''The Day of the Dolphin'' (''Un animal doué de raison'' – lit. ''A Sentient Animal'') is a 1967 science fiction thriller novel by French novelist

Robert Merle Robert Merle (; 28 August 1908 – 27 March 2004) was a French novelist. Early life Merle was born in 1908 in Tébessa, French Algeria. His father Félix, who was an interpreter "with a perfect knowledge of literary and spoken Arabic", was kille ...

. The plot concerns dolphins that are trained to communicate with humans, and their use in warfare. The central character is a government scientist with similar ideas to those of John C. Lilly. The English translation of the novel was published in 1969 with the title ''The Day of the Dolphin'', which is not a literal translation of the French title. The novel was the basis for the 1973 film ''

The Day of the Dolphin ''The Day of the Dolphin'' is a 1973 American science fiction thriller film directed by Mike Nichols and starring George C. Scott. Based on the 1967 novel '' Un animal doué de raison'' (lit. ''A Sentient Animal''), by French writer Robert Merle, ...

'', though the film's plot was significantly different from that of the book, even in inconsequential details. For instance, in the book, the dolphins are named Ivan (" the terrible") and Bessie and call themselves Fa and Bi; in the film, they are instead named Alpha and Beta and call themselves Fa and Be.

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Christopher Lehmann-Haupt Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (June 14, 1934 – November 7, 2018) was an American journalist, editor of the ''New York Times Book Review'', critic, and novelist, based in New York City. He served as senior Daily Book Reviewer from 1969 to 1995. Bi ...

reviewed the translated novel favorably, characterizing it as "a provocative and altogether chilling science fiction thriller - an Ian Fleming with humanity."

Joanna Russ Joanna Russ (February 22, 1937 – April 29, 2011) was an American writer, academic and feminist. She is the author of a number of works of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism such as ''How to Suppress Women's Writing'', as w ...

described ''The Day of the Dolphin'' as "pure commodity: written by the yard to be bought by the yard" and dismissed it as a "vast, contentless, commercial

megathere Megatheriidae is a family of extinct ground sloths that lived from approximately 23 mya—11,000 years ago. Megatheriids appeared during the Late Oligocene (Deseadan in the SALMA classification), some 29 million years ago, in South America. ...

References

1967 French novels French science fiction novels 1967 science fiction novels Fiction about dolphins French novels adapted into films Fiction about animal communication Science fiction novels adapted into films {{1960s-sf-novel-stub

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