Jack introduced his
book as: Herman Melville meets Cormac
McCarthy with a bit of Joseph Conrad thrown in.
Ian McGuire is from Hull, England and now lives in Manchester. I ran across the title when I was going through some best book lists and then read an interview of Ian McGuire. Was fascinated by his references to the influence of McCarthy and Conrad--two authors I have been drawn to over the past 40+ years (Conrad anyway).
Long listed for Booker Award,
this book made the NY Times, Ten Best list for the year.
Tom: I was reminded of the Terror
TV Series where boats get crushed in the ice.
[Shackleton mentioned by
several but with a far better result. A Map of Voyage was passed
around. South tip of Baffin Island was spot of the disaster.]
Jack: – The first paragraph
sets the tone of Drax.
Bob W: A brutal business model;
going to the ends of the earth to kill whales
Jack’s Question - Is the plot
far-fetched? Moby Dick was similar yet
different
Charlie - I visited the
Whaling Museum on Cape Cod and saw how brutal and dangerous whaling was.
Charlie – this book went
after dark things, toilet habits, pedophile rape, murder, and depredation
Karl: the book got carried
away with the grotesque, such as the phrase, “The harbor water was the color of
London Slug”. The only things that survived were evil.
Charlie: – a well written book
but I think he could have written a good book with all the gore. Sumner was drummed out of the corp on an
improper basis because he was following an order.
[Tom and Jack were reminded of
Blood Meridian by the repetitiously repetitive cruelty.]
Tom: – Not piled on as much as
thought
Karl: – So much grossness,
gruesomeness just got in the way of the plot
Ken – Given the plot line,
you would expect Drax to survive but killed the wrong person so he exposed
himself to attack. I was bothered by the ending with the death of Drax. He should have lived.
Sumner’s battle actions were during the Battle of Inkerman
in the Crimean War on November 5, 1854 where Britain, France, and the Ottoman
Empire engaged the Russians.
Captain Brownlee was a good captain.
I thought the tooth buried in Drax’ arm was far fetched.
There is a comparable true story and that is the 1980 NM
Prison riot where the atrocities were bad.
Charlie – I have a doctor
friend who wa a triage doctor at the NM prison riot who will not talk about the
events.
Tom – we were returning to
Albuq. during the riot and our car broke down near the prison. That was a really scary experience.
Jack’s Question – how do you
characterize the book?
Keith – Fecal Fiction
Bob – Cultural
Anthropology. I am reminded of the film,
Nanook of the North
Tom – It was not a mystery
because it did not take long to figure out that Drax was a killer and the
killer.
GRADES
Tom: B+ The writing was
good. The book reminded me of Blood
Meridian. I was not bothered by the excessive violence. I was rooting for Sumner. I am glad he survived.
Bob W: – I went out of town. No
grade
Rob: I got behind and read
only part of it. I thought the description of the whaling culture was
interesting but I did not think it was up to Cormac McCarthy quality.
I am present and abstaining.
Charlie – I might have liked
it thirty years ago. The guy can write if you overlooked the violence. I don’t like this type of book. Grade: C
Karl: Well written. It would
have been a better book if it was 20 pages shorter.
I found it odd that in the battle between good and evil – which is ultimately what this book is about – that the “evil” (i.e. Drax) was uncompromising, yet the “good” (i.e. Sumner) wasn’t so pure. Normally, for there to be an interesting battle between the two, both sides must be evenly matched. Still, the book was more than a little interesting.
Another way to look at this book is as a story of survival. In that view, both the good and the evil are survivors. In fact, the only survivors of the voyage.
Yet a third way to look at this book is as a period piece – a story of the last phase of the whaling industry in the 19th Century. That story is told somewhat like a mystery as the reader is gradually led towards uncovering the real purpose of the whaling trip, Sumner’s history, who will survive, and whether justice will eventually be done.
Regardless of which view you choose, I found the story to be engaging. It is clearly written and evenly paced. The timing of letting the reader uncover the clues seems perfect.
However. (There’s always a “however” it seems.) The author’s predilection towards foul smells, depravity, and all things putrid, is excessive. I understand that in the early pages of the book he was trying to communicate a sense of what life along the docks must have been like in England in those days. That he kept it up on board the ship and on the arctic ice, I think, actually diminished its effect. It was overdone, and therefore lost its effectiveness. There are a number of places where he went out of his way to try to disgust the reader without adding anything to the story.
If the book had been 20 pages shorter, only omitting the excessive descriptions of gore, odors, filth, etc., it would have been a really excellent read. Finally, I’m not left with the feeling that I completely understood Sumner. As the main character in the story, I’m thinking that I should have understood him better. B+
Another way to look at this book is as a story of survival. In that view, both the good and the evil are survivors. In fact, the only survivors of the voyage.
Yet a third way to look at this book is as a period piece – a story of the last phase of the whaling industry in the 19th Century. That story is told somewhat like a mystery as the reader is gradually led towards uncovering the real purpose of the whaling trip, Sumner’s history, who will survive, and whether justice will eventually be done.
Regardless of which view you choose, I found the story to be engaging. It is clearly written and evenly paced. The timing of letting the reader uncover the clues seems perfect.
However. (There’s always a “however” it seems.) The author’s predilection towards foul smells, depravity, and all things putrid, is excessive. I understand that in the early pages of the book he was trying to communicate a sense of what life along the docks must have been like in England in those days. That he kept it up on board the ship and on the arctic ice, I think, actually diminished its effect. It was overdone, and therefore lost its effectiveness. There are a number of places where he went out of his way to try to disgust the reader without adding anything to the story.
If the book had been 20 pages shorter, only omitting the excessive descriptions of gore, odors, filth, etc., it would have been a really excellent read. Finally, I’m not left with the feeling that I completely understood Sumner. As the main character in the story, I’m thinking that I should have understood him better. B+
Ken: – The Pluses – decently
written, good descriptions of whaling
The Negatives -
gory, predictable ending. B
Bob S: I am unable to enjoy a
book with a high degree of violence. I put this book in the same category of
gore as the Orphan Master’s Son that won the Pulitzer but which I could not
enjoy due to the gore.
I am not saying that gore always offends me but it is how
it is described that offends me. A great
example is Born a Crime by Trevor Noah that we will read in two months. I love Born A Crime because Noah treats the
violence with disarming humor.
This book reminded me of Strawdogs where an otherwise
peaceful man is pushed to violence. The gore and violence ruined the enjoyment
of reading the book for me. I saw no
redeeming qualities. All the characters
were damaged goods, performing a horrible job.
I did like McGuire’s insight into whaling culture and Eskimo culture.
Grade – C
Keith: The North Water as Fecal Fiction
May I describe McGuire’s
slumgullion stew
First take 3 whiffs… Pfew, Pfew, Pfew!
Ingredients include Scum n’
Scat
Add Sodomous Seamen, and Mix
well with all that
Now you’ve got a stew Full 'o
Sleazy Snot
Indeed a Schlocky Tempest in
a “Honey Pot”
Sprinkle a bit 'o Salacious Sumner, the Laudanum Doc
And Heinous Henry Drax … A
Killer with Harpoon and Cock
Serve this scummy soup, a
Petri dish of Putrefaction
Condiments include Seamen
secretions and Fecalous Factions
Some Rate this “Good Grit”,
but I say to Reviewers,
To me it’s a Traumatic Trip
thru Semen’s Sewer
Our morbid, motley crew was
“over the top”
And, thus, the plot was a
fecal “plop”
Did any redeeming values
appear to me?
Writing OK … Yet I’ll torpedo this book with “C”.
Jack: – I became a captive of lan McGuire's story and writing style in The North Water.
In spite of the foretelling he did early in the story and in subsequent scenes, he
held me in suspense throughout. His vivid descriptions brought every scene alive.
The intensity of the words he chose reinforced the energy of the story and the
animal-like nature of the characters. The brutality of the natural world and the
brutal nature of the men who populated that world were at the forefront of his
novel. It is a bleak vision and may not work for everyone, but it succeeded for me
as a tale of darkness not unlike those spun by Joseph Conrad and Cormac McCarthy. A
In spite of the foretelling he did early in the story and in subsequent scenes, he
held me in suspense throughout. His vivid descriptions brought every scene alive.
The intensity of the words he chose reinforced the energy of the story and the
animal-like nature of the characters. The brutality of the natural world and the
brutal nature of the men who populated that world were at the forefront of his
novel. It is a bleak vision and may not work for everyone, but it succeeded for me
as a tale of darkness not unlike those spun by Joseph Conrad and Cormac McCarthy. A
... and from far outside Lancaster Bay:
Jack-the-Whale, you inglorious bastard! You Teutonic harpooner, you have outdone yourself. I will be forever in your debt for bringing The North Water to me. Like a shark ripping at the decomposing body of a whale, I so want to be in the discussion on the 27th. Alas, it is not to be.
I have been reminded (often) that I am a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and thus I never had the benefit of a college education. Were my classmates the doomed crew of the Volunteer? We all marched to class. There was a pragmatic reason for that: we all took the same courses. We took courses in English but we called it “Bull.” We never spoke of Liberal and we never dabbled in the Arts. We were engineers, by God, majoring in General Engineering. And we all went to sea.
Now comes Ian McGuire of Hull, England. Now comes The North Water. Behold the man. Call me Ishmael. Do we see these connections, these sinews of Life?
Now I am driven to consider my own Life, my own attempt to look upon my colleagues as “The Defenders of the Faith”. So many memories are brought forth by this book – and I don’t just mean the first time I sodomized a cabin boy. There is something in the Human Spirit that wants companion-ship, that wants others to share what we see, we feel. Writers may write for themselves but if they don’t touch that common spirit, their writings are lost.
Behold the man. When I read that line, that opening paragraph, my spirit was aroused. It was the closest feelings to reading Cormac McCarthy I’ve experienced in years. Was the first chapter brutal? Yes, of course – McGuire has since explained that he wanted Henry Drax to behave as an animal, to be a pure animal in human form. Brutal? Harold Bloom admits it took him three attempts to get past the first 80 pages of McCarthy’s Blood Meridian which he has subsequently anointed as one of the great American novels.
Behold the man. But the man shuffles, he sniffs the complex air - is this not bear-like? This book begins with a bear and it ends with a bear.
Was McGuire perfect in his execution of the story, of the telling of the story? No, unfortunately. The most glaring to me as Plot Contrivance was the carpenter’s frozen thumb – he could not have left two perfect thumbprints on young Hannah’s throat as his thumb had no strength. Come on, Ian! That was a cheap Deus Ex machina, and a writer as good as you, you bastard McGuire, need not have employed that cheap device. Sumner could have suspected Drax without completely exonerating the carpenter.
And was this another connection? A carpenter (like Jesus) to be sacrificed. I want to hear if others felt the world changing, the darkness closing in on the Volunteer (oh, and can we talk about the name of the ship? For this crew, for Baxter’s manipulation? Would you consider Sumner a volunteer, or did he have no choice but to sign up after India?) with pages 137-139, when they enter the Bay from which only two will emerge. I never quite knew what to make of Sumner, the protagonist if not the hero. Did he transform during the voyage? Did he grow, did he seek redemption? Was he a different man than that of India? Was he strong enough to defeat Drax? I would love to be in on the discussion of Sumner. And to hear my colleagues discuss how, like Jack Aubrey and Dr. Steven Maturin in Master and Commander, McGuire makes good use of a surgeon to balance the Naval officer Brownlee.
I will read this book again. I must read this book again. For now, I want to hear how Jack Ferrell found this book, what his reaction to it was. Were others captivated to continue reading from scene to scene? This book will haunt me for a good many days, perhaps throughout my cruise. Thank you Jack, thank you Ian McGuire – how does an author work with two editors? – and thank you, Last Thursday Book Club – you have restored my faith – in the words of our departed Joel Nash, “People are no damn good!” Solid A.
- Mike-the-squid
Review from Dick Jensen:
I had hopes that I would be able to come to tomorrow's meeting but I think I had better not. I have a doctor's appointment on Monday so I hope to get some help with this problem. Sorry because I was looking forward to it.
Here is my review of the book.
I had a very hard time reading this book. At times I almost forced myself to keep reading.
The book was very violent with lots of description. The writing was ok but not great. I found none of the characters admirable. There was also a strange kind of mysticism at times in the book.
At several points in my reading it almost felt as though I had read the book before but I certainly would have remembered it better if I had.
Grade: B
- Dick
