Hope was all that stood between them and death

“No matter how much the inhabitants might try to hide it, there was a savagery about this island, a bloodlust and pride that bound every mother, father, and child in a clannish commitment to the hunt.”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea

This is a harrowing tale that is the opposite of Life of PI, this is about raw survival, a description of a primitive desperate reality of the physical needs of the body and social expectation battling it out in the most horrible of circumstances. Morals and feeling eroded to the point where madness is the last refuge.

“After seventeen days, one of the crew suggested that they cast lots. As it turned out, the lot fell to the man who had originally made the proposal, and after lots were cast again to see who should execute him, he was killed and eaten.”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea

The writer submerges us in the period and customs of this bloody trade, living no bone unturned, no secret unexamined, all tales ground and pounded into dust, the descriptions and examples presented are as unrelenting as the hunt this men executed on their prey, the whales on the other hand are described, in all their social beauty, and dissected in the commercial value and business practices of the period.

“The whaleman’s rule of thumb was that, before diving, a whale blew once for each minute it would spend underwater. Whalemen also knew that while underwater the whale continued at the same speed and in the same direction as it had been traveling before the dive. Thus, an experienced whaleman could calculate with remarkable precision where a submerged whale was likely to reappear.”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea

I read this book in two sittings, it was interesting, absorbing and fast paced with some of the most disturbing information about humanity or the inhumanity of humans towards other species and ourselves.

This is one of the best historical books I have read, detailed and informative, while presenting a story that encompasses the horror of tragedy and the very real lives of the men that survived the ordeal, and unusually describing what happened after the rescue, till the very end of their lives. The book also examines the literary influences this event had on American writers from Poe to melville being the two most directly affected in their writing.

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8 people found this helpful

Good story and good history

I was impressed with the writing. He manages to make an interesting narrative without resorting to fiction. Most books of this type either make up the details or end up too dry to be interesting. He gets the best of both approaches. It is both fun to listen to and well researched. I particularly like the digressions which are educational, relevant and interesting.

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