Dolphin Island by Arthur C. Clarke, a plot summary.

Danny Man

Book Reviews

Title: Dolphin Island Type/Theme: little adventure/life

Author: Arthur C. Clarke Plot Location: Great Barrier Leaf

Time period: twenty first century 2000 plus

Plot Summary:

Johnny Clinton was sleeping softly when a stray hover ship wondered into the path the old turnpike. The colossal ship, which curiously woke up Johnny, had suddenly halted there four hundred miles from the nearest port. Was this actually happening thought Johnny to himself, without much of thought he got out of his bed and climbed through the window and began his little voyage to scrutinize this ship more attentively. It began to show its generous vastness as Johnny approached it with great interest. Yet this climax was not near close, this ship had park itself on the shores. The title ‘SANTA ANNA BRASILA,’ bowed across the ship faintly at if almost certain of ageing. Johnny looked surreptitiously at the openings of the ship, wondering that he could sneak into the ship and have a quick DIY tour of the stranded monster. Quickly, thoughts had became actions and noticing the ladder leading to a door twenty feet up, Johnny decided to climb the ladder. Approximately half way on the climb, the great wall of the ship started to vibrate, the base of the ship rose upwards. Johnny was stuck; if he retreated down he would have being blown away as if like a leaf in a strong wind, yet his only option was to continue to climb up for the door. The thought of the door being locked would be unthinkable; the audacious Johnny would be locked outside the humongous ship’s side whilst travelling at high speeds. Johnny’s risk, which seemed to be decisive, was right as the door opened and he let himself into the heart of the titanic. Once inside, he began to worry as he might be whizzed off hundred of miles: more thought proved it to be wrong as all he had to do was contact a crew member, who would called the police and at the nearest port, Johnny would have being taken back home. Even more thought proved to be more interesting as what is home; at home he was a desolate, his aunt was less than willing to have him in the household and was treated much as a desolate, there was his uncle but now he had passed away life was different. He became more positive on the idea of staying away from the ‘home of others,’ but at the moment his problem was where to stowaway. Quite stupid as it seems as Johnny has all the space to hide! Johnny wondered through the ship and soon as he approach a door, the sound of a thousand engines pumping through hard iron became a perpetual humming. Johnny had stumbled across the engine room; he entered deliberately not trying to not make any noises, as the great humming was enough to cover up any noise Johnny could make. Further scrutiny revealed that across the five hundred by five hundred feet room, people in strange uniforms were talking; they were actually shouting at each other at something pointing to the numerous cogs and dials. Deciding not to interfere with the unsettled discussion he creped away and found his way into a small room, which seemed to hold cargo. The soporific Johnny tired from this excitement took a nap in the corner covering himself with the unknown fabric covering the boxes and crates. The next couple of days, Johnny survived on tiny rations he found around the boxes and crates. One day he woke up to the screeching sounds of a dying creature drowning in the great blue sea, the creature was the ship and it was sinking. The less than vintage ship was sinking: maybe this had to do with the argument he overheard. Deciding to explore the ship for any remaining people, he was in no luck as the ship was deserted. According to the speed of the ship sinking, he had only ten minutes on the boat left until the ship would be totally submerged in the sea. Johnny’s conclusion proved to be wrong; the ship was already three quarters upended in the sea and he had no time left. Johnny had no choice but to dive into the sea as this giant monster would have dragged Johnny down with him and bringing certain death. Already in the water he could feel it was immensely difficult to stay afloat; in order to stay alive he had to continue on and wittingly gathered piles of wood presumably broken down when the ship was pulled into the sea. All these broken bits of wood was no use to him, he had given his last effort away until about fifty feet away he saw a rectangular box floating; it was a packaging box, a box perfect to stay on but was vulnerable to being capsized so he spread himself evenly on the box. Hours of drifting in shining bright sun made Johnny extremely hot and dry. Using the floating debris round him, he collected the wood and built a little shelter using his coat as the tent. Amazingly he had survived but he was beginning to worry about whether his decision to leave was right, but surprisingly he had little regret. Amongst all this drifting his pessimistic mind began to wonder on all those great monsters of the sea, sailor stories about huge squids. The demoralizing Johnny spotted twenty feet away from him was several fins approaching him, Johnny was getting scared and soon enough these fins began to multiply; these fins meandered the box that Johnny was lying on and then out popped a unharmful bright face. These creatures, which was in packs, was in fact dolphins and they seemed to be impressed by Johnny. Each and every little one formed a circus act as if like they all was trying to impress Johnny back. All this was starting to tire Johnny, his eyelids was beginning to become heavy and he just dropped down on the box.

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The next time Johnny opened his eyes, he felt he was moving and looking towards the sun, he could see that he had moved a long distanced. Then behind him he saw the dolphins pushing the box, each fin seemed to rotate in turns as Johnny was being taken to somewhere. These dolphins were helping Johnny, yet Johnny had no energy to stay on and fainted on the spot. Amid all this generosity, Johnny woke up faintly and heard a man’s voice calling for help. When Johnny awoke, he was lying on a great white bed with an enormous women asked him whether he was all right. All Johnny saw was his legs red angry with patches of skin peeling off, he was ok though he had survived. The next time he woke up, he was taken to the doctor and the doctor asked for his story. The doctor had already found out who he was and where he came from. The doctor already told the police and the next time a ship comes by, Johnny would be taken back home. To Johnny’s disappointed, he had came all this way to be taken back, but then he was told he had eight days until the nearest ship would come so he had time to explore. Johnny almost fully recovered from his venture was taken a little tour of the island. All around the island it was a small town, which was deeply involved with the sea; his first couple days was spent with Prof. Kazan, where the Prof would teach Johnny about what his years of research was about. The Prof was interested in how to communicate with dolphins and found Johnny a very useful tool as he had much experience with them. Johnny was fascinated with the Prof’s work and would sometimes emulate what he did when he was being pushed to the island by the helpful dolphins. Not before long had Johnny spent his eight days there but he was reluctant to leave, the caring Prof decided that Johnny could stay at the island but only if his closest relatives agreed: in this case it was Johnny’s aunt and more than willingly she agreed and sign the papers immediately. He did think about his leaving but he did not regret, now it was another chapter of his life. Johnny’s hard work with the aqualungs and many hours of diving proved be to worthless as his education on the island was getting poor, so in order to join the crew to do these various tasks, he had to improve exceptionally and that’s what he did.

One day the primates of Prof’s experiments fed the crew with lots of incredible information, Johnny was told to decipher the dolphin’s sounds, which ironically told him a whole month to solve out. Johnny deciphered the tape, which were the dolphins word by word passed on tales. It translated, there a school of dolphins swimming of a large island at night, when suddenly it turned into day, ‘the sun came down from the sky.’ It was an enormous object, which was floating on the seas, as long as one hundred and twenty eight dolphins. The dolphins were frightened, as the tremendous object exploded and it sank quickly into the sea. Every dolphin within the explosion had died of a strange disease. For many years, no dolphins dared to explore the caves of that area until one group of dolphins looking for food went there to look for food and soon they died of a strange disease. The Prof’s ludicrous theory was that a thousand years ago, a large spaceship had landed in the sea, then its nuclear engines blew up causing the place to be infected with radioactivity; a wise assumption but how was this possible. The Prof was ready to give the dolphins their chance to prove that the Prof’s ingenious hypothesises was real. The dolphins are creatures with incredible sight and scent; the Prof used this to track down different brilliant things in his short voyage in the sea. Every time the Prof gave the dolphins something to smell, the clever dolphins would bring back that in large amounts. The dolphins brought back nets of silver-lip ousters, which would have paid for their short journey, as the shells were good for making things such as buttons. Now it was the ultimate experiment, as the Prof kept a female killer whale and tested her with all the knowledge of his with the intelligent dolphins. The Prof sent sound waves into the water, this controlled the killer whale like a robot: maybe this was bad though, as it seemed as the killer whale was being controlled.

Characters:

Johnny:

Johnny was an orphan; his parents had died when he was at an early age. His closest relatives, who were his aunt and uncle, had more or less taken him into their family. His uncle was friendly and trusting towards Johnny, but when he passed away it was quite cleared that his aunt didn’t like him from the start. At his days there, he was really lonesome, at school people would make fun of him. He wanted a simple life, where he could have friends and be happy, but that was not the case.

Professor Kazan

The Prof was the man on the island who was truly insane! He was a man of great knowledge and was deeply involved in his work. Everyday was a new experience, he had spent most his life on the little island. He was a sciencetist of the seas and did much experimenting on the dolphins and other teachable creatures.

Events:

The death of Mary Watson

One day Johnny was wondering in the forest of the small island, when he suddenly became aware that he was lost. Ironic as the forest, he had been many times and it was quite small to get lost. He noticed that quite abruptly one part of the forest was a whole lot newer and shorter. It was certain that it had been replanted. Only when he had told the Prof that he found out a women, who had previously lived on an island died from hunger. Her husband was out and wouldn’t be back for months, thieves and robbers came once and attacked them but luckily she fought them off. But she knew they would come back, so she salvaged all she could and set off into the sea. She sailed for days, but could find no boats to help her, all her rations had gone and longer had she hope for people to help her. Her ‘stimulus of hope,’ proved to be helping as she saw a nearby island and landed ashore. Twenty years later, a body was found on this island.

The ship sinking

Johnny was all alone when he found out that the ship was on fire, had he not climbed onto the ship he would have been safe and sound at home. Though he had not regretted his sudden exit and fought on to save life. The ship was abandoned, no one was onboard, Johnny was all alone and he had to live. The only choice was to jump into the sea or otherwise, he would have died with the gigantic ship.

What did I enjoy most:

I liked the idea of leaving everything and starting a whole new life somewhere, but things are not always perfect; Johnny’s risk was a life and death matter and the author did well to show this.

What did I enjoyed least:

There wasn’t much that I didn’t like but I was disappointed that there wasn’t anything else on the prediction of the Prof’s theory that terrestrial life had encountered the earth a thousands of years ago.

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