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'
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