In the ocean

L

ast summer my favourite marine-related newspaper headline was about the orca. Formerly known as the killer whale, blackfish, grampus, it’s a toothed whale, so, a mammal, of the dolphin family. A cosmopolitan species, says the online encyclopedia, which sounds positive, but the description goes on to explain that the name of the genus, Orcidus, means ‘from the kingdom of the dead.’ Which is more ominous.

There was a glut, a shoal, of oceanic-creature news last year: Sweden suspected a beluga whale of being a Russian spy. Footballer Martin Ødegaard won a fish (this was actually in September 2019, when he was Real Sociedad’s player of the month, but I didn’t notice until later). It was feared that Floridian cocaine sharks might be feasting on abandoned drugs. Anchovies advanced our understanding of fluid motion physics by creating turbulence in water temperature while having sex.

All good, but the best, for me, was the UK Guardian’s report on orcas in the Bay of Biscay, the headline of which read, “Whales are ramming boats—but are they inspired by revenge, grief or memory?” It’s an entertaining article, in which the journalist, Emma Beddington, explains some science while taking pleasure in the inherent absurdity of the situation, in the attributing of human, grand-scale emotions to animals, as though they too partake of The Drama. But I became stranded on just the headline, with its strangely tempting question. Revenge, grief, or memory—or what else might be the orcas’ motivation? The usual suspects: hunger or fear; money, power, sex; jealousy, desire. Or maybe they are reprobate teenage orcas, who do it for fun: smash boats, steal motors, just for the halibut.

On the screen

The phrasing also reminded me of a detail from an artwork that I spend a lot of time poring over: it’s Jaws, the film of 1975, and in particular the scene where Police Chief Brody is shown typing out the death report for a young woman who has been eaten by a shark. It must be a requirement for the police department, or the coroner’s office, perhaps—some sort of admin for the kingdom of the dead. (The skinny-dipping character is Chrissie Watkins, played by Susan Backlinie, who has recently died for real in May 2024; her obituaries can be read in the New York Times and other archives.) The fictional death report page, with its boxes, category headings, and spaces to type, is great. Some of the sections are unsurprising: date, deceased’s occupation, investigative division. Then it has the excellent section

PROBABLE CAUSE OF DEATH

followed by, in the next box,

REASON: Quarrel—illness—revenge, etc

I don’t see many (any) death reports in the normal course of things, so I don’t know whether this is the normal language and phrasing for one, or whether Spielberg’s props designer thought, correctly, that this would be effective. But it’s puzzling, too. I can see the potential for drawing a distinction between a cause of death and a reason—one the immediate, proximate occurrence from a range of possible options; the other, a more subtle interpretation of various forces that led up to the event? But these prompts are rather medieval in tone. Quarrel, illness, revenge; why not the full set of plague, heresy, jousting accident? Though the mention of revenge is also very Greek tragedy-esque, which suggests another motive for the orcas, back in real life: divine instruction or inspiration, embodying or delivering a message from the gods. Obeying the oracle through the spiracle.

Brody in the film reluctantly types in ‘SHARK ATTACK’ as the CAUSE. But he doesn’t get a chance to fill in the next, REASON, box, not with any of the options, because a phone call comes in telling him (we’ll learn) that there’s been another. This REASON field, as far as we the audience ever witness, remains blank, unstruck by the uprising metal keyslugs.

On the page

So my interest was hooked by these two questions, one from the newspaper, one from the cinema: what is inspiring the orcas; and, what is the reason for Chrissie’s shark-death? You can see that although they have thematic similarities, the former is a more direct question, simply asking, why are they doing this. In the second scenario, of Jaws the film and preceding year’s book, Brody has a more complex problem posed to him, as he’s asked to discern not just what has happened, but why—the cause and reason—and furthermore, what he should do about it. He’s required to do fact-finding, piecing together, interpretation, hypothesizing, dissection, explanation, negotiation, planning. It’s a lot more to unfold than in the orca investigation, with its simple ‘This. Why?’

And, as I’m literarily-inclined, the two questions put me in mind of Richard Scarry’s 1968 classic, What Do People Do All Day?, which is a large-format, illustrated book introducing children to the idea of careers, day-time activity, in fact to the whole concept that there is a broader world out there. Which is at the heart of much literature. (1968 was a good year in our field of publication; P.K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, Judith Kerr’s The Tiger Who Came To Tea, and Scarry’s own The Supermarket Mystery all date from then too.) I admire the expansive concept of the book, and the directness of its title, and the way that the contents, in simple words and hugely detailed drawings, answer the question. Also, Scarry takes the word ‘people’ on his own terms, expanding it to include worms, pigs, rabbits, and all. It strikes me, though, that we’re missing the sequel. Scarry tells us ‘what,’ but leaves out the ‘why.’ And this is the task that the newspaper article, and Brody, and now, I feel, I too, all edge towards: explaining not only, what do people do all day; but also, why do they do that.

It’s hard, as we’ve seen, to answer this for orcas. But it’s also hard to answer it for anybody, in any sphere or genus. Brody at his typewriter. Me at my desk—writing, that’s the main thing I do. The question starts to come back and bother me, as though I’m a Spanish fisherman hearing an unnerving, repetitive thumping against the hull, a problem under the waterline that won’t leave me alone. Why do orcas and/or writers do that?

On the pitch

Maybe I should start with something easier, something that is my second-most-frequent activity: playing football (I live in Scotland: soccer.) Why do football players do those things they do? It seems like an easy question. The easy answer is that they’re trying to manoeuvre the ball in order to score more goals than the other side. But it’s not that, exactly. Or, it’s not that, the way I play it.

Football, instead, is about movement through time and over distance (minutes and leagues), and about understanding and anticipating how other people’s thoughts will prompt their bodies to move, and about shaping patterns over a space that’s confined by lines and by rules. The ball is incidental; it’s not the object, the point of the game. Why does a player do that thing? Because they’ve seen the space and trajectory, and the moment, that’s about to open up. Because they’ve caught my eye and know where I’m about to run. Because they’ve got a grudge to assuage against that other player. Because a teammate is shouting at them to go somewhere, do something, refrain from something (sometimes all of these at once, with swearing). Because it brings them delight to make the ball circle overhead like that. There are constraints, but within them, there’s the creative freedom to read what is happening and to dream up a response, that will get you where you want to go. Reshaping, speeding up, reducing to freeze-frame clarity at moments of excitement and emotion. Starting again. Trying again better. And it’s about thinking, about being in mental sympathy with your team and opponents. Imaginatively considering the position of the other, in the shared space.

It’s a game of geometry through time, every time. A line becomes clear to you, that you could take. But the trajectory is not plot-able, predictable, on account of all of the other people on the pitch who are all doing their own differently-motivated thing. The obstacles, defenders, challenges, don’t stand still but move constantly, so the problem shifts as you look at it and move through it. The network expands with every movement and decision of every node, or, player, within it. An explosion of complexity.

I’m reminded of the story about the French philosopher Derrida coming back from the tea-break to deliver the second half of a lecture that, somewhat to the confusion of his listeners, had seemed to be largely about swirling unpredictability, plus dairy and bovine matters. “They tell me,” he clarified, “that it’s actually pronounced KAY-oss. Not cows.” I mention this because this seems to be turning into an essay about the human/animal interface, even though I’m deeply bored by the whole beyond-the-human, thinking-with-animals strand of rumination. I like to do thinking with books. Or on my feet.

In the study

What about writers, why do they do that thing they do? What decisions are they taking, why do they put down those words in this way not another? Same as footballers, they chose their constraints—format, language, genre, person, register, vocabulary, words, words, words—then they do whatever they want or can within that. They imaginatively consider the position of the other, in the shared space (that’s an action replay). They go outside the lines sometimes. But why? It could be that the writer is trying to tackle ideas around imagining people in places, through time; is considering past motive, future possibilities, the immediate texture and sensation of the present moment; is shaping patterns through memory. Trying to trap, control, turn these ideas then send them. (And all of this consideration is aside from the reply that director Hitchcock reportedly gave to an actress asking about her motivation: “It’s the money, my dear.”)

Though I’m drifting more towards another answer, too, one which is prompted by the example of the footballer who does it for fun, for the jouissance of just mucking about and fooling around. The writer writes that thing because there’s an inexplicable pleasure in doing so and a compulsion towards it. Much as it pains me to admit it, (because they’re my second-least-favourite marine animal, next to your straight-up dolphin), maybe the writer and the orca are doing similar things: just expressing their thoughts through action in the best way, because it’s in their nature. That’s what the writer has, the call of the mild. And there’s not just a parallel, but a triangular symmetry between the footballer, the writer, and the orca. They all three are in their zones doing their black and white enjoyment.

For example, there’s a certain similarity to the classic football ball, in the polygonal, monochrome shaping of the orca’s head and body. Aerodynamic, black and white, made of hexagons and pentagons. It bounces around. It bumps into the humans. It looks perhaps friendly until in swims up at thirty-five-plus miles per hour and whacks you. The monochrome, too, reminds me of the issue of negative or complementary space. Figure and ground advancing or receding. Attack, drop back. Splash of white foam over the dark water. White page, black type. Spaces for the words, but they might never, for reasons powering in from the watery kingdom of death, they might never get around to being written.

Off the ball

An aspect of the football playing that I wonder if it carries over into the writing, is the idea of the off-the-ball. The game, as I’ve suggested, is not so much about what you do when you have the ball and kick it. Most of the time, and the point, is spent without: after you’ve passed, when you’re running into space; when you’re moving to adjust the overall configuration of the people dispersed over the field, changing the shape. No, the main point in footy is what’s not happening, or, what’s not exactly the main event happening at the place you might expect to be the centre of attention. The main point is everywhere elsewhere, all but the focal point, the eye of the storm.

And the same with the orca—it’s not just their actual sinking of the fishing boat that is important, but the whole surrounds to the event, the hinterland or the hinter-watery-bay. Not just the moment of impact but everything around that, the hors-crash, too. It’s the build-up, the development of the narrative and the aftermath, the questions arising around revenge, grief, memory, desire. Whatever those motivations and feelings were, or might be, or become. The all-around, the medium we swim in. Everything that’s connected, all the waiting that we do.

And for the writer, too. Not just the punctum moment, but the everything-else-ness of writing. Yes, it’s the chosen word on the page, but it’s the rest of the page, and the beyond the margins, the history of the previous stories and everything you’re read before, earlier, too. Everything you bring to bear on it. The words and the worlds all around, that you chart your way through, that you navigate in, that count.

In the box

Looking back to Brody’s form in Jaws, it’s a request for written information—Brody has to give something over to the authorities by it. But the form is also (and in exchange) imparting information to him, through its configuration and categories. It’s telling Brody and us what aspects of a death, life, and event are already considered pertinent by the issuers of the document, telling us what they think is relevant. What was the CAUSE, asks the form, while putting forwards some of the expected or acceptable answers, pre-framing how to understand events. This is not a blank sheet, open-water space in which to free-associate anything about Chrissie; only certain, curtailed details are called for.

It’s the posing of the question that is, itself, part of the answer, really. To ask is already to frame what could go here; a question is a way of setting out important information about the information—marine info, pitch info, textual info—that is being requested. By casting the net out you’re already giving a clue about what you think you’ll be hauling back in, fetching out of the back of the net. Asking the question, it seems, is also a form of telling, or at very least of clearing a route for, a story to come. It’s prepping for an answer, drawing out the white lines of the pitch markings. When you ask you tell; you tell through your questions.

This is what usually happens, an exchange of information back and forth. But this is not, quite, what we get with Brody, and this is why he’s my typing and literary hero. The Brody scene is vital because he never does get to the REASON; he’s tiki-taka’ing, then a voice summons him and he leaves it blank. Always a blank space, something for us to carry on thinking about filling in with words. Not the moment of the crash of the orca’s teeth against the boat, not the moment of the typeslug marking the blank page to record why, not the foot striking the black and white object. But the moments before, and after, rippling around, receding, circling. Spinning out, as far as we can see.

On the horizon

What’s going to happen this summer? I’ll be waiting, watching, ready to run with my reports. If I’m not called away from my typewriter in a hurry, I’ll keep readers posted, on what happens. On why? We’ll see.