In Search of Moby Dick: The Quest for the White Whale - Softcover

Severin, Tim

3.63

177 ratings by Goodreads

9780306810459: In Search of Moby Dick: The Quest for the White Whale

Softcover

ISBN 10: 030681045X ISBN 13: 9780306810459

Publisher: Da Capo Press Inc, 2001

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First time in paperback: "A riveting traveler's adventure.Original, audacious, and exuberant-signature Severin." -New York Times. Herman Melville's classic novel Moby-Dick immortalized the idea of a mammoth sperm whale roaming the seas, wreaking havoc on all that crossed its path. But could such a creature actually exist, then or now? To find out, the acclaimed adventure writer and explorer Tim Severin set off to the islands of the South Pacific in search of one of our most iconic modern myths. From the Marquesas Archipelago, where the twenty-one-year-old Melville deserted his whaling ship in 1842, through the Philippines, Tonga, and Indonesia, Severin follows a trail of ocean legend and lore to the last surviving islanders who hunt the great whale by hand, shadowing a victorious hunt from Stone Age boats and uncovering tantalizing evidence of the existence of a Great White Whale. In this captivating account of his voyage, Severin traces not only the origins of Melville's legendary literary creation but also something of the spiritual relationship between the islanders and the creatures of the sea, the hunter and his prey.

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Review:

Near the beginning of Tim Severin's account of his search for a great white whale, he tells the story of a marine biologist who joined a 1980 expedition of his to spot whales. Riding in a bosun's chair high up on the mast of an Arab sailing vessel, the biologist scanned the ocean with binoculars. He spotted whales--

"but not nearly as many as did two members of the crew far below him on the deck. Again and again one or other would call up to the masthead and draw the lookout's attention to a whale he had not yet noticed ... When the time came for him to leave the ship ... he confessed with a wry smile that the one thing he had really learned was [to] be more sceptical of the observations of marine biologists."

Severin's search takes him around the Pacific and particularly to the Marquesas, where the technique of hunting whales by hand armed only with home-made bill- hooks has not yet been entirely forgotten. Conversations with old whalers bring him closer to true whale lore than any biological treatise. Not that Severin is interested in scoring cheap points. Rather, In Search of Moby Dick is an eloquent demonstration of how much valuable knowledge is locked up in the practices and stories of indigenous people--working people whose very lives and livelihoods, after all, depend upon it.

Melville's Moby Dick was fashioned from the stories and reports of whalers of his day. Severin begins his own hunt in the belief that there is no smoke without fire. He is not disappointed. --Simon Ings

Review:

With Melville-like dexterity, Severin stitches together this story of his global search for the "real" Moby Dick and his creator . . . Well worth reading (FINANCIAL TIMES)

Severin is one of the few men living who can genuinely be called an explorer . . . [His] quest has the epic quality of Melville's novel and his conclusions go far beyond the bounds of most travelogues . . . A remarkable investigation (DAILY EXPRESS)

An extraordinary explorer (INDEPENDENT)

Tim Severin is one of the last of the old-style explorers ... His deeds speak to us of the purity of achievement in an age where experience has become blunted by comfort and complacency (THE TIMES)

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