A light plane crashes. Pilot and passenger are killed, an unborn child survives. The child is abused by her father. A potential rescuer arrives, only to leave pursued by one of her father's henchmen. He sets sail in a boat, The Porpoise. The story then moves to that of Pericles, Prince of Tyre.

I found the book beautifully written but lost patience with the storyline and gave up. Very different from ' The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time'.

My thanks to NetGalley and publishers Random House for the ARC.
What a bizarrely fascinating read! Not at all what I expected from the book's description.
Philippe is immensely wealthy, has travelled and lived in his numerous homes all over the world. His wife Maja is heavily pregnant and insists on flying back to England from France with a family friend and his son. The plane crashes, killing all, but the baby is saved - Angelica.. Philippe doesn't know how to parent; his daughter is cared for by nurses; his bodyguard and general factotum, along with his secretary, automatically deal with all necessary arrangements to bring the baby back to his vast estate in Hampshire. As she grows Philippe sees her as a replacement for his wife and gradually the line between the touch of a father and the touch of a lover becomes blurred, and finally erased. Angelica is removed from nursery and school following potentially devastating actions and remarks from her that would betray their secret, and she becomes isolated, excepting the household staff, spending her time reading and losing herself in those myths and stories during her father's night-time visits.
Darius is a playboy, supported by his uncle's wealth gleaned from trading in rare books and paintings. Philippe is a customer and, following his uncle's death Darius seizes the opportunity to deliver some rare drawings to him and, at the same time, wanting to find out about Angelica. Lots of rumours abounded as to her beauty, as to whether she had been brain-damaged at birth; reasons for her never now being seen.
Angelica and Darius, against her father's wishes, meet. Darius is convinced he needs to save her, Angelica is convinced that he will. However, following an horrendous encounter that evening between Darius and Philippe, Darius with the help of friends on the coast, escapes Philippe's bodyguard by boarding a modern yacht - The Porpoise - and heads out to sea towards Spain.
Then the surreal takes over, as The Porpoise morphs from modern to ancient, the crew into ancient mariners, and Darius in Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Hence the adventure around the Mediterranean of Greek Mythology begins.
The story goes back and forth through other-worldly adventures and back to modern Angelica who, following the disappearance of Darius has stopped speaking and eventually stops eating, now refusing her father's advances.
I could only make sense of all this by imagining that Pericles' adventures were manifested through the deteriorating mind of Angelica, but as a fantasy journey through the ancient world it was interesting..
I have to admit that I've really never taken time to either read or understand Shakespeare except through films, and have never read Pericles, Prince of Tyre, nor anything remotely touching upon the source materials used by the author, however, it was fascinating and really 'different'.

I was engrossed in the plot at the beginning but then it swerved into the story of Pericles and I was completely thrown. (I had not read any reviews or blurbs and was not familiar with the srory of Pericles). However, I persisted and although I found it confusing in parts, I was swept away by the language and imagery, the mythology and the links between the past and present stories. The ending was perfect. The whole tale is told in the present tense which makes you breathless as it bowls along. There is no pause between the various storylines so I had to backtrack often when I realised that it had changed, but I am not going to deduct a star for this small annoyance. I had not read any of Mark Haddon's work before except Curious years ago, and when I looked at his list of work it seems very varied and maybe a little experimental, so I may have a look at some of them. Also, he helpfully lists his sources at the end of the book so I will be looking up the stories of Pericles and maybe re-reading this afterwards. I think this is an amazing and unique book.

The Porpoise is a novel remixing an old story into a dual modern and ancient novel that tries to unfold one part of the plot in a new way. Haddon takes the story of Apollonius of Tyre, the fictional tale that has spanned many versions including in Gower's Confessio Amantis and formed the basis for Shakespeare's Pericles, and twists it in a new way. Firstly, the story features on a modernised version of the start of the story, in which Apollonius/Pericles discovers a secret about the relationship between the King of Antioch and his daughter. From this story of a father and his daughter, the novel splits off, jumping to the ancient times to follow Pericles as he gains a wife and daughter and loses them. And then, weaved alongside these two stories is that of George Wilkins, Shakespeare's collaborator for Pericles, as he faces the brink of death in Jacobean London.

The novel is an impressive feat, though it can be a little jarring stylistically at times (the tone, surprisingly, worked better for the ancient parts than the modern one). The weaving of narrative for this oft-retold story works well to show the sense of remixing and reimagining, and the inclusion of Wilkins and Shakespeare does add that hint of metanarrative that may be necessary to enjoy the book. The story itself is fairly depressing, particularly Angelica's present-day story of abuse, and the novel is very much focused on the fact it is telling this famous story whilst giving this extra spotlight to a part of the narrative usually ignored.

It is a clever novel that is doing something interesting with how you retell a famous story and how you can make multiple narratives feel at times like a single connected one. The ancient part is perhaps a little too much like retelling Pericles using a variety of sources without much else, but this will stand alongside many other novels that try to remix and retell frequently-told stories in a different way. The Porpoise does not feel like Mark Haddon's other novels, which will disappoint some people, but it turned out to be more complex and satisfying than expected if you have an awareness of any of the previous tellings of the story.

Unlike Haddon’s other novels, this tale of baby Angelica whose mother dies in a plane crash and a re-working of the myth of Pericles is complex and twisty.
The tales intersect and we skip backwards and forwards in time between them.
It’s not an easy read but it is worth the effort as it’s poetic and the strange tales of lost girls touch the emotions.
The fantasy is quite dreamlike and there is a pervading sense of unworldliness.
It’s written with an assured hand and will suit the reader with a love of Greek mythology and lyrical prose.
It won’t suit those who think ‘oh good, another easy to read Haddon novel!’

Love Haddon’s books, but this one didn’t do it for me. There was little engaging in the storyline and it was too all over the place to grip me. Not one I will reread.

Weird but astonishingly beautiful!

Readers are warned this is not anything like The Curious Incident of The Dog In the Night-Time. However, the writing alone should encourage you to read this very bizarre twisted plot.

Maja is thirty-seven weeks pregnant when she leaves her husband Philippe to fly from Bellevue Champillon back to the couple’s home in Winchester. Unfortunately, the pilot of the Piper Warrior is not fully qualified and he becomes disorientated, causing them to crash into a farm building. Maja dies, but thanks to a doctor who happens to see the plane crash, manages to perform a caesarean, saving the baby’s life.

Philippe cannot come to terms with losing Maja and turns to his daughter, Angelica to take her place. The staff can do nothing to stop this relationship as Philippe’s bodyguard who will go to extraordinary lengths to protect his employer. When Darius, brings a set of paintings for Philippe, Angelica manages to somehow portray her relationship with her father. Darius swears he will return to rescue her. However, the rescue is thwarted by Philippe. Darius with the help of his friends, escapes of The Porpoise, an oceangoing yacht

Things change, is it Darius’ imagination or is he really Pericles, Prince of Tyre?

The stories interchange between now and the mythological story of Pericles.

Mark Haddon has a way with words and this story flows like water as it trickles over rocks and then flows into a rushing stream. It’s unique – part mythology, part present day, but there’s something so beautiful about the mix that I was spellbound from the opening sentence.

Treebeard

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

I really wanted to like this book. I have loved the author’s previous novels but this left me completely confused. I really struggled with it and didn’t have a clue what I was reading. Sorry not you, just me.

# The Porpoise #Netgalley #
Interesting read, if you like books with a mystery. That go back and forth from modern day to the past. I wasn’t actually gripped to the book, however nevertheless I picked it up when I had some spare time. Which truthfully was quite often. Yes, very interesting

The Porpoise was a slightly confusing and underwhelming read. It's a book that requires an already working knowledge of the myth of Apollonius and Pericles, and as such didn't feel complete in and of itself. It's a challenging book with beautiful prose, but I felt like it jumped around too much for me to really get engrossed in what I was reading. One of the biggest issues for me, however, was that playing with the source text seemed to be the central conceit of the novel, with very little to say beyond that.

It was a conceptually interesting read, and not poorly written, but not a book I'll be desperate to recommend to people unless I know they like that sort of thing.

This book is, in a word, bonkers. I do not mean that negatively but you should know before you read that this book does have a) a dark subject matter (TW) and b) a slightly difficult to navigate story telling style.

I read the first 10% of this book and was about to put it down when out of nowhere came a sentence that I will never forget (and will not share but you will know it when you see it). It took me completely by surprise and changed the whole tone of the book for me.

Whilst the story is different to the 'usual' Haddon, the writing and narration style is very much 'usual' Haddon. If you're a fan of his writing then I would suggest you give the book a go - but don't go in expecting a similar tale to previous works!

Trigger warning: rape / sexual assault and child molestation

This is one mad tale!
The protagonists switch throughout the book, and you're never sure what is actually happening, or if it's all fantasy.
There are some very strong themes of incest and sexual abuse, so I would be wary of that if that's a potential trigger warning for you.
I was left a little sad, but mostly, it was not the story I wanted. It started as a book I was interested in reading, but what it morphed into was both bizarre and far too wordy for me. It also jumped about so much, and one of the protags is always coming and going and coming and going again, that I didn't really care much about what happened to them all in the end, bar one, who doesn't feature as much as I would have liked.
Nonspoilers, as I don't like adding spoilers to any of my reviews. But recommended for Greek myth enthusiasts.

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.

The narrative frame and also the main strand is the story of Angelica, a young girl who, although it's not explicitly stated, apparently lives in postmodern times. When her mother was pregnant with her, she got into a terrible plain crash that Angelica only survived by being cut out of the womb. Her rich and powerful father is first overcome by grief, and later starts isolating, controlling and sexually abusing his daughter whom he sees as a substitute for his dead wife - Angelica flees into literature, preferrably reading old tales. When a young man attempts to save her, a terrible incident causes her to close herself off completely; the narrative that follows after this point might be wholly in her head, a merging of her reality and the stories she read, where characters like her failed savior, her mother, father and she herself re-appear in mythical form.

It shows that Haddon put a lot of effort into the research for and construction of this book, it's cleverly done and I am sure that readers who are more familiar with mythology, Appolonius, Pericles et al. than me will get a lot more out of the reading experience, so keep in mind that this might be part of the problems I had with this text. The thing is: I didn't enjoy reading this. I was interested in Angelica and what might happen to her, but never got fully immersed in the mythological parts, although I usually like puzzles. I found the text just a little too clever for its own good. On top of that, I was wondering what the point of all of this was - granted, the question is maybe beside the point, but I didn't appreciate that the pastiche itself and playing with source material was the main focus of the text while the themes themselves took a backseat.

So all in all, this is probably a real treat for fans of mythology, but I was unfortunately a little underwhelmed - although you have to give it to Haddon that he has put a lot of thought into the intricate composition. I'd like to argue against one point of critique that I found repeatedly in other reviews though, and that keeps coming up here on GR: People complaining that they don't want to read about unpleasant things like child abuse. I find this call for escapism very odd, because literature is not here to make you some hot milk and hand you a blanket and cuddle you a little. And one thing that Haddon certainly does with this book is showing that there are aspects of human nature, and some of them are very unpleasant, that remain relevant as topics for literature through the centuries.

I love Mark Haddon and this was completely a change of character from his usual work but I really enjoyed it. But given the influences and based on mythology I should have known I’d enjoy it, I loved the way the characters stories twisted together , a really enjoyable read

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest review

This was not at all what I expected! It begins with the story of Maja, killed in a plane crash whilst heavily pregnant - her daughter survives and is raised by devastated father Philippe. Angelica's story is disturbing, and like other reviewers I was tempted to give up at this stage. The turning point is when The Porpoise comes into the story, and it becomes a retelling of the story of Pericles within Angelica's imagination. Pericles isn't a play I know at all, and I suspect it's one of the lesser known Shakespeare plays generally, so it felt a bit different! I really enjoyed this side of it. The modern day aspect I found thoroughly depressing, and wish there had been a different resolution for it.

My thanks to Penguin Random House UK and NetGalley for a review copy of this book.

Part of the description of this book on NetGalley was this:

“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…”

Reading this, the book sounded pretty interesting, according to me, perhaps a retelling or modern version of the Tempest, but turns out I didn’t pay enough attention to the last part, and got the wrong Shakespeare play. This is a retelling or version of one, but the play in question is Pericles. But because of the wrong assumption I started with, my reading experience turned out to be a little strange (the book is a little strange actually), which started on an interesting note, then got to a point where I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue, and then ended with me actually pretty much enjoying the book quite a bit.

When the story starts, we meet Phillipe who loses his much beloved wife Maja in a plane accident, leaving behind their baby. Phillipe (who is very wealthy) is devastated and retreats from society with the child, but his affection for the baby, Angelique who reminds him of Maja takes a dark turn and he crosses all lines. [This was the point at which, despite my enjoying the writing, I was considering not continuing the story. But I am glad I did.] Then a young man, Darius, whose father was connected by business to Phillipe decides to visit them on the pretext of selling some art, but actually to catch a glimpse of Angelique whose beauty is much talked of in society. But when he realises that something is wrong in the household, he finds his own life in danger. Barely managing to escape he gets aboard a vessel, the Porpoise, suddenly Darius and the reader find that we’re transitioning into another story and another time, as we begin to follow Pericles as he lands at Tarsus, rescuing it, Dionyza, and Cleon from their troubles, only to be led on to Pentapolis where he meets (in this version) Chloe the daughter of Simonides, the king, their marriage, and child, how all three are separated and what befalls them then. Alongside we keep coming back to the present and to Angelique who finds her escape in books, and a third thread to the story is also introduced but I’ll leave you to find out what that is for yourself.

As I said, when I started the book, I was enjoying the writing but then when it got into aspects that were distasteful and disturbing for me to say the least, I was beginning to even consider giving up. But luckily I didn’t, and when it got on to Pericles’ tale, which really forms most part of the book, I began to enjoy the book quite a bit. Haddon has (as we can see from his sources at the end) gone into different versions of this story, a collaboration between George Wilkins and Shakespeare (in the Shakespeare version), and come up with his own. It was only when I got the Pericles connection and read up the basic plot of Pericles (I haven’t read the Shakespeare play), this began to make a little more sense to me (something like what happened with reading The Sisters of the Winter Wood last year, when I had the idea of Goblin Market in my mind, then the book began to make far more sense)—also I realised how the modern part of the story fits into the whole scheme (what it’s role was in the whole plot, even in the original, isn’t very clear). I also really liked the way Haddon ended the Pericles part of the story, very subtly done (and different from the Shakespeare version). The third thread, I am not very sure I understood the role of in the scheme of things, in a sense also is built around the aspect of justice, or having to face the Furies for the wrongs one has committed. I enjoyed the writing of the book for the most part, and the plot too kept me hooked because I wasn’t sure where the various threads would lead, and how the whole thing would shape up. So overall, it turned out to be a pretty interesting read, but it still loses a star from me one because of the disturbing plot aspects which made sense after I got the Pericles connection but didn’t become any the more acceptable (or less disturbing), and also because I really wasn’t able to make sense of the whole scheme of the plot (the third plot thread, and also another part of the story). But good reading if one can stick with it, or the subject matter doesn’t put you off too much (particularly since this is just a small part of the story).

I've decided to read the book because of the author and that should be the first point the other readers should know: don't expect this book to be like his other books. That is the first mistake you can do. The other one ist the cover description: I expected something completely different than I've got. The mixture of a present day story of a young girl and an ancient story of Pericles of Tyre mixed up with some Shakespeare, was not on my list. in general, I somehow like all of them (except of Shakespeare maybe), but the mixture was not my cup of tea. It was unclear till the very end, how do the stories connect what made it more difficult to enjoy. Maybe each of them separately would be a good idea, but together they were confusing and I couldn't enjoy them.
On the other hand the author's style is still remarkable and enjoyable, the ancient story interesting, so if you know what to expect, you could enjoy the book.

What an amazing book, it confuses and delights in equal measure. The author plays with your ideas of a story plot while urging you to solve the mystery of how the different parts of the story are connected.
You just have to keep reading!

The prose is absolutely beautiful in this meditation on the Pericles story, with its modern-day prologue woven through the text. The ending is absolutely heart breaking. #ThePorpoise #NetGalley

This was not an easy read. The central premise, of an abusive relationship between a father and his daughter, does not make for comfort. Not does that attitude of those surrounding them. The plot flitting around between classical times and the present day doesn't help, either. Having said that, I persisted. The writing is, as one would expect from Mark Haddon, challenging and rewarding. But not one I'd recommend.