of family drama, epic myth, and fantasy.

It begins with a rather distant, third-person narrative, focusing on a plane crash that kills its pilot and two passengers—one of them a famous actress, Maja, who was pregnant. It’s a stark and intriguing opening, and the subsequent events fast-forward through the life of Maja’s widow, Philippe, and child, Angelina (saved from the womb). By the time we reach Angelina’s teenage years, the tone takes an even darker turn as it becomes clear Philippe is a peadophile, abusing Angelina and keeping her captive in a palatial, isolated life. It’s grim reading but hope emerges in the form of Darius, an art dealer’s son who, upon arrival at Philippe’s mansion, senses Angelina is in danger and makes a rescue attempt. Elements of the thriller genre and the high stakes engage the reader here, and it is at this point that we really feel the novel has found its rhythm.

However, an unexpected shift in narrative mode upsets reader expectations. Darius abruptly finds himself on board a fantastical ship—the titular Porpoise—and is now Pericles, the eponymous character from one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known plays. It’s almost as inexplicable as it sounds. We seem to be following Angelina’s daydreams. Her nightmarish life has forced her into a fantasy world in her head, imagining what might have come of Darius and how he might yet return to save her. It’s an entertaining concept but quickly usurps most of the remainder of the novel which is spent following Pericles and his adventures and tribulations traveling from port to port. Unfortunately, none of it is anywhere near as captivating as Angelina’s original storyline, which is abandoned except for a few sporadic reminders. The narrator even warps us to Elizabethan London at points to visit Shakespeare as he collaborates on his play! The format is reminiscent of Cloud Atlas or even Life of Pi but loses itself in descriptive minutiae, endless characters and repetitive plot points.

The novel is clearly intensely researched and Haddon wants to play with parable and myth via a Shakespeare play he can easily tinker with. It loses engagement though, and becomes imbalanced and bogged down in unedited detail. The initial premise is simply lost in an offputting experiment with form run wild.

By Matthew Keeley for The Wee Review

Thank you Net Galley. 3.5 stars rounded to 4. A strange, interesting book that shifts between myth and contemporary life. It raises questions of identity, relationships, incest and abuse. I am a little unsettled by the book and also somewhat undecided about it.

I really loved The Curious Incident but gave up on this one around a third of the way through. The characters were generally unlikeable and the story line (to that point) was pretty repellent. There are lots of references to child abuse and the third person narration makes the whole story seem distant and impersonal. The unlikely coincidences were such that the character even comments on how improbably the circumstances were and felt like it was a get out for not finding a better plot device. I didn't understand why the incest storyline was necessary as the story didn't seem to be about the victim but rather switches to that of a random man that walks into their house later. A man that instantly sees the abuse and yet the set up is contrived to put the character on The Porpoise for the next part of the story. I got as far as 'The Porpoise' appearing and a more supernatural theme emerged but by that point I didn't like the characters enough to persevere to find out what the point of the novel was.

Definitely a marmite book, and not what I expected at all! First of all, there were parts I absolutely loved and could not put down- an ancient Greek Prince who experiences tragedy, including the loss of his wife and daughter, saves a town from famine and sails through adventures, the stories of his wife and daughter, intertwined with the goddess Diana and other mythical figures, and a contemporary of Shakespeare who rewrote some of these stories. Although I was not familiar with Pericles and the other stories, I enjoyed these parts, and they reminded me of A Thousand Ships and other retellings of the Iliad from the female point of view. Every story focused on a woman who was abused in some way, but gave her power and agency. However, for me this was undercut by the framing device, a daughter brought up , isolated and sexually abused by her father, to the point where she starves herself. The other stories seem to be being told our imagined by her as she retreats into a fantasy world. I disliked this element and found that the switching between stories was a little jarring. It reminded me a little of Cloud Atlas and did require a bit of effort to follow!

Title - The Porpoise

Author - Mark Haddon

Genre - Historical Fiction

I had first came across Mark Haddon was when I had picked up his acclaimed 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' which was immensely loved by me. This prompted me to order his latest novel which came out this year and with the blurb promising a story with lots of adventures and transcending across times, this book piqued my interest even more. Read on to find out why this book just did not live up-to my mark and why I had to finally put it down.

The book starts with a flight crash. The sole survivor of the crash, a newborn baby, later christened Angelica is now being brought by her widowed father. The father-daughter duo has a pretty disturbing upbringing and their life takes a turn when years down the line we see Darius, her father's friend's son and shakes it all up. As the story progress, we see Darius being imagined as the hero of Shakespeare's story Pericles and how the book transcends between the fantasy and present.

The book just did not work for me. If at all I was pretty scandalised with how the book started, my head just couldn't get around when the book started shifting between two timelines. Maybe at one point, it would have made sense, but for me it kept getting even more confusing when I just couldn't come to the conclusion on how Pericles or even Shakespeare entered into the story.

I was pretty excited while picking up this book but had to put it down midway because the transgression just didn't work for me. There were no demarcations at times and somehow it felt pretty tiresome for me on what the story is being trying to convey. A book that I might not recommend.

My Ratings - 🌟🌟 (2 out of 5 stars)

I have read previous books by Mark Haddon and had read some reviews of this one so knew it was not in keeping with his usual style.
Despite enjoying some of the story I didn't connect with large chunks of the book and struggled to feel invested.

Angelique is the only survivor of a plane crash. A child full of innocence, she has her wealthy father to protect her, the same father who sexually abuses her. In order to escape from the trauma, Angelique immerses herself into a fictional world through a book. One day, a young man names Darius comes to her home and upon knowing the circumstances, tries to rescue her. A failed attempt.
As Darius tries to save his life and escape Phillipe, we are dragged into a world of an ocean voyage, adventures, and strange events that are a part of an alternate reality.

'The Porpoise' is a retelling of the story of Apollonius, a savior in his time, who exposed a king having an incestuous relationship with his daughter (do you see the connection?). The plot also resonates a lot with 'Pericles' by William Shakespeare, a shabby attempt, I'll have to say.

What failed to impress me was how little was I invested in the characters. The thoughts were scattered all around, and execution that was not planned very well. The novel really stops making any sense after a point of time and the more I think about it, the more I hate it. Not a pleasant experience at all!

For those who know me, know I love a readalong. In this instance, I mean an instagram-readalong; a dark-social book club, if you will. Tandem Collective UK run them for the majority of the publishing houses in the UK, so when they asked me to read The Porpoise by Mark Haddon, I was more than happy.
I’d only ever read one book by Mark Haddon before and that was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, which is very, very different from The Porpoise. However, I would say they’re both very strong ‘concept’ novels.
For those who haven’t read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, firstly where have you been? The narrator is a young man, who describes himself as a “a mathematician with some behavioural difficulties” but who society would describe as someone who has Asperger’s syndrome, high-functioning autism, or savant syndrome. Everything in the book is written through Christopher’s eyes — if he see’s a certain number of red cars, it’s going to be a good day. Chapters are numbered solely with prime numbers — because that’s what he prefers.
The Porpoise, is very different where The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time narration style is black and white and very factual. Angelica’s narration during The Porpoise is meandering, lyrical and painterly, like watercolours falling across the page. Haddon’s choice of narrator for The Porpoise, as Angelica, but also the strength of his female characters, bring a voice back to women silenced in narratives previously shared with the world. Pericles, The Prince of Tyre, is a play by William Shakespeare that The Porpoise relies heavily on, but Haddon is noted to be frustrated that some of the women with the most pivotal character movements are killed off and only given two spoken lines. Haddon’s version has these characters renewed with fresh agency and mirrored them in a modern setting.

Immediately capturing audiences from the opening pages, Haddon writes of a horrific plane crash, followed by a relationship that can only be described as crippling, controlling incest. To distract herself from the horrors of her own life, Angelica drifts into exploring new worlds and stories she loves to pour over. The book tells the story of powerful women, and how they exact that power — even in ways readers don’t see immediately. Even though Haddon’s book can be seen as a retelling of Pericles, The Prince of Tyre, for me it is not about Pericles. It’s about Angelica, Chloe, Marina and the women.
Our participants in the instagram readalong found the book quite divisive — very ‘marmite’.
The leaps from one story to the next, passages building to a crashing wave, only to be followed by water as still as a mill-pond split the group. Some were enthralled by the constant switching of narrative styles, whilst others fell in love with one particular narrative and wanted to read more of that particular element of the story.
Overall, a very interesting, eye-opening read.
I would recommend it to anyone who has a penchant for a more lyrical, character driven novel, over a reader who favours plot and pace. One for those who enjoy retellings, or ‘updated versions’ of classic works and books that change the agency of the original works.
Fans of The Porpoise, might also like:
The Deathless Girls by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (The story of Dracula’s wives, as told by them.)
The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Witch Trials, as told by the hunted.)

'If Angelica were a different woman she might run, but running is a skill she was never allowed to learn. Running means having somewhere to run to.'

A newborn baby is the sole survivor of a terrifying plane crash.

She is raised in wealthy isolation by an overprotective father. She knows nothing of the rumours about a beautiful young woman, hidden from the world.

When a suitor visits, he understands far more than he should. Forced to run for his life, he escapes aboard The Porpoise, an assassin on his tail...

This is the second Mark Haddon book that I've read and the blurb piqued my interest immediately.

The Porpoise started out as described and expected but then took a very unexpected turn. This book definitely keeps you on your toes!

I struggled with what I thought about the book as I was reading it. I often do with books that follow several narratives, mostly because there's always one that I prefer and want to get back to. There were characters here I'd have liked to have had more of but, in retrospect, I see their value and what the author was doing keeping some of them short.

There was a lot going on throughout but as I reached the last few pages, I realised that I really liked the characters in Pericles' storyline and was genuinely worried about their fates. And as the book rounded up and everything became clear, I had a new appreciation for the story. I highlighted the quote above very early on in the book but reading it now, I have taken new meaning to it: in the end, Angelica did have somewhere to run to and find comfort.

Mark Haddon has written a beautiful book here. The writing is stunning and the research is superb. The idea of taking a story that's been retold many times by many people and to weave the contemporary with myth is brilliant. With many strong female characters and villains getting their comeuppance, what more could you want?

The book stayed with me after reading and the more I think about it, the more appreciation I have. The Porpoise will not be what you expect, but that's definitely not a bad thing.

Many thanks to Vintage Books for the chance to read this title in exchange for an honest review.

I received an e-book copy of The Porpoise via Netgalley, Random House and Vintage in exchange for an honest review.

I'm a fan of Haddon's work but this was completely unlike what I had previously read, and, to be honest, unlike anything else I've read for a long time. I approached the book without having read a synopsis and had no idea what to expect - I found it difficult to get into initially, I think as it is quite a 'literary' text, with multiple times and plots running alongside and through one another. With the e-book in particular, any formatting that may be used in the book to make these different plots obviously separated are removed, so I think this did impact on my reading. I think that perhaps you need to be in the headspace to sit and really delve into the story to fully appreciate it. Overall it was an enjoyable read, being well written and tackling some uncomfortable subjects cleverly. Being unaware of the source material I liked that the author included information about the original story in the author's notes section to give readers some background.