Once I was well into this non-fiction record, I could not put it down.

The detail and research! The maps, the retained evidence and not the least is the history and onus of Nantucket.

Nathaniel Philbrick not only relates all minutia of this chronological multi-year saga of the Essex, but also sets that in the proper setting- like a gem in an elaborate piece of jewelry.

The Quaker religion, worldview and how that worked into the patterns of work for whaling! The language itself surrounding itself with new words in most particular aspect for action or object for this complex martial occupation. This book taught me much more about the terms for motions, parts of the vessel, hierarchy toward purposes and context for ships than any other I have read. And demonstrates them in graphics, lists, maps, photos. Apart from the voyage maps.

It's a lifestyle that meant the men were home for 3 months out of 3 years gone. And that many women were happy about the fact, as well.

Much of this book if put into a fiction piece would be deemed strongly unbelievable. That it has happened and has such documentation. And also that Philbrick has here applied this to current scientific criteria, not only about whale species; of sperm, right, blue- but also about homo sapiens original expansions to and within the Pacific. Awesome book. Not only included to depth are the sections upon the discourse of, about and within the sea, but on the land at home, as well. For us "coof".

This book will not condemn with judgment- it will relate the factual so you yourself can have "eyes". And most of what you see will not be clean nor will it be pleasant. Every process is completely in each partial piece of progression described. Down to the emotional when it occurs. And the noise, and the smells, and the sounds. Sometimes accompanied by insanity.

The process of "trying out" on the deck flats! You aren't going to get this in Moby Dick. This is far superior. Gut-wrenching and macabre, not just a couple of times either.

Each of the 20 men are given biography before its over. Not forgetting any of the "after" in this investigation for the roles the survivors played in later years.

It is appalling. And it also is daunting to conceive how these men went farther and farther and farther for the liquid "gold". To the point where they had no idea of the islands or lands around them at all. Resulting in not having the facts, but believing the hype- and thus going 3000 plus miles out of their way for "help".

What a work is man.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: The great reader in the sky has answered my prayers and made a movie based on this story - starring Chris Hemsworth - so I already count one ironclad reason to watch this. The trailer states that the Essex goes beyond the known world, which no it didn't, but I'm also fairly sure that Owen Chase's jaw wasn't nearly as square as Hemsworth's, so I'm willing to allow poetic license. Also, I may root for the whale. The first trailer is here.

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This was SO gruesome and weirdly gripping. I mean, it's a nonfiction book about whaling - how interesting can it be? Turns out: REALLY INTERESTING. Even before you reach the cannibalism (!), the descriptions of what whaling entails are fascinating. You could not pay me 32 million dollars to throw a harpoon at an enraged whale on the open ocean in a tiny whaleboat, and you certainly could not pay me $32 in 1820s money to do so. Isn't it crazy that the Nantucket whaleships' routine journey was through the Atlantic, around Cape Horn, and into the Pacific Ocean?? In an 1820s-era ship made out of wood, with captains (cough Pollard cough) who couldn't even perform lunar navigation? WTF is this voyage map?

Here are some things you can learn from the tragedy of the whaleship Essex:

· Don't sign on to a whaleship. It doesn't even pay that well anymore, now that we have natural gas and stuff.

· Moby-Dick sounds like an engaging book that I want to read right away. If this is not a desirable side effect for you, I would suggest skipping this book entirely.

· Whalers used to pick up Galapagos tortoises by the dozens, stick them in the holds of their ships, neglect to feed them or give them anything to drink, and wander downstairs whenever they wanted some fresh meat. ???

· Starvation and dehydration are miserable ways to die, right up until the VERY end of your life. The psychological and physiological effects of starvation take months (perhaps years) to heal. And, once you start to eat other people, you're effectively part of a "modern feral society," one in which you begin an amoral fight for survival. Your small group will tear itself apart (heh), and there is no going back.

· The first and second mates of the Essex convinced the captain they shouldn't sail for the Society Islands - where there might be cannibals - but instead back towards the coast of South America, which is more than an additional thousand nautical miles. Philbrick mentions that the Nantucketers are a curious mixture of arrogance, ignorance, and xenophobia. This becomes even more obvious when you find out that they ate all the black sailors first.

· Herman Melville served on a whaling ship with Owen Chase's son, who told him about his father's story and gave him Owen's manuscript to read. Ralph Waldo Emerson mentions in his diary, years before Moby-Dick, the tale of a whaler obsessed with tracking down the whale that ruined his ship. It's possible that could be Owen Chase.

I tore through this book and I'm still unsettled by it. Maritime history has a long, dark past of cannibalism and shipwreck that you don't really think about. That past becomes obvious once you begin thinking about the realities of life - and death - at sea. This book manages to pack a lot into ~250 pages: the rise and fall of Nantucket, the incredible journeys that whaleships routinely sailed, and what it's like to live in desperation. It's all fascinating, and I had no idea that Moby-Dick was rooted in an event that most nineteenth century Americans would have known about.

I have read Moby-Dick twice, and am now midway in rereading it. As always, it is an enthralling book.

The resolution of Moby-Dick was inspired, as plainly indicated by its author, by the fate of the whaling ship Essex. One supposes that were it not for Moby Dick, the story of the Essex would be a near-forgotten bit of sea lore.

The charm in Moby-Dick does not lie in its cliff-hanging suspense. Does anyone not know how Moby-Dick ends before they ever come to read it? Coming to this book, I was skeptical that it would have much to say. I was pleased to find that I was mistaken. There is a great story here of the ordeal of the survivors, and of how effective leadership or its lack in a crisis can have a huge effect on outcomes.

This book was so engrossing that I felt as if I had worked on a whaling ship and had survived a disaster at sea.

In 1820, the whaleship Essex was in the middle of the Pacific Ocean when a massive whale rammed the ship not once, but twice, sinking it. The crew had to scramble for provisions and escaped into three boats. They set sail for South America, which was nearly 3,000 miles away. They soon ran out of fresh water and food, and eventually resorted to cannibalism. Only eight men out of 20 survived. This tragedy was so famous in the 1800s that it inspired Herman Mellvile's novel Moby Dick.

Nathaniel Philbrick is a skilled writer of history, weaving together the details of the disaster and providing context to both the whaling industry in the 19th century and the island of Nantucket, which was considered home to most of the crew. Philbrick also considers the psychology and emotions of Captain George Pollard, First Mate Owen Chase, Cabin Boy Thomas Nickerson and of other crew members. The leadership style of Pollard is especially interesting; Philbrick compares him to other captains and explorers and wonders if some lives could have been saved if Pollard had been more authoritarian.

One of the details that is fascinating is that Pollard and the crew decided to try to reach South America, when they knew they were closer to several islands. They had heard legends about cannibals on the islands, and were afraid to go there: "Only a Nantucketer in November 1820 possessed the necessary combination of arrogance, ignorance and xenophobia to shun a beckoning (albeit unknown) island and choose instead an open-sea voyage of several thousand miles."

The book includes several pictures of what the Essex looked like, including a sketch from one of the survivors. Even though it was just a drawing, it was chilling to see a giant whale take aim at a ship. There are also several maps, including one featuring the entire voyage of the Essex: It left from Nantucket island in New England, sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, then all the way down South America, around Cape Horn, then up the western coast of South America, reaching the Equator and then heading west, deep into the Pacific Ocean.

The sheer distance and magnitude of the journey boggles the mind. Nowadays we get grouchy if our Internet speed is too slow, or if our airplane flight is delayed a few hours because of weather. Reading about the patience, planning and fortitude required to survive such a journey -- even without the shipwreck -- is truly astounding.

Finally, I'd like to thank my fellow Goodreaders for recommending such an incredible work of nonfiction. This is what I love about this site: I doubt I would have read this if I hadn't seen several rave reviews from you fine folks. Now I'm hooked on Philbrick and want to read all of his books.

En el corazón del Mar

Libro que narra la tragedia de un barco ballenero a principios del siglo XIX.

En la Isla de Nantucket, en la costa este de Estados Unidos existía el puerto ballenero más importante de la época con más de setenta barcos dedicados a la caza del cachalote. La isla estaba camino de convertirse en una de las poblaciones más ricas del país. Actualmente pertenece al estado de Massachusetts.

En la sinopsis del libro ya cuenta lo que ocurrió, es decir, no deja nada a la sorpresa. Y es que el barco Essex partió del puerto de Nantucket en 1819 en busca de ballenas por todo el Atlántico y luego el Pacífico hasta encontrarse con la horma de su zapato, un cachalote gigante.

El autor del libro está un poco ligado a Nantucket, vive ahí, y de esta historia su tío ya había escrito algo sobre el Essex. Esto quiere decir que no se limita a contar las consecuencias del naufragio, se adentra en la vida de la isla y el auge y caída de su población.

El relato del naufragio está basado en los diarios de los supervivientes (¡ya hay que tener ganas de escribir en esas condiciones!) Y los va comparando con otras situaciones límite como, por ejemplo, el capitán del Bounty dejado a la deriva, la gesta de Shackelton en la Antártida u otras similares.



La narración tiene momentos de sufrimiento tremendos según dejaron escrito los protagonistas, que no querían acabar en una isla llena de caníbales.

El autor no sólo cuenta la tragedia sino lo que ocurría en el mundo en ese momento, las consecuencias y el futuro de los náufragos más adelante.

Un libro con altibajos, el "corazón" de la narración es magnífica, no puedes soltarlo, pero hay muchas páginas con poco interés.

Es necesario apuntar que esta historia real fue la que inspiró a Herman Melville su novela Moby Dick. Quedó impresionado del relato que escribió uno de los oficiales supervivientes, Owen Chase.
Incluso Edgar Allan Poe utilizó en un libro suyo algunos aspectos morbosos del libro de Chase.

Un libro idóneo para los que le atraen las historias reales, en este caso una historia de supervivencia y de los límites del ser humano.
Hay película de 2015 de Ron Howard con Chris Hemsworth y Cilliam Murphy entre otros. 6,2/10 en filmaffinity.

The whaleship Essex, 15 months into an expected journey of three years, is head-butted and sunk by a sperm whale, an unprecedented and bizarre attack that inspired Herman Melville's classic "Moby Dick." Left at a point in the Pacific that could not be further from land, the twenty crewmembers board three leaky whaleboats with limited food and freshwater. While south Pacific islands to west are more easily reached via the prevailing winds, Captain George Pollard yields to the officers' fears of cannibalistic natives and makes the ill fated decision to tack easterly for the west coast of South America. Some ninety days of searing sun and pounding gales later, the battered, ulcerated, and skeletal survivors miraculously reach a precarious safety.

There is a natural fascination with tales of survival against incredible odds - an especially macabre fascination when survival is dependant on using fellow your travelers for sustenance. Author Philbrick plays this hand well, resisting sensationalism and treating a sensitive and highly emotional topic with dignity and empathy for both the survivors as well as their victims. In prose that is sparse and authoritative, Philbrick spices his story with topics as far ranging as sperm whale anatomy and the physiology and psychology of starvation and dehydration. He succeeds in capturing that rare combination of historical fact that is educational while at the same time as riveting as the best pop thriller. "In the Heart of the Sea" is a brutal and bloody tutorial of the industry that was the backbone of the US economy, and the risks and sacrifices made by the men who farmed the floating oil fields of the oceans - and of the women they left behind. In short, a gripping slice of American history well researched and compassionately told - a worthy recipient of a National Book Award that shouldn't be missed.

In the ninth grade I had a world history teacher that made each class seem like a fascinating story instead of a boring lecture that can be the standard fare. Nathaniel Philbrick has brought to life the story of the sinking of the Nantucket whale ship Essex by a ferocious sperm whale.

n  n

An artist's rendition of the revenge of the sperm whale attacking the Essex:

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An actual photo of a sperm whale which is about the size of a school bus:

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In college I was forced to read parts of Herman Melville's classic Moby Dick which I hated. It was the sinking of the Essex that inspired Melville to write Moby Dick. Philbrick's book focuses more on what happened after the Essex sank. It was a bone sucking survival adventure!

Superb rendering of the Nantucket whaling community and the disaster that befell the Essex in 1821. 1,500 miles off the coast of Chile, it was rammed and sunk by a sperm whale. Eight of 20 men survived the 4,500 mile, 3 month journey to safety in whaleboats. Cannibalism is an uncomfortable part of the story and is thoughfully, not luridly, treated. The story helps elucidate some of what it means to be human, our mastery of amazing feats as a collective and the courage and resourcefulness of individuals in the face of death. As odious as whaling is for slaughtering intelligent creatures for oil, it is worth noting that at the peak of of 19th century whaling, about 5,000 sperm whales were being harvested a year compared to nearly 30,000 per year with the technology advances in the 20th century. Sperm whales are believed to number in the millions now and are not endangered; right whales obviously never recovered from the whaling industry.

This review is a Chris Hemsworth-free zone!

Yes, he was in the crappy film version of this book.

No, I won’t use any pics in my review.

Heh

There once was a man from Nantucket,
Who was so big he could…

The island of Nantucket has loads to answer for beyond smutty limericks. About 200 years ago, they were at the very pinnacle of the whale slaughtering business.



Top of the world, indeed.

The Nantucket whalers were about due for a cosmic bitch slap, hence the events depicted in this book.

Avast ye, Captain Karma!

Whaling vessel goes a sailin’ for whale oil -> they almost get capsized in a storm, but lose a few whaling boats, superstitious crew want to head to nearest Caribbean port and do some drinkin’ and whorin’, yet they sail on -> the crew wipes out some indigenous island species and set fire to another island for kicks -> the Essex gets sunk by a roid-rage whale



- > the crew is forced to abandon ship and against the better judgement of the spineless captain set sail in the smaller whale boats for South America ->



-> food runs out fast and it’s time to put the “other” red meat on the menu. No lobster bibs here!

I don’t know what the rest of Goodreaders think, but I’d rather start gnawing on the boat or a sail rather than eat the coxswain..



Well…maybe…Is that butter?

Hello, sailor! You can call me, Ishmael.

The Nantucket legacy of shame goes beyond what’s presented here. Herman Melville decided to base Moby Dick on the pre-cannibal events, so you are well within your rights to blame Nantucket for having to have sat through this book in Literature class and then have to come up with some sort of class project to illustrate points from the book:

A scratch and sniff diorama depicting the whaling industry.

Thar she blows! A papier-mache whale complete with fizzy (heh) stuff coming out of Moby’s blow hole (heh and heh).

An interpretive dance showing Ahab’s final confrontation with Moby complete with sparkly ribbons and such.

And of course there’s the essay questions:

Moby Dick: A tale of penis envy or a rollicking sea adventure or an object lesson in anger management? Pick one. Make sure you give specific answers from the text. 1500 words or more

Herman Melville: Freud called him a Sexually Frustrated Author and a whiny baby? Make sure you give specific examples from the text. 1000 words or more.

“Captain Ahab, Is that a harpoon in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” If Moby Dick could talk, what would he say to Captain Ahab? Make sure you give specific examples from the text. 500 words or less.

What I really thought of this book or a blurb that Goodreads can cut out and paste on Amazon

History comes alive in this fascinating, in-depth, briskly paced portrait of the Nantucket whaling industry and the horrific tragedy of the Essex.

It was a fine book until Philbrick chose to use the last chapter as way to serve up the irony of modern day Nantucket with a side of honey butter, fries, tartar sauce and a lemon wedge.



Nice detective work, Caped Crusader. Now go and change your soiled Bat-undies.

Buddy read with The Trish and, hopefully, as a way to apologize for the A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court buddy read fiasco, Holly.

Fantastic book! Extremely well-researched, written in an easy-to-understand style, just superb in every way. You will feel like you've lived the lives of these men after reading this book. I read passages aloud to my hubby ... which is always a sign that the book is fabulous.

No disrespect to Herman Melville, but this true story of the Essex is MUCH better than Moby Dick. MUCH!

5 Stars = Great book! The story really came alive, and leapt off the page.

There's one thing you need to know about me: I’ve never listened to a song by Rush all the way through. Really. If Alvin and the Chipmunks were re-imagined as opera singers, the lead singer could be bass. I can't take them seriously.

Okay, okay. Really there are two things you need to know about me: I distrust people who walk on the balls of their feet. You know, that little bounce? Call it instinct, but I see something morally deficient in it. It's like Nature is giving the rest of us a heads-up.

Hold on. There are three things you need to know about me: At the age of three, I watched the movie Jaws in its entirety from the back seat of my parents Volkswagen Bug at a drive-in theater. Poor things thought I was asleep and had absolutely no intention of traumatizing their only child. To this day, I have an abnormal fear of the ocean, yet I am morbidly drawn to stories about the same.

No, wait. There're four things you need to know about me: I don’t like to work. At all. I'd go so far as to assert that I am entirely abnormal in my contempt for it. A sort of cynical pragmatism colors my approach to adult life and all its attendant cares. I think of myself as seeking out a sort of hedonistic equilibrium whereby I maximize the amount of money I earn while doing the least amount of work. And to that end, I am happy to report, I have been largely successful.

Why am I sharing all this? Because, taken in total, it shows that I would make a very poor excuse of a whaleman in this, our present age, let alone the early-19th century. Sure, it's altogether speculative to take a modern fellow like myself and plant him in an earlier time. What if I'd been raised in a whaling family? A whaling tradition?

Bosh.

Trust me in this. I was raised in a working class family and it didn't take me long to understand what work does to you: it takes your best years, covering them in spoonfuls of regret little by little until you realize too late all the money in the world can't buy back what you could've done, what you could've been. Why do we American inheritors of the Nantucket Quaker whaling business model always prove so stressed out whenever the United Nations releases its latest sociological metrics? Because we spend all our time away from our friends and families, doing stuff we don’t like, so we can buy stuff we don't need.

No. Leisure is the truest wealth. Me? I would've sought out some petty job, made merry in my off-hours and, hopefully, have been literate enough to enjoy some letter-writing and the occasional book.

Fine, you say. What's this got to do with Nathaniel Philbrick's book?

Well. It means all you overachieving-types would’ve been on that doomed ship while I sat comfortably on terra firma. You should be happy about that, at least. Consider some of the aforementioned details about me -- I'm obviously prone to psychological imbalance. I surely would have cannibalized you had we found ourselves in the dire circumstances of the crew of the Essex, adrift for over three months in the South Pacific. And my probability of success would've been more than fair: I stand 6'4" tall, have pointy eye teeth, and a trailer park adolescence mean streak. True, I am near-sighted, but this would only be a minor inconvenience since I would only have to track you around a twenty-foot long boat.

Where are all your Goodreads votes now, fancy pants?

Everyone knows the story of Moby Dick, the great white whale chased by Captain Ahab, that succeeds in sinking Ahab’s ship. Apparently, Herman Melville based the story on a real event, although the sperm whale was not white, merely an enraged, but also seemingly cunning, bull sperm whale. It’s this story of the whale ship Essex, and of the grim events that faced the sailors who left Nantucket in 1820, that Philbrick tells of in rather horrifying detail .

The Essex’s Captain Pollard was on his first command and was only recently married when they sailed for the Pacific whaling grounds. The voyage did not get off to a good start when only a short while after their departure, he insisted on maintaining studding sails during a regular blow that resulted in a knockdown, the ship being blown over on its side by a strong gust of wind. That it ever righted itself was extraordinary and a testament to the seaworthiness of these vessels that were crewed usually by some twenty to thirty men. His crew was still quite green and the experience must have been unnerving, to say the least. Nantucket was populated by Quakers who never quite adjusted to the presence of offislanders, i.e., anyone not born on the island. They were also, despite their professed pacifistic nature, a rather savage lot. There was a “blood lust and pride that bound every mother, father and child in a clannish commitment to the hunt. . . . There was rumored to be a secret society of young women on the island whose members pledged to marry only men who had already killed a whale.” Be that as it may, they were not having much luck initially, but after a difficult passage around the Horn, they managed to find a pod of whales and begin filling the hold. Philbrick provides rich detail of the whaling industry and the lives of the men who crewed the ships.

The book is worth reading for just that minutiae alone. In any case, two of the eventual survivors recorded the events in detail, so Philbrick has some evidence to help ground his narrative. It appears this bull sperm whale, estimated to be 85 feet long, quite large, only two feet shorter than the ship itself, drove head-on into the ship. Initially the crew suspected it must have been an accident, but this guy lined himself up and headed back in for a second shot, this time staving in the planks by the forecastle, causing water to rush in below the waterline and the ship to begin sinking. They managed to save three whaleboats and a substantial amount of provisions and water. Regretfully, the captain was not a forceful man, for his plan to sail westward to the Marquesas Islands probably would have saved many lives. That coupled with his inadequate navigational skills, particularly as they related to finding one’s longitude, and the crew’s fear of suspected cannibalism on those islands – an ironic fear, given what was to follow – forced his decision to follow the first mate Chase’s advice to sail for the west coast of South America, several thousand miles farther than the Marquesas. Cannibalism was an accepted reality among shipwrecked sailors, and, in fact, most of those who survived long voyages at sea following a shipwreck often had a time convincing their rescuers that they had not indulged in the practice. Philbrick’s description of the eventual eating of one’s fellow crewmen – they even cast lots to see who would die and be eaten – would make Stephen King proud and bring new meaning to the word “gross.” Had the crew adopted the practice of another shipwrecked crew, they might have survived without having had to indulge in the practice. This other crew cut up a sailor who died from hunger and used his parts for bait, catching many sharks that provided enough sustenance to get them through the ordeal. The Essex survivors never caught any fish. The story of what happened to the survivors after their rescue is as interesting as the rest of the book.