Hi Keri and Kelly. Here are my thoughts on the book. I finished it a few weeks ago (started it on the plane over hear) and I've decided to leave it in the hotel's "library" because its so big and heavy (and I need the space/weight for souvenir/gifts). so I need to do my review now, while I still have the book.
I loved the book and found it fascinating. I did think there were a few sections of the book that could have easily been trimmed (I found myself skimming those sections which was unusual for the book) but they were only occasional and didn't spoil the book for me.
By far my favorite sentence out of the whole book was when Una says "I live the life that is before me". I can so relate to that thought and plan to incorporate it into my "signature" for my email. And it says everything about how Una faced her life despite its ups and downs and unexpected turns.
I thought the book was very ambitious covering so much ground...literally kentucky to nantucket and figuatively: slavery to religions to whaling. The book could have run aground (using a nautical analogy) but it managed to "stay afloat" and mostly did so in an interesting and intriguing manner. Ultimately it was about the strong and the weak for me. those people who "live the life that is before them" and those who fight it or run from it or refuse to acknowledge it.
I found much of the author's writing to be wonderfully vivid and descriptive. Early on in the book I loved her description of the ice on the river (that Susan was crossing) when she says that "it seemd to me that Susan was walking on clouds in a black sky". Her descriptions of the lighthouse and its island were wonderful...I could almost smell the damp stone when she described it.
I liked her descriptions of nantucket. We've spent time on Cape Cod and nantucket today seems like a small isolated island out past Cape Cod occupied by summer people and "loners". It takes 2 hours to get to by ferry. And if Cape Cod seems laid back it seems that nantucket is on the edge of the earth. However. I realize that in the days of ships before trains and planes that the towns along the "edge of the earth"...the harbors were where it was all happening. And that Nantucket was an important port between Long Island and Boston. so its interesting to think of all the different churches, philsophies, and lecturers that inhabited and were debated in what today is a very sleepy town. However what is the same is that Nantucket people (as with much of Cape Cod) are fiercely independent...I can see where that came from.
I thought her description of the whale ship tragedy and resulting cannibalism and the further resulting "secrets" was really well handled. She covered the range of emotions and reactions. I liked that Una was practical about it and didn't let that tragedy make the remainder of her life a tragedy as it did Kit's.
And I liked the clever twist at the end...with her meeting and marrying "Ishmael"...and their writing each of their own books...this one and...of course...Moby Dick.
I know I haven't covered all of the book here...her relationship with Susan, her father, and her relationship with Ahab. but I'll let you two write first...and then maybe I will add some more.
One relationship and story line that I thought didn't add much to the book and perhaps bogged it down was her friendship with the woman in Boston, Margaret Fuller. And all the related story lines of her going to concord and running into Nathaniel Hawthorne, etc. Although somewhat interesting I thought it was a ltitle contrived and did not advance the true story very much.
Bottom line. I would have liked to have known Una...I admire her as a woman and respect her as a human being. It was nice to spend time with her.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
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