I am about 1/3 way done with this one and I really have enjoyed it so far. I couldn't find the edition I have on this website but mine is dense with footnotes that take away from the original text. They explain things any native speaker of English would know or be able to figure out. But they do help with all those references Melville makes to the bible and mythology. As a poor old public school student I never had to read this book or any mythology. Oh well more for me to discover now!

This is an excellent read for anyone who ploughed through Moby Dick! In true Tim Severin style, he carried me through his quest for truth in myth and fiction and came up trumps in all ways. He has the ability to keep me engaged through everything he writes, keeps me in his vision, speaks to me in mind and heart.

I recommend his writing to anyone interested in adventure, particularly the sea-going sort. This landlubber was introduced to him through The Brendan Voyage, and I can heartily recommend that too.

Now I'm tempted to play with "...me hearty...!" That's the effect he had, taking me to sea with him. Curiously, ten minutes after finishing the book, I met a fellow-reader who would appreciate it, and I gave the book to him.

Although I wish there had been more about Melville, Severin's experiences in the remote South Pacific form nice pieces of anthropology.

Hm.. Just read 'Into the Heart of the Sea' by Nathaniel Philbrick. Probably suggest giving Moby Dick a miss too!

Once again Tim Severin is on a mission to validate or destroy a legend. He journeys to Tongo to explore the culture and the connection to whale hunting. During his research, it is exposed how much Melville copied other authors' books. Severin also makes references to Melville's books, Typee and Omoo. I enjoy reading what he has discovered and how he has gone about it.

A great book if you love travel literature. Amazing description of whale hunting and also dispelling myth about Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Good read

Essentially a variation on the most despised-by-me and vomitously pretentious literary genre, the literary pilgrimage.

They don't write books like this any more as adventurer/explorer Tim Severin sets out on a quest to find the elusive white whale made famous in Melville's classic 'Moby Dick.' Although the great white whale feature prominently in both the title and sub-title it is not the main focus of the book, the quest and the whale hunters of current times are. This book is a travelogue that takes the reader to a handful of South Pacific islands that still hunt whale with hand-held harpoons in rickety craft but it also contains anthropology and cultural observations that add to the reading experience and bring the various islanders to life. This is travel writing in it's purest form, where the world traveled to is the star - both it's people and their way of life - and not bogged down by some existential, self discovery. The writer approaches his subjects with a journalistic eye keeping his opinions to himself and letting the world around him tell the tale. This made the book much more enjoyable to me.

I had to knock off one star from the book though because this learned man makes a grade school mistake; he refers to whales constantly as fish when they are mammals. This ate at me a little, an Oxford educated man belonging to the Royal Geographic Society should know the difference and it made for some confusing reading. Also the quest remained unfilled. He never finds the White Whale although there are plenty of anecdotal evidence to support the claims of it's existence but much like Captain Ahab the writer is doomed to fail in his pursuits and the White whale wins once again.

Tim Severin, writer and filmmaker, made a name for himself in the late 1970s by sailing a leather boat across the North Atlantic. That feat of endurance and seamanship was to demonstrate, à la Thor Heyerdahl, that a 6th century Irish monk, St. Brendan, could have indeed made his legendary seven-year voyage to and from America.
Since then Severin has retraced other celebrated voyages: Sinbad, Ulysses, Jason and the Argonauts. To show that the ancient Chinese (like the Irish) could have reached America he coaxed a bamboo raft most of the way across the North Pacific. He used a replica 19th century prahu to retrace the explorations of Alfred Wallace through the Moluccas. It was, perhaps, in the wake of Darwin’s contemporary that Severin heard about some of the exploits of the region’s indigenous fishermen.
In Search of Moby Dick is subtitled “Quest for the White Whale” but it is soon apparent that Severin was also looking for other fish. On Pamilacan, a small island in the southern Philippines, the fishermen showed him how they leap into the sea holding a massive iron hook and stick it into an eight tonne whale shark. They use the same technique to catch manta rays and, until recently, regularly performed the trick on 12 to 20 tonne Bryde’s whales. The hook jumpers have enough respect for the tail and jaws of an angry sperm whale to leave that species well alone, but the men of Lamalera, at the eastern end of Flores, north-west of Timor, regularly paddle out to sea to match their wits and small craft against the might of the leviathan. When not hunting whales they go after the smaller fry of hammerhead sharks and manta rays.
Having seen and described his share of blood in the water, Severin retires from the chase, somewhat virtuously refraining from further participation. But he understands, and he would have the rest of us understand, that when these Filipino and Indonesian fishermen are not blessed with fairly regular catches then they and their impoverished communities go hungry.
Between Filipino hook jumpers and Indonesian whalers, Severin takes his readers on a short visit to Tonga. There he encountered an old Polynesian harpooner, a latter day Queequeg, and his successor, as it were, a handsome young Tongan whale-watching guide. This excursion into the more traditional territory of Herman Melville and Moby Dick, while providing some insight into the historical and social background of Melville’s characters, did little to assist Severin in his search for the white whale. The modern Polynesians had not encountered such a beast, “nor even heard of one”.
Yet white whales do exist. Apart from the relatively small Beluga (“white one” in Russian), it is known that bull sperm whales can age with a greyish-white about their heads. Mocha Dick, the original upon which Melville based his fighting whale, was said to have been “as white as wool”. Everywhere, Serverin asked about sightings of white whales. On Pamilacan he was told of a white whale shark larger than any specimen known to science. The fishermen also spoke of the “bursahon”, a giant white manta ray, far too large to even contemplate catching — besides, such folly would bring bad luck.
But it was in the Indonesian archipelago, from the people of Lamalera, that he finally heard about a Moby Dick: a belligerent, white sperm whale. A very large animal, it more than once came to the aid of its harpooned fellows. It was said to have attacked whalers’ boats, smashing or swamping them with its tail. The locals believed this creature, which has a certain mythic status, appears whenever their Christian community suffers some disharmony. Wisely, Severin did not delve too deeply into this aspect. Whatever the mystic trappings attached to the white whale, Severin has no reason to doubt that at least one Moby Dick really is patrolling the seas.
Long may he reign.

Have read several of Tim Severin’s books and I usually love them. I found this one quite boring and not as interesting as the others I have read. It felt disjointed and with less focus on the people and more on how they hunt it just didn’t keep my interest like his others.

I read this in fact before Moby Dick (as couldnt get copy from library for a while)... it was a great read, fast and interesting. i have read other Tim Severin books and he is such an accessible writer. Very interesting info on 'whale-jumping' by islanders in Malaysia and Philipines,fascinating people he meets and writing on landscapes and social behaviour and beliefs of the communities he meets, while looking for the 'white sperm whale'

Great writing. A fascinating subject.