In the Heart of the Sea

Philbrick, Nathaniel. In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. London: Penguin. 2000. Print.

First Sentences:

Like a giant bird of prey, the whaleship moved lazily up the western coast of South America, zigging and zagging across a living sea of oil. For that was the Pacific Ocean in 1821, a vast field of warm-blooded oil deposits known as sperm whales.

Description:

There's something about survival narratives that always captures my total attention. Whether its the event itself, the fortitude and breakdowns of the people facing a hopeless situation, or just the fantasy of wondering how you yourself would fare under those circumstances continually fascinates me.

Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex clicks all my buttons for survival stories. His narrative recounts the events leading up to the historic sinking of the whaleship Essex in the 1819. What is unusual about this particular ship's sinking is that the Essex was repeatedly, deliberately rammed by a huge whale, sending twenty men into lifeboats for a three-month epic voyage of 3,000 miles. This true story was an internationally known tale in those days in a world centered on whaling, and indeed was an inspiration for Herman Melville to write Moby Dick which featured (spoiler alert) the sinking of a whaleboat by the white whale.

Did a whale actually cause the sinking of the Essex? To find the answer, Philbrick carefully documents the world of whaling at that time, with Nantuck Island as the center of the world's industry. Selecting crews, captains, cargo, setting out in small boats to harpoon and then be pulled by immense whales (the "Nantucket sleigh ride"), and all other aspects of the voyage are vividly brought to life under Phibrick's able hand. 

What is the daily/hourly life like for ordinary seamen and officers? How do you actually go about finding, and killing a whale in the open sea? Philbrick weaves accounts of other whaling dangers, castaways, cannibals, and greedy owners. Soon you are immersed in this era, becoming completely at one with the crew of the Essex as they seek whales from New England around the tip of South America and all the way to the Hawaiian Islands.

But it is the episode with the giant whale and its encounter with the Essex that drives the story. Was it intentional or accidental? Eye-witness reports are absolutely riveting as the crew watches the whale approach the ship, while other crew members view the encounter from their whaleboats bobbing in the distance.

The harrowing wreckage is only the beginning of the survival story as the men take to poorly-equipped lifeboats and head toward what they think might be safe lands. They intentionally avoid some islands due to rumors of cannibals, so instead of a shorter route to closer islands like Hawaii they opt for a 2,000-mile voyage to perceived safety in friendlier lands. With little more than a sail and the will to survive, they leave the wreck of the Essex behind and slowly drift away.

... the cabin boy [later] asked, "How many warm hearts have ceased to beat in consequence of [this decision]?"

I cannot ably describe Philbtick's gripping accounts from departure of the Essex to its sinking by the whale and then the long, long voyage of survival. If you have any interest in true-life adventures of man vs. the elements, then In the Heart of the Sea will keep you pinned to your chair for hours as you follow these men as they face death by so many forces.

The Essex disaster is not a tale of adventure. It is a tragedy that happens to be one of the greatest true stories ever told.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick: or The Whale

Truly an epic tale of whaling in the 1800's and one man's obsession with revenge on the great white whale that took his leg. A classic read that should not be avoided any longer!

Philbrick, Nathaniel. Why Read Moby-Dick?

Companion piece that explains the importance and history behind Moby-Dick to make it more understandable to common readers and allow them to experience the grandeur and excitement of the tale and that era.

Severin, Timothy. In Search of Moby Dick: Quest for the White Whale

Modern day search by the author to the Pacific to follow leads to the possible existence of a white whale as depicted in Moby-Dick. Fascinating accounts of natives in the region of such whales as well as the giant manta rays (some white) that they hunt by jumping onto their backs and spearing them. Wonderful read.

81 Days Below Zero

Murphy, Brian. 81 Days Below Zero: The Incredible Survival Story of a World War II Pilot in Alaska's Frozen Wilderness. New York: De Capo. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

On a morning just above zero, a pilot with bed-rumpled hair hurried through tunnels under the Alaskan snow.

Description:

I relish survival stories, especially those that pit one person alone against overwhelming forces seeking to destroy him at every turn. The drive of that person to keep going and overcome both the tiny and major problems faced always strike a chord with me. These tales make me wonder how well would I have done in a similar situation, and bring me to the conclusion I probably would have died in the first few days. That the story's major character survives restores my faith in the ingenuity of humans and maybe even improves my will to press on in daily life.

Brian Murphy in 81 Days Below Zero: The Incredible Survival Story of a World War II Pilot in Alaska's Frozen Wilderness, tells the true story of First Lieutenant Leon Crane
who parachuted out of his doomed plane over the frozen landscape of Alaska in 1943. He and his crew of "Cold Nose Boys" (military fliers) were performing a routine test of a B-24 bomber when the plane spun out of control and headed straight down. Crane was able to parachute out, but the fates of the other crewmen was unknown to him. The plane burst into flames upon impact as Crane watched from his own landing area several miles away. 

Realizing he had been off course and unable to radio their position, Crane begins walking, regretting that he had pulled off his gloves on board the aircraft. At temperatures ranging from -20 to -50 degrees, frostbite immediately became his first real problem.

Armed with the parachute for warmth and a few matches, Crane follows the frozen river, drinking the seeping water at the edges before it freezes, but unable to find any food. He is completely lost, but feels that following a river might bring him to people, even if they are by his estimate, over 100 miles away. How long can he survive without food, sub-zero temperatures, and no assistance?

What follows is the gripping and challenging story of Crane's plodding hike, his encounters with death, and his narrow escapes that make him wiser for the next obstacle faced. All this is set in an environment where the temperature rarely gets above -20 degrees. 

Besides Crane's struggles, Author Murphy describes the history of the Alaskan area of the crash, including the gold rush as well the true purpose of the armed forces stationed there (preparing in 1944 for a major invasion of Japan). Using records, letters, and news articles, Murphy ably describes the feelings of the Ladd Air Base as well as the strength of the families of the lost airmen in their dogged determination to locate these men.

Crane's will, his cleverness, and his determination give us ordinary people the hope that we too, like him, could at least try to calmly, rationally overcome the terrible hand he has been dealt.

Read it in front of a fire, covered with a blanket and a cup of hot tea in your hand. You will still be shivering, guaranteed.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Paulsen, Gary. Hatchet

Teenage city boy crash lands in the wilds of Canada and must learn how to survive in the wilderness. See also the Hatchet sequels, especially Brian's Winter. 

Weir, Andy. The Martian

One astronaut, blown away and by a Martian storm, is left behind on Mars and presumed dead. But he isn't and must figure out how to survive, communicate with NASA and his crew, and ultimately escape. Not easy tasks, but he is resourceful in the face of overwhelming odds. Fantastic. (previously reviewed here) 

Philbrick, Natianiel. In the Heart of the Sea

True story of the Essex, the nineteenth century whaling boat that was rammed and sunk by a whale, sending its surviving crew into three longboats to attempt to sail 3,000 miles to the nearest port. (previously reviewed here) 

Running the Amazon

Kane, Joe. Running the Amazon. New York: Knopf. 1989. Print.

First Sentences:

Southern Peru, late August 1985.

Beneath a rust-colored winter sky an old GMC flatbed bounced slowly through the high Andean badlands known as The Puna. It is a lunar landscape, flat, treeless, ringed with bald dun hills and sharp gray peaks, bone-dry nine months of the year, beaten by frigid, dust-coated winds. 

Description:

I'm a sucker for any adventure book with humans pitted against nature, whether by their own choice or by accident, Exploring and surviving the arctic, space, jungles, mountains, wild rivers, and deserts all provide fascinating adventures and force me to wonder "Would I have survived this experience?" Probably not, but that only increases the admiration I have for these brave people and compels me to read more and more about such death-defying adventures.

In Running the Amazon, author Joe Kane recounts the only expedition to travel the entire length of the Amazon River, all 4,200 miles of it, from its source in the Andes mountains to mouth in the Atlantic Ocean. Kane was one of four members of this 1984 expedition to complete the entire length of the Amazon over the six-month trip by kayak, raft, and foot.. 

The Amazon Source to Sea Expedition consisted of nine men and women from Poland, Britain, Costa Rica, and South Africa. Members joined the expedion out of a sense of adventure, for the sake of science, and simply to be part of accomplishing a unique goal. One man was an experienced kayaker, one a doctor, one a photographer, and one a national park director from Costa Rica. Kane was along to document the journey for future articles and a book.

From the beginning, it proved to be a difficult endeavor. Simply finding the source of the Amazon at the 15,000 foot level of the Andes in Peru was the first challenge. From those freezing slopes to kayaking down to the humid jungles of the Amazon valleys, Kane documents their times of starvation, freezing, exhaustion, internal dissent, and small triumphs. He also includes fascinating local history of the region, the Incan dynasty, the Spanish invasion, and the indigenous people the expedition met along the river. 

Here's just one of Kane's many tidbits. While traveling down the wild, mysterious Apurimac river ("parts of it remain among the least-known areas on the South American continent"), Kane describes the hammered grass bridges of that region. They were once "two hundred feet long [with grass cables] as thick as a man's body...capable of supporting entire armies of animals and men." Imagine. Huge bridge cables made only of grass strong enough to support travel over vast chasms! The Incans eventually burned almost all of these bridges to slow the pursuit of Spanish conquistadors. Kane provides a photo of the last remaining Incan grass bridge, with expedition members crossing it with their kayaks floating in the river far below.

The group had to deal with local politics and cocaine traffickers, as well as the more severe problems of shelter, food, wild animals, biting insects, and drowning in the rapids they faced daily. You can probably imagine the other dangers presented on every page of this heart-stopping story.

I was completely transported into the rain forests along with these incredibly brave and stubborn explorers. Their dedication and perseverance inspired and drove them onward, overcoming every obstacle the environment could throw at them. A strong, inspiring book.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog
________________________________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Goddard, John. Kayaks Down the Nile

Author Goddard used to come to my high school in California twice a year to give student assemblies recounting his adventures. I remember one of his best was his trip to be the first to explore the Nile River from origin to mouth. Hippos, rapids, and every other obstacle was met and overcome with a casual grace so evident in his talks and this book. Hard to find, but a must read for those with an explorer's soul. 

The Light Between Oceans

Stedman, M.L. The Light Between Oceans: A Novel. New York: Schribner, 2012. Print.

First Sentences:

On the day of the miracle, Isabel was kneeling at the cliff's edge, tending the small, newly-made driftwood cross.

A single fat cloud snailed across the late-April sky which stretched above the island in a mirror of the ocean below. Isabel sprinkled more water and patted down the soil around the rosemary bush she had just planted. 

"... and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" she whispered. For just a moment, her mind tricked her into hearing an infant's cry.

 

Description: 

Not such an unusual, albeit sad start to a novel. But this instant of a woman standing over a new grave and hearing a baby cry is the pivotal point in the lives of Isabel and Tom, the young husband and wife lighthouse keepers, alone on an isolated island near Australia. The decisions they soon face drive the emotional story of The Light Between Oceans, the first novel by M.L. Stedman. 

What the sea has washed up onto their small, rocky island is a lifeboat with a dead man aboard along with a very much alive, crying infant. Isabel, who has no children, desperately wants to keep the child for themselves to raise, this "gift that's been sent," to create a family they both have prayed for. 

She reasonably points out that the father is obviously dead and the mother probably drowned as well. They are isolated in the middle of the ocean, alone with the lighthouse, so what else could possibly be done? And who would know or care about this baby who probably has already been considered lost at sea. 

Tom, her more by-the-rules husband, argues that the child should be reported and taken back to the mainland as soon as the yearly supply ship arrives. What happens to the baby after that, in his opinion, will be taken care of by the law and child services, an abhorrent thought to Isabel. 

Isabel is too convincing for Tom and the baby stays. Her presence is explained to the supply boat crew as being Isabel's own baby, delivered by herself on the island. 

All is well ... until complications arise and the couple gradually learns the history of the child and how she came to their island. And the history of the girl's mother as well.

I loved this book because the characters are so strong and the decisions they face so thought-provoking. Tom, the surviving World War I veteran, has seen the brutality and death of war and is trying to recover his life by isolating himself and Isabel at the lighthouse. He is an honest, straightforward man who loves his wife so completely he will compromise what he feels is right to please her. Isabel, the devoted young wife, grief-stricken by her inability to create a family for them, is so full of passion and love for Tom and the child that we can easily sympathize with her decisions and her desire to give love to an orphaned child. 

The combination of hope, love, and heart-breaking decisions made by Tom and Isabel envelope us as readers so totally that we wonder what we would have done in their place. The Light Between Oceans follows twisting pathways of a mother's devotion, the law, and human relations right up to its final pages. A wonderful read.

Happy reading.

Fred
www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

Comments 

Previous posts

__________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Schwartz, Christina. The Edge of the Earth: A Novel.  

In the late 1890s, a woman moves with her new husband to a remote, desolate lighthouse near Big Sur, California, unprepared for the challenges and her growing fascination she faces for the island and its inhabitants, both animal and human.

The Devil's Teeth

Casey, Susan. The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among American's Great White Sharks. New York: Holt. 2005. Print.

First Sentences:

The killing took place at dawn and as usual it was a decapitation accomplished by a single vicious swipe 

Blood geysered into the air, creating a vivid slick that stood out on the water like the work of a violent abstract painter. Five hundred yards away, outside of a lighthouse on the island's highest peak, a man watched though a telescope.

Description:

Who isn't fascinated by the great white sharks? Looming menacingly off the coasts of Australia and California, occasionally biting down on a surfboard (or surfer)? Of course, Jaws fascinated and horrified an entire generation enough to keep people out of New England and other beaches worldwide for years.

Now Susan Casey offers a close up peek into the world of these great whites and the people who study them in her riveting new book, The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among American's Great White Sharks

She introduces researchers Peter Pyle and Scot Anderson, temporarily living on the barren Farallones Islands 26 miles off the coast of San Francisco. With only one house and an abandoned lighthouse, battered by very rough seas and weather, hounded by thousands of birds who make these menacing craggy islands their home, the forbidding Farallones (nicknamed "The Devil's Teeth") are also the feeding ground of great white sharks for three months a year. 

Pete and Scot are the first scientists to study the sharks daily using the lighthouse lookout and small boats taken out to film the sharks' killing behavior. It's dangerous, lonely work, but these two men observe incredible data about this previously unknown fish, from how great whites attack sea lions (decapitation), their curiosity (exploring towed decoy surfboards), and the individual characteristics of over one hundred sharks (leading to names like "Stumpy," "Cal Ripkin," and "Cuttail"). 

And then, there are the "Sisters," the enormous, secretive females who return every other year.These rarely seen behemoths are over twenty feet long (most other great whites are twelve to fifteen feet long), eight feet wide and six feet deep! "Swimming buses" is how the Sisters are described when seen from the scientists' tiny observation boat, aptly nicknamed, "Dinner Plate."

Author Casey joins these men for several of the feeding seasons and observes the sharks as well as the men and the lives of both. Living conditions are rough, the house is haunted, and boat-wrecking storms occur regularly. A few tourist boats come to the Farallones to observe whales and sharks. But there are also heart-stopping tales from Ron Elliott, the last of the divers in the shark-infested waters still gathering valuable sea urchins there surrounded by great whites. 

Casey is definitely up to the task of recording great white shark behavior, providing the history of the Devil's Teeth and its inhabitants, and relating her own fears and thrills that come with studying these sharks up close. She even tosses in a historic story about the discovery of underwater stone shark pens found during the construction of Pearl Harbor "where men faced off against sharks in aquatic gladiatorial matches."

You may think you don't want to know this much about great white sharks, but you would be so, so wrong. They are fascinating, silent, efficient, and personable kings (and queens) of the sea. Devils Teeth reveals them for the first time, and boy, what a picture it paints of these magnivicant, fearsome creatures.

Happy reading. 

Fred

(See more recommended books)
________________________________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Mowat, Farley. Never Cry Wolf: Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves

A young Canadian naturalist is sent, wholly unprepared, into the backwoods of Canada to study the wolves there and their affect on the profitable (for hunters) caribou herds. Funny, informative, and completely delightful (previously reviewed here)

438 Days

Franklin, Jonathan. 438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea. New York: Atria. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

His name was Salvador and he arrived with bloody feet, said he was looking for work -- anything to start -- but to those who saw the newcomer arrive, he looked like a man on the run.

Description:

On November, 2012, two men set off in their open fishing boat - really a row boat with a small outboard engine - to a rich fishing spot over 100 miles off the coast from their homes in Guatemala. But a five-day hurricane arises that destroys their engine, tosses their fishing equipment, fresh water, and food overboard, and water-logs their radio and GPS into uselessness. 

Salvador Alvarenga survived 14 months drifting 6,000 miles in his small open fishing boat. Author Jonathan Franklin spent one year interviewing Alvarenga, his friends, and family and talking with survival experts to fully understand this incredibly true story. The result is the brilliant 438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea. 

After the storm, all they have left in their boat is a wood plank, a bucket, a fishing knife, a machete, an empty icebox, some empty bleach bottles, some nylon rope, a broken motor and one red onion. They can only drift with the currents and wait ... and try to stay alive. Working with an inexperienced partner, Alvarenga has to figure out how to get food, protect both of them from unrelenting sun, rain, and salt, and keep their spirits up (or at least away from despair and suicide).  

But they learn to catch fish with their hands, grab birds and keep them alive on board until ready to be eaten (feet, bones, feathers, and all), mark the days by observing the moon and stars, and fashioning "clothes" from turtle shells and shark skins. Their own fingernails and urine provide subsistence in the early days before they learn food-gathering skills.

Franklin cleverly intersperses interesting facts from survival experts and fellow castaways to comment on exactly what Alvarenga is going through at each step, how his actions help or harm his survival chances, and what his mental state is like before, during and after his ordeal.

It's an incredible tale, clearly and methodically told, but full of passion and the will to continue on whatever it takes. Days and events are carefully recalled by Alvarenga and shared with the author so clearly that one seemingly joins the two men in their boat along and feel their fears, successes, and dwindling hope. A fantastic, stranger-than-fiction epic of skill, chance, ingenuity, luck, and human will. Highly recommended, especially when you are feeling overburdened with the setbacks life tosses your way. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Phil brick, Nathaniel. In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

The true story of a whale attack and destruction of a whale ship in the 1800s. Three boats escape, only to drift thousands of miles to try to reach the nearest land. Unbelievable, gripping, and well-researched. (previously reviewed here)