I think it was Sir Winston Churchill who once dismissed life in the navy as little more than a life of "Rum, sodomy and the lash.", reading Ian McGuire's compelling and disturbing novel the only thing missing from that soundbite was "Weavils in the cheese."I suppose it could be argued that life on a whaler is different from life in the royalist of navys , but i think the differences might have well come down to "whatever floats your boat"
Literally. The tone reminded me of The Tiger Lillies adaption of Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, except the monsters in this story are not slimy products of the slimy sea, they are crew members.One in particular. a sly vicious monster of a man, not some mythical demon but an all too plausable being.
Its damn grim up north., all right. Life on board a whaling vessel was not for the faint hearted. I had picked up a copy of The North Water thinking it was an adventure story along the lines of Moby Dick. I now realise that is like thinking Orca The Killer Whale is a bit like Finding Nemo. This is a book, as well as a boat, filled with some bone-chilling personas. As much as I found aspects of the world whaling trade interesting to read and learn about, I also found the industry a source of genuine horror. It involves, after all, the slaughter and butchery of a magnificent species. It was partly a fascination about the extremes of hardship people used to be prepared to subject themselves to, whether it was to further the knwledge of mankind or earn a crust of bread.A source of morbid intrest? Maybe.morbidity abounds....
This book is not for the faint hearted. It is genuinely unsettling. Swimming, as it does, into the dark shallows of the human soul.Some one mentioned to me that the BBC were going to, or possibly already have, produced an adaption of Ian Mc Guire's book. I would have considered certain aspects of this book to be unfilmable. Mind you, I would have said that about a work based on the work of Tolkien that does not involve any work by Tolkien.
But what do I know...
This ship of fools heads out into dark and dangerous realms. There are few places on any map that ever was that quite covers the dark terrotories of the human heart. Men in extremis are capable of anything and no beast is truly so fierce. One of the few creatures moving on the face of the Earth who is self enough aware to understand deliberately inflicted cruelty and bask in its lurid glow.
