: Sometimes, Google Books offers a preview of the book. You can search for "A Grave for a Dolphin by Robert Merle" and see if a preview is available.
In several folk traditions (Celtic, Nordic, West African), dolphins are psychopomps — guides for souls crossing water. To give one a grave is to reverse the roles. The keeper, in a stunning reversal, is trying to guide the dolphin’s anima back to the dry world of memory.
A dolphin cannot consent to a grave. It has no funerary tradition. The act is purely for the living. One chapter might feature a visiting marine biologist who calls the keeper’s project “sentimental anthropomorphism.” The keeper replies: “Then let sentiment be the last seawall against nihilism.”
: Sometimes, Google Books offers a preview of the book. You can search for "A Grave for a Dolphin by Robert Merle" and see if a preview is available.
In several folk traditions (Celtic, Nordic, West African), dolphins are psychopomps — guides for souls crossing water. To give one a grave is to reverse the roles. The keeper, in a stunning reversal, is trying to guide the dolphin’s anima back to the dry world of memory.
A dolphin cannot consent to a grave. It has no funerary tradition. The act is purely for the living. One chapter might feature a visiting marine biologist who calls the keeper’s project “sentimental anthropomorphism.” The keeper replies: “Then let sentiment be the last seawall against nihilism.”