Take my advice: read the first 100 pages of this (can't give you a really accurate count, unfortunately), and then stop, STOP, FOR THE LOVE OF GOODNESS, STOP, before the main character gets on the ship, or at least midway through, and you will be so much happier that you did, although you will forever wonder what happened and then end up disregarding my advice. That's way before Ahab even enters the story, but c'est la vie, poppet.

Written with lovely prose, and with an extensively wandering storyline for the protagonist, who ends up all over the place in her adventures. (To miss the spoilers, stop now.) Despite all predictions to the contrary, this story ends up happily(?), if you can say that after all of the tragic things that happen. Kip? YIKES. If you are still reading now and are really wise, you'll stop shortly after Ahab dies, conveniently missing (please, really, let me sum it up for you and save you the anguish) her random encounter with and subsequent marriage to Ishmael (sure, three husbands is a little unconventional for that time period, but who the heck cares, right?) and the almost unbearable preachiness about universalism that goes into the broadest sort of universalist/animist thinking (we're talking worse harping on spirits-in-the-rocks than in Disney's Pocahontas, and THAT'S almost too revolting to contemplate).

To Jeter's credit, I seriously considered reading another novel by her because the prose was really well written and her characters were compelling (with the last quarter/end as a dismaying exception), but have since convinced myself not to.

I absolutely loved her writing. It didn't feel like I was written a book from this century, but from centuries past. The book takes place during the transcendentalism movement, but the style of writing really reminds me of my favorite novels from that period. It took me away to another period, set me in the 1840s, and took away all my problems, instead making me feel for the protagonist, Una, and all of the terrible events in her life that she must persevere through. I love Una's strength through good times and bad, and admire her capability to remain positive and see that there can still be a future, even though that future seemed dismal time after time.

The first third or so of the book didn't make me feel this way, but by the last half of the book I was drooling over her writing style and the incredible descriptions of daily life, terrifying events, and the author's ability to be so good with giving unique but real characteristics to her characters.

This book has set on my shelf for years. For some reason I wouldn’t donate it, I had decided I MUST read it. Maybe it was the draw of the cover and title, I do love Moby Dick. I can’t tell you the last time I have been more annoyed reading a book. Two stars for some interesting moments, otherwise it is simply time I will never get back. Such pretentious language and flat characters ..... this is also the roughest review I’ve ever given a book

"Ahab’s Wife or, The Star-Gazer" – written by Sena Jeter Naslund and published in 1999 by HarperCollins. “Ceaselessly moving, endlessly spreading water.” Just as the sea was a character in Ahab’s "Moby Dick," it calls to Una Spenser, with a profound, but not always positive, awareness – “all I hear is the sound of black ocean wringing its hands over and over.” Using the water analogy, Una flows through life, always managing to find someone to love her, but eventually losing this person and moving on. Born in Kentucky, she goes to live with family who tend a Lighthouse, an idyllic existence for a few years, then she rushes headlong into other relationships including a fractured life with whaler captain Ahab. He seems to have her pegged, “Her life is pleated – there’s more gathered up and stored behind than one can see.”

Much of this long story takes place in Nantucket around 1830-50 and Naslund paints an interesting picture of life then. She has a full literary style which is very readable, but sometimes carries on too long – it overflows! I like her caution about words from Ahab, “Words seem to be well-woven baskets ready to hold your meaning, but they betray you with rotted corners and splintered stays.” The dark events that occur on “a sixteen-foot open whaleboat” haunt the entire story. This was a thoughtful, complex and poetic story with an aura of sadness throughout and I’m glad I read it.

Without going on too much about this book, suffice it to say that the reason I quit halfway through it is the reason I have no interest in reading Moby Dick - the subject matter and the writing style. Naslund is a brilliant writer (and I know this because I've read and enjoyed some of her other novels), but I just couldn't continue with this leviathan (pun intended).

I loved this book. Loved the writing and the characters. I was completely engrossed.

Enjoyed this book, even though it was very long and sometimes a bit difficult to read. It read in a very lyrical & poetic way which does make for some slower reading. Una was a very strong female character who seemed to find the resources to do what she wanted in the time period of which she lived. She didn't seem to live by the rules of her society and met and befriended many interesting people including a runaway slave, bounty hunter, scientists, etc. She seemed to live a full life and was able to live as she wanted because of Ahab's wealth. I did enjoy this book but it seemed to drag in some parts, but that may have been because I wasn't interested in all the inner workings of ships or the pursuit of Moby Dick that Ahab was so obsessed with. I enjoyed the story of Una and Ahab after their first meeting and the beginning of their relationship much more than after his first trip back after their "marriage". I would recommend this book but give yourself about a month to read it to get used to the sytle of writing that Naslund used in the book.

It took awhile for me to get "hooked" by this book-but eventually I did! The language is true to 19th century literature. I think the story is quite exciting. I think it would have been better if I had read Moby Dick. There were a few points that irritated me-if her mother had miscarried when she was showing as much as the Aunt was, she would have known the sex of the baby. Secondly, Una made a big deal repeatedly over the cannibilism but she was out of it to the point of almost not knowing and they didn't kill the captain-he killed himself but she (the author) doesn't make it clear and Una makes a lot out of it. The author does too in that both Giles and Kit go crazy as a result. I liked Ahab a lot, but I didn't like that she ended up with Ismael-that was crazy. I liked the way the author addressed the reader and I liked the literary discussions and the philosophical discussions. I wish she had spent more time with Ahab. I never trusted Kit and then after Giles molested him I didn't like him either. I liked the image of strong, intelligent women set in a time when women weren't thought to be thinkers or educated. The book inspired me to read and to write which is the BEST a book can do.
Page 598 "We cannot reel time backward or forward, but we can take ourselves to the place that defines our being."

Loved this book, which is rich in detail and spans a long period of time and several locations. It's written from the viewpoint of a girl as she grows up and her most unusual experiences, much of it having to do with the whaling industry as the book goes on, in the time of Moby Dick. Highly recommend the book. I couldn't wait to get back to it while reading it.

I just moved to an ocean-side city in Eastern Massachusetts, so this book was a fun companion to this time of settling in near the sea.

I have to agree with the reviewers who faulted this book for following the "strong, beautiful woman that all the men fall in love with" trope and for its "Forest Gumpian" qualities. The novel definitely suffers from ridiculous levels of coincidence where the heroine's life touches that of far too many famous 19th century figures ("Oh, I was walking in the woods looking for runaway slaves when I HAPPENED TO FIND Frederick Douglass and let him free!"), but that fault is more than compensated for by the marvelous prose and epic magnitude of the story. I thought it was incredibly ambitious -- even insanely ambitious! - to attempt a companion story to "Moby Dick," but I think Naslund achieved it. Una's mystical experience recounted in chapters 126-128 is as beautiful and powerful a meditation on existential crisis and spiritual transcendence as any I have ever read, and I have read many.

I am glad that I took my time reading Una's story. I will remember many of these characters for a long time. Naslund's fictional creations like Uncle Torch, Fannie, Mary Starbuck, Judge and her own mother and father are more flesh and blood than her annoying Margaret Fuller (who really WAS annoying) and dull Maria Mitchell.

I took away two stars for the over-reliance on actual historical figures (editor, where were you?) and contrived plot twists, and gave one back for the magnificent and courageous imagining of Captain Ahab. Seriously, how much creative moxie do you have to have to write THAT back-story? BRAVA.

I decided to read this book because A) I'd had a copy on my bookshelf for ages and needed to read it so I could get rid of it, and B) I was going to be on a beach! Books about whalers are beach books, right? Friends, this was a terrible choice. This book was awful, and I definitely should have stopped well before I read all 660 pages. Una, the main character, manages to meet many of the well-known historical and fictional figures of the 1830s to 50s, nearly all of whom fall in love with her and are anxious to tell her how awesome and important she is. Not only does she marry Captain Ahab (here's one of their first meetings: He read my gaze, and he looked down. “Ye cause me to look away,” he muttered. “Is it possible that ye, a mere girl, have seen as deep as Ahab?” YUP, NOTHING LIKE HAVING CLASSICAL CHARACTERS DIRECTLY TELL YOUR NEW CREATION HOW COOL SHE IS!), but she ends up marrying Ishmael too! All of whose dialogue, by the way, is lifted word-for-word from Moby Dick, I guess because Naslund knew she couldn't compete. Other people who admire Una include Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne (who asks for her advice on writing! Because of course he does), Maria Mitchell (an important early astronomer who discovered a new comet; of course Una was there on the night of the discovery), Margaret Fuller (an advocate of women's rights who writes Una letters about how important she's been to Fullers' thinking), Henry James, and probably many more that I don't know enough history to recognize. Not that being fictional makes you immune from having to circle around the great glowing orb that is Una. The one I found most annoying was Sarah, a runaway slave who, despite their having met briefly once, is brought up again and again by Una as a sort of symbol of freedom and oppression and to represent how much better Una is than all these other people, because you know, she doesn't agree with slavery. Of course, Una spends most of her life in possession of a huge fortune and influence, but she doesn't use it to find or help Sarah, even after she learns that Sarah has been re-enslaved. Because it's more noble for Una to stare at the stars and feel sad about it, I guess. Ugh. What an annoying book.

I gave this book five stars. It is absolutely brilliant. It's an unusual story written by a master of the English language. Both men and women would enjoy it. Great literary achievement.