The Whale Rider - Witi Ihimaera


Published by Raupo Press: North Shore, Auckland, 2008.
Originally published in 1987.

 18 years ago, when it first came out, I saw the movie Whale Rider (and now I feel old). It was sweet, it was moving, it was very Kiwi. And so I felt like I knew what I was getting in for when I started reading the book that inspired it: The Whale Rider. But I wasn't prepared for how well written the book was. Within the midst of this Young Adult novel will be a phrase like "Diatoms of light shimmered in the cobalt-blue depth of the Pacific" (page 35), or "The ice cracked, moaned, shivered and susurrated with rippling glissandi, a giant organ playing a titanic symphony" (page 108). Ihimaera has a better vocabulary than Blogger, which has tried to tell me that "susurrated" wasn't a word!

As with many adaptations, Whale Rider the movie makes some changes from the source material, notably renaming the book's title character from Kahutia Te Rangi (Kahu) to Paikea Apirana (Pai) - possibly to differentiate her name more from that of her great-grandfather "Koro". The book also has a far more prominent role for Kahu's uncle, Rawiri, who takes on the role of narrator, observing Kahu's growth from a slightly more distant angle. Rawiri as narrator also allows the novel text to leave New Zealand for a stretch, taking time to compare Maori culture and struggles to those of to 'natives' in Papua New Guinea.

The themes in both versions remain the same, with Kahu struggling to win over the stubbornly traditional Koro, who fails to see his grand-daughter's qualities past her gender. This is a prominent and well-told portion of the book, with the scene including Kahu's speech about her grandfather moving me quite a bit. The book, however, plays up the "mystical" elements of the story more than the movie, with Kahu being drawn to the sea, even swimming with dolphins, and the 'great whale' being decorated with a sacred moko and 'speaking' to the tribe while beached.

I remember enjoying the movie when I watched it, and am now thinking of revisiting it to refresh my memory. But the book is definitely recommended.

Completed 24 January 2020.

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