Whalerman

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32430, 17 October 1970, Page 10

Whalerman

(Reviewed by

H.B.W.)

To Catch A Whale. By Terence Wise. Geoffrey Bles. 190 pp. Terence Wise wrote 14 novels before he was 18, went into the Army, burned all his novels when he came out, and then went down to the Antarctic on the final three voyages of the whaling factory ship F. F. Balaena. He wanted to do something different, exciting and out-of-doors and his book describes his life as a lower deck winchman on the first voyage. It is a vivid, crisp account of the rugged and intense life of whalermen and its hardly a book for the squeamish or prudish; the work was hard, dangerous and monotonous, there was a lack of privacy, grog, women and decent meals, punctuated by short but hectic remedial treatment ashore. Mr Wise’s diaries, experience, further reading, and ability to express himself have been welded together to produce a coherent and exciting account of whalermen under stress, chasing whales and processing them. But the book also contains succinct pieces on whaling’s past and future, descriptions of whales and other animals, deft sections of humour and realisation and neatly-cap-tioned photographs. This description of lower deck activity, with all its extremes, is a unique closing scene in whaling’s decline.

IN WHAT IS RIGHT? (Angus and Robertson, 148 pp.), Margaret Mackie and Gwen Kelly of the Armidale Teachers’ College present for discussion some of the situations which arise in schools and call for ethical decisions. These include problems of conformity, punishment, competition, etc. The main part of the book consists of case studies presented in story form. Comments are offered on these but the idea is that the stories should be discussed rather than the authors’ conclusions be accepted. It is an interesting venture. It is hard to read the stories with enthusiasm but there is only one test: will they stimulate worthwhile discussions amongst Teachers’ College students?