The Porpoise starts off with the tale of a widowed father raising his daughter after his wife is killed in an airplane crash. At first, all seems well, but soon it becomes apparent that there is something off about the relationship between father and daughter. In comes a young man named Darius who discerns the secret, and the father drives him away while mortally threatening his life. Darius on the run then morphs into the story of Pericles, the daring adventurer from the Shakespearean play.
This book was hard to rate because there was so much I liked about it, but there was also a lot that didn't work for me. I really enjoyed the portion of the story that is about Pericles, which is the majority (about two-thirds) of the book. I've never read the Shakespearean play, but Haddon made the character, his adventures, and his heartbreaks come alive for me. Even though the Pericles story is based on an ancient character, his issues feel relevant and interesting. The story of the father and daughter is interesting enough too, but it feels not fully fleshed out, probably because once Darius shows up, the story pivots to Pericles.
What didn't work for me is all the back and forth between the different stories. Just as we reach the pivotal moment with Darius, we leave his story behind. And when the Pericles story reaches a crucial part, we switch back to vignettes of the father and daughter. There are even a few scenes with Shakespeare and George Wilkins (who is suspected to have written parts of the Pericles Shakespearean play), which did not make any sense to me at all. And the back and forth weren't clearly labeled, so confusion was inevitable for a few paragraphs.
Instead of the author trying to be clever and fitting two different stories that mirror each other into one story (along with random Shakespeare/George asides), I wish he had just concentrated on the Pericles retelling. It would have been awesome to read that story from beginning to end, instead of starting around the middle. I think this is a case of the author being too ambitious, so that the story ended up more complex and difficult to understand than it needed to be. Still, the riveting tale of Pericles made me glad I picked this up.
Readaroo Rating: 3 stars
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