Ahab's Wife - Sena Jeter Naslund

Date Started - 6/?/12 - I forget but it feels like forever ago
Date Finished - 6/29/12

Good Lord, I finally finished this book. I was done with it about 90 pages in but because I'm no quitter, I stuck with it and finished all 666 pages (that should have been my first clue - any book that has the mark of the beast is probably not going to be great).


I should probably mention that I've never ready Moby Dick, the place where the author found our narrator. I've never really liked Herman Melville, though I should probably give this one a try given its status as a classic. But I also don't think you need to read Moby Dick to enjoy (or loathe, whatever your preference) this book. I suppose you'd know more about Ahab and that might add some depth but I don't think it's a prerequisite.

So the story follows Una, the narrator, as she grows up, revolts against her Christian father, lives with her Aunt, Uncle, and cousin Frannie at their lighthouse, goes undercover to join a whaling ship as a cabin boy, survives being stove by a whale, briefly becomes a cannibal, is rescued, marries Kit and then Ahab, bears children and interacts with notable figures of the early/mid 1800s. It's a lot to get in and no way am I going to summarize it any farther. 

What I will say is this - the language bugged me. Now, as anyone who has read my previous summaries knows, I enjoy detailed writing. After all, what's Russian literature but detail on top of detail? But the flowery prose of this book just bugged the hell out of me. It's like it was trying so hard. Here is an early example of language that bothered me:

What is the brightness of brightness? A sizzle of the nerves? At first it had seemed a scalding of the sense of sight, but now there was no more sense of seeing anything. It was as though the imprint of brightness was directly in my brain. I did not see it. I dwelt in brightness. (p. 89)

Maybe it's just me. Maybe others can get behind that kind of descriptive language, but it just killed me, and it never stopped. I'm very glad to have finished this one and doubt that I will ever revisit it.