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Ahab's Rolling Sea by Richard J. King
£20.00
Out of stock
Product Ref. (e.g. ISBN, SKU)
9780226789873
Published:
05 Mar 2021
Format:
Paperback
Number of pages:
448 pages
Dimensions:
229x152x30mm
Weight:
0.594kgs
Author:
Although Herman Melville's 'Moby-Dick' is beloved as one of the most profound and enduring works of American fiction, we rarely consider it a work of nature writing - or even a novel of the sea. Yet Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard avers 'Moby-Dick' is the 'best book ever written about nature', and nearly the entirety of the story is set on the waves, with scarcely a whiff of land. In fact, Ishmael's sea yarn is in conversation with the nature writing of Emerson and Thoreau, and Melville himself did much more than live for a year in a cabin beside a pond. He set sail: to the far remote Pacific Ocean, spending more than three years at sea before writing his masterpiece in 1851. A revelation for 'Moby-Dick' devotees and neophytes alike, 'Ahab's Rolling Sea' is a chronological journey through the natural history of Melville's novel.
Although Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is beloved as one of the most profound and enduring works of American fiction, we rarely consider it a work of nature writing-or even a novel of the sea. Yet Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard avers Moby-Dick is the "best book ever written about nature," and nearly the entirety of the story is set on the waves, with scarcely a whiff of land. In fact, Ishmael's sea yarn is in conversation with the nature writing of Emerson and Thoreau, and Melville himself did much more than live for a year in a cabin beside a pond. He set sail: to the far remote Pacific Ocean, spending more than three years at sea before writing his masterpiece in 1851.
A revelation for Moby-Dick devotees and neophytes alike, Ahab's Rolling Sea is a chronological journey through the natural history of Melville's novel. From white whales to whale intelligence, giant squids, barnacles, albatross, and sharks, Richard J. King examines what Melville knew from his own experiences and the sources available to a reader in the mid-1800s, exploring how and why Melville might have twisted what was known to serve his fiction. King then climbs to the crow's nest, setting Melville in the context of the American perception of the ocean in 1851-at the very start of the Industrial Revolution and just before the publication of On the Origin of Species. King compares Ahab's and Ishmael's worldviews to how we see the ocean today: an expanse still immortal and sublime, but also in crisis. And although the concept of stewardship of the sea would have been entirely foreign, if not absurd, to Melville, King argues that Melville's narrator Ishmael reveals his own tendencies toward what we would now call environmentalism.
Featuring a coffer of illustrations and an array of interviews with contemporary scientists, fishers, and whale watch operators, Ahab's Rolling Sea offers new insight not only into a cherished masterwork and its author but also into our evolving relationship with the briny deep-from whale hunters to climate refugees.
A revelation for Moby-Dick devotees and neophytes alike, Ahab's Rolling Sea is a chronological journey through the natural history of Melville's novel. From white whales to whale intelligence, giant squids, barnacles, albatross, and sharks, Richard J. King examines what Melville knew from his own experiences and the sources available to a reader in the mid-1800s, exploring how and why Melville might have twisted what was known to serve his fiction. King then climbs to the crow's nest, setting Melville in the context of the American perception of the ocean in 1851-at the very start of the Industrial Revolution and just before the publication of On the Origin of Species. King compares Ahab's and Ishmael's worldviews to how we see the ocean today: an expanse still immortal and sublime, but also in crisis. And although the concept of stewardship of the sea would have been entirely foreign, if not absurd, to Melville, King argues that Melville's narrator Ishmael reveals his own tendencies toward what we would now call environmentalism.
Featuring a coffer of illustrations and an array of interviews with contemporary scientists, fishers, and whale watch operators, Ahab's Rolling Sea offers new insight not only into a cherished masterwork and its author but also into our evolving relationship with the briny deep-from whale hunters to climate refugees.
About the Author: Richard J. King is visiting professor with the Sea Education Association, founding coeditor of Searchable Sea Literature, and a research associate with the Coastal and Ocean Studies Program of Williams College-Mystic Seaport. Most recently, he is the author of Ahab's Rolling Sea: A Natural History of "Moby-Dick" and coeditor of Audubon at Sea: The Coastal and Transatlantic Adventures of John James Audubon, both also published by the University of Chicago Press. He lives with his family in Santa Cruz, CA.
| Number of pages | 448 |
|---|
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| First Item | 2 Items & Over | |
|---|---|---|
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| EU | £15.00 | £30.00 |
| USA & Canada | £30.00 | £50.00 |
| Rest of the World | £45.00 | £60.00 |
| Collect in Store | free | free |
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