In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

published	2001 by Penguin (Non-Classics)
first published	2000
binding	Paperback
isbn	0141001828 (isbn13: 9780141001821)
pages	320
description	The appeal of Dava Sobel's Longitude was, in part, that it illuminated a little-known piece of history through a series of captivating incident...more [close] The appeal of Dava Sobel's Longitude was, in part, that it illuminated a little-known piece of history through a series of captivating incidents and engaging personalities. Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea is certainly cast from the same mold, examining the 19th-century Pacific whaling industry through the arc of the sinking of the whaleship Essex by a boisterous sperm whale. The story that inspired Herman Melville's classic Moby-Dick has a lot going for it--derring-do, cannibalism, rescue--and Philbrick proves an amiable and well-informed narrator, providing both context and detail. We learn about the importance and mechanics of blubber production--a vital source of oil--and we get the nuts and bolts of harpooning and life aboard whalers. We are spared neither the nitty-gritty of open boats nor the sucking of human bones dry. By sticking to the tried and tested Longitude formula, Philbrick has missed a slight trick or two. The epicenter of the whaling industry was Nantucket, a small island off Cape Cod; most of the whales were in the Pacific, necessitating a huge journey around the southernmost tip of South America. We never learn why no one ever tried to create an alternative whaling capital somewhere nearer. Similarly, Philbrick tells us that the story of the Essex was well known to Americans for decades, but he never explores how such legends fade from our consciousness. Philbrick would no doubt reply that such questions were beyond his remit, and you can't exactly accuse him of skimping on his research. By any standard, 50 pages of footnotes impress, though he wears his learning lightly. He doesn't get bogged down in turgid detail, and his narrative rattles along at a nice pace. When the storyline is as good as this, you can't really ask for more. --John Crace, Amazon.co.uk
date added	12-22-06 edit book

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Jared rated it:

01/08/08

Read in December, 2007

Got this book last year as a gift from G. As a sometime New Englander, frequent visitor to Mystic Seaport, and admirer of Melville, this book was right up my alley. I read the whole thing through on a recent cross-country flight.

At the age of 28, George Pollard set out in command of the whaleship "Essex." He had a brilliant reputation, he had the firm trust of the ship's owners, and he had two dozen able and dutiful crewmen ready to follow his orders for endless months at sea killi...more Got this book last year as a gift from G. As a sometime New Englander, frequent visitor to Mystic Seaport, and admirer of Melville, this book was right up my alley. I read the whole thing through on a recent cross-country flight.

At the age of 28, George Pollard set out in command of the whaleship "Essex." He had a brilliant reputation, he had the firm trust of the ship's owners, and he had two dozen able and dutiful crewmen ready to follow his orders for endless months at sea killing whales and rendering their flesh into valuable oil. Two years later, he was found in a whaleboat with one of his crew, drifting near South America, delirious and near death. He had lost his ship in a bizarre incident in which it was attacked by a whale. He had lost his crew during terrifying weeks at sea in small boats. He and the other survivors had fallen to cannibalism, eating their fellows as they died of starvation. Not only that, but one of the dead was his own nephew, whom he had sworn to protect! And not only that, but the rescuers found the two men gnawing desperately on the marrow-bones, which they refused to let go of, as if they were the most precious thing possible! It is hard to imagine a more vivid example of how the hazards of seafaring could drag a man down from the peaks of success. And that is why the history of sailing holds such a great fascination, because it presented such harsh challenges to the men who sailed, in a way that starkly tested the men's character.

Melville grasped how the roles of the men on a whaler serve as archetypes for qualities of leadership, courage and duty. It is the conflicts between Ahab, Starbuck, the harpooneers and and the crew, reflected in the greater conflict between duty and ontology, that give "Moby Dick" its power. In Philbrick's analysis, the fate of the "Essex" and its survivors were determined by the character and conflicts among captain Pollard, first mate Chase and a few of the crew. While the first mate was too self-sure, the captain was too diffident, and sought consensus with his subordinates when he should have issued orders based on his own opinion. Most critically, Pollard followed the mates' wishes in sailing the whaleboats against the wind towards South America, rather than with the wind towards Tahiti. They were afraid to find cannibals in Tahiti, and the captain thought they were wrong but didn't know enough facts to argue them down. The irony of their own eventual cannibalism is evident. And yet the headstrong first mate led the men better in his own little boat, and saved more of them, than did the captain. The counter-examples to the "Essex" are striking. The crew of another whaleship, sunk by a whale years later, sailed their little boats towards a heavy shipping route and were saved in two days. At another time a ship's crew, adrift in lifeboats, lost a member to starvation and decided not to eat him, but to cut up the body as bait. This way they caught enough sharks to feed the other survivors.

If the survival story is supremely harrowing, the working routine on a whaler was grueling enough, as the book deftly relates. Aside from the bad pay and the back-breaking labor, the sheer youth of the crew is shocking. The captain was 28, the first mate 23, most of the crew were teenagers, and one was only 14. The camaraderie of coming from the same hometown of Nantucket must have eased the harsh conditions for many of the crew. But here the survival story acquires a sinister ethnic overtone. All the ship's officers and about half of the men were Nantucketers. Of the ones who survived, almost all were Nantucketers. None of the African-American sailors survived. While the author discounts any deliberate factional killing, it is clear that group mentality and perhaps even racism influenced who survived and who didn't.

This book is a tale well-told, rich with many compelling insights on history, character and society. Well-deserving of its National Book Award....less

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In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

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