americas

Owen Chase, the first mate on the whaleship Essex that shipped from Nantucket in 1820, to be visciously attacked and sunk by a sperm whale over 2,000 miles from the South American coast, survived at sea on a whale boat for two months. Cannabalism of a dead crewman was his key to survival. Chase subsequently became a whale boat captain and authored a tome on his experiences. In 21 years at sea, Chase only spent 5 months on land but managed to have 6 children by 4 wives (2 died in childbirth, 1 was divorced for infidelity while he was at sea). This history book, though highly entertaining, is an eye-opener about 19th century America, Natucket Quaker culture, the whaling industry, race (when the survivors resorted to cannabalism, the first four crew members eaten were Americans of African descent, a face that the Quaker abolitionist whalers of Nantucket tried to keep silent). The literature that came out of the Essex tragedy, from Melville's Moby Dick to works by Edgar Allen Poe, is also well reviewed. To combine entertainment with the acquisition of knowlege, this book cannot be beat.

I would recommend without reservation this audio book abridgement of THE HEART OF THE SEA. Anyone who has an interest in suvival stories, or sea yarns would love this one. The tragedy of the Nantucket whaleship Essex was the inspiration for Herman Melville's MOBY DICK. The Essex was destroyed by a whale who, to the awe of the crew, seemed to have malignant intent. The crew was set adrift in the Pacific in small whaleboats with few provisions and little water---resulting in cannibalism and the drawing of lots ending in the death of one crew member.

The portraits of the Essex captain and first mate are particularly well drawn and distinctive for an abridged version, as well as the effects of starvation and dehydration. Unlike MOBY DICK, this abridgement gives just enough information on the whaling industry to be interesting, and focuses on the human dimension of the story. The listener has to wonder whether he or she could behave as well as these men did under equally desperate circumstances.

Edward Herrmann's reading of the book was excellent with one persistent mispronunciation of the name "Bowditch" being the one jarring note. I guess no one associated with the production had ever been sailing!

Given its aim to inform, not just to tell a good story (in the style of Moby Dick), the book has three fatal flaws: Philbrick's ignorance of both sailing and whaling, and his simplistic view of human psychology. Here are examples of some of the false assumptions Philbrick employs about sailing: in the 1820's a whale ship's captain would continue carrying a large, hard to reef, light-air sail with a storm approaching in the Gulf Stream while reefing other sails; an early 1800's whale ship will come back from a 90 degree knockdown; when caught over-canvassed in a storm, some captains prefer to come up head into the wind rather than falling off and running before the wind; first-time members of the crew remain "green" after months at sea; the ship's carpenter cannot build a whaleboat; the ship's carpenter can repair a whaleboat that was smashed to bits. Etc. These little mistakes about sailing go on and on. There are also numerous "little" mistakes made when describing whaling. The "killer" mistake occurs when Philbrick writes that in the 1820's so much whaling was occurring that the Pacific was dotted with the carcasses of dead whales. This, when even a brief amount of research reveals that one of the big problems faced by whalers was keeping a dead whale afloat. As these little errors mount up, the reader ceases to be able to take anything Philbrick says about either sailing or whaling seriously or, by analogy, anything he says about Nantucket, its history and its people. If the story were not presented as if to provide information about both this might not matter. But as it is, it does. Then there are the predictable one dimensional stereotypes that are Philbrick's cast of character's. Any adult who thinks this is a dose or reality probably cannot be convinced otherwise, though if you are in this group, I suggest comparing the character development in this "National Book Award" novel with, say, character development in Graham Greene's "A Burnt Out Case," for example.