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In the Heart of the Sea - The Epic True Story That Inspired 'Moby Dick' (Paperback) Loot Price: R251
Discovery Miles 2 510
You Save: R86 (26%)

In the Heart of the Sea - The Epic True Story That Inspired 'Moby Dick' (Paperback)

Nathaniel Philbrick

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List price R337 Loot Price R251 Discovery Miles 2 510 You Save R86 (26%)

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In the Heart of the Sea is a true adventure briskly told, a harrowing and unstoppable read. In 1820, when the whaler Essex went down in the vast and barely charted waters of the southern Pacific Ocean, it was no ordinary catastrophe. Although rumours of similar incidents had been whispered in the whaling community, for the first time surviving witnesses could attest that the ship had been attacked and brought down by its own prey: a sperm whale. The whale that hit the Essex was a monster: around 80 tons and 85 feet or so in length. Furthermore, according to survivors, not only was the fabulous beast brave in defence of his fellows, but also calculating in the way he turned on the Essex: 'as if distracted' wrote one survivor 'with rage and fury'. Philbrick's book stands alone as a gripping yarn about the doomed voyage and its aftermath, but it can simultaneously be read as a primer for Moby Dick, for it was the wreck of the Essex that inspired Melville's lumbering masterpiece of American literature. Stripped of allegory and metaphor, the story remains immensely powerful and particularly chilling about the endless months survivors spent in three small boats on the deserted ocean, with no navigational aids and practically no provisions. The taboo of 'gastronomic incest' was broken, naturally, and ironically too: the survivors had chosen the open sea over a relatively easy landfall out of misinformed fear of local cannibals. With intelligent restraint, relying on testimony and evidence, Philbrick makes us readers know what effect the dreadful experience had on those few men who lived to tell the tale. He also delivers painless lessons on the wonder and weirdness of whales, their physiology and social systems. Equally, we learn much about a specific place and time in history - nineteenth-century Nantucket - and we can see how fundamentalism, optimism, casual racism, courage and materialism are bred in the American bone. Review by Irma Kurtz (Kirkus UK)

"A classic… historical writing at its best – and at the same time, one of the most chilling books I have aver read."
SEBASTIAN JUNGER, author of 'The Perfect Storm'

"Superbly readable… he gives us, in fascinating detail, the stark, bloodstained true story… Philbrick's book is more than a piece of elegantly written maritime history… It is a compelling study of the infinite human meanings of the sea itself."
ANDREW RISSIN, 'Guardian'

The sinking of the Nantucket whaleship 'Essex' by an enraged spermwhale far out in the Pacific in November 1820 set in train one of the most dramatic sea stories of all time. Accounts of the unprecedented whale attack inspired Herman Melville's mighty novel 'Moby Dick', but 'In the Heart of the Sea' goes beyond these events to describe what happened when the twenty mixed-race crewmen took to three small boats and what, three months later, the whaleship 'Dauphin', cruising of the coast of South America, discovered when it spotted a tiny boat sailing erratically across the open ocean.

"The approach is unusual and fresh, the book intelligent, probing, scholarly, gripping and satisfying. It sets a new mark for maritime literature, away from the traditional adventure pattern… much of the literary excellence of 'In the Heart' lies in its fine and introspective passages… Philbrick relishes words and language, and skilfully uses them to carry the reader into cubby-holes of darker causes and effects."
ANNIE PROULX, 'Irish Times'

General

Imprint: HarperPerennial
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Release date: November 2000
Authors: Nathaniel Philbrick
Dimensions: 197 x 130 x 24mm (L x W x T)
Format: Paperback - B-format
Pages: 302
ISBN-13: 978-0-00-653120-3
Categories: Books > Fiction > True stories > Endurance & survival
Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Maritime history
Books > History > History of specific subjects > Maritime history
LSN: 0-00-653120-2
Barcode: 9780006531203

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