For some reason, Moby-Dick has gotten a reputation as a boring slog of a book. That’s what I had in my head before I read it last year, anyways, and was delighted to be proven wrong. It’s actually both lively and informative, full of adventure and interesting facts about whaling in the olden days of yore. And while our narrator, Ishmael, is a bit of a cipher, Captain Ahab is one of the most memorable characters in literature, with his ivory false leg and burning wrath for the white whale. And in a throwaway line or two, it’s mentioned that he has a wife at home.
In Ahab’s Wife, author Sena Jeter Naslund takes that barely-mentioned, never seen character and gives us her whole life. A novel I read in high school, The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, had the same kind of basis (took a minor biblical character and told her life story), and I loved that book wholeheartedly. Which probably set my expectations a little too high, which isn’t really fair, but between that and a killer first line, “Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last”, I was really excited to read this book…
Full review can be found at 500 Books
I, too, fell in love with Moby Dick last year. I found it an affirmational testament not only to life on the seas, but to the beauty of the language used to describe it. That book played a song on my soul.
This sounds like a great premise for a book. As someone who loved the source material, I can’t help but feel that it shouldn’t be picked up by someone who couldn’t do justice to the language of Melville. How was Naslund’s writing?
I would think there would be much to touch on, here. The life of a whaler, I think, has been well covered both by historians and writers. But the wives and families they left behind? The strength and courage of the women who stayed ashore, possibly never to see their husbands again?
In the hands of a talented and sensitive writer, there could be something compelling there.
Naslund’s writing was good, but not great. Not enough to overcome the issues I had with her characterization. I agree, I think it could have been an amazing story to read about a group of people that doesn’t get a lot of attention, but Naslund’s insistence that her heroine was basically perfect meant this was ultimately a pretty good rather than a wonderful book.