Helpful Score: 1
If you enjoy a story that begins with dread and foreboding and quickly dissolves into despair and utter hopelessness then this is the book for you. I've never read an Arctic seafaring story set in the 19th Century that did not end badly and this is no exception. Still, the writing is outstanding, the characters well defined and the descriptions of the landscape often border on poetry. There is a lot of blood but for me the most harrowing account was not a human murder, but a whale hunt and the aftermath. Definitely worth reading but not for the squeamish, animal lovers, ecologists or optimists.
This novel really packs a punch! It was like reading Moby Dick on some kind of energy drink. It tells the story of a doomed whaling voyage on the ship Volunteer to the North Water of Greenland in 1859. One of the main characters in the novel, Henry Drax, is probably the most vile and despicable person ever to grace literature. He is a murderer and pedophile who only lives to satisfy his cravings. Also along for the voyage is Patrick Sumner, an ex-army surgeon who served in India during the Delhi siege and ends up with a tarnished reputation. His only option, he thinks, is to take refuge as the ship's surgeon on its ill-fated voyage. While on the surface the voyage is in search of whale and its uses, in reality, the ship is doomed to failure based on the owner's knowledge of the waning whaling industry.
McGuire paints a vivid and bleak picture aboard the Volunteer. And prior to the voyage, the area of London in which some of the whalers that board the Volunteer lurk before shipping out is shown as an area ripe with evil, sordidness, and murder. The true purpose of the voyage is kept secret from most of the crew but most fall victim to its outcome. The novel portrays all the vileness of the voyage including descriptions of sodomy, murder, bodily functions, and the slaughter of both seals and whales.
Most everything in the novel pulls the reader into the world of 19th century whaling. The setting, the characters and dialogue, along with the plot and its twists really draw you into this one. But this is much more than a mere action sea adventure. I would highly recommend this one but be prepared for a shocking story.
McGuire paints a vivid and bleak picture aboard the Volunteer. And prior to the voyage, the area of London in which some of the whalers that board the Volunteer lurk before shipping out is shown as an area ripe with evil, sordidness, and murder. The true purpose of the voyage is kept secret from most of the crew but most fall victim to its outcome. The novel portrays all the vileness of the voyage including descriptions of sodomy, murder, bodily functions, and the slaughter of both seals and whales.
Most everything in the novel pulls the reader into the world of 19th century whaling. The setting, the characters and dialogue, along with the plot and its twists really draw you into this one. But this is much more than a mere action sea adventure. I would highly recommend this one but be prepared for a shocking story.
