In the Heart of the Sea is a true story about the Essex, a Nantucket whaling ship and its tragic encounter with an angry, revenge-seeking sperm whale. Since the movie was recently being released, my friend Eva and I decided to do a buddy read together. I'll admit I was impressed with the amount of research, details and extraneous information the author included about whaling, Quakers, Nantucket, shipwrecks, you name it. However the first quarter of the story was bogged down with so many facts and recitations that the story itself floundered and it became a little dull and boring. After the actual sinking of the ship though, the story did a complete turn around and I was engrossed until the end. I think because the author focused more on regaling us with the story of the ship and the crew and their dreadful time surviving at sea instead of inundating us with historical facts. If you have an interest in whaling or the Essex whaleship, I would recommend reading this book. There is just a ton of fascinating information. You'll be surprised at not only how long and how far the crew had to travel in an open whaleboat but what they had to do survive while they were lost at sea. It's a pretty horrific story. It will definitely make you think twice about going on your next cruise or fishing expedition. I personally will be land bound for a while, if not forever.

The Essex is one of the stories that inspired Moby-Dick, the other being the legend of Mocha Dick, an albino sperm whale who was a dick. This edition collects every first- or firstish-hand account of the Essex, which is almost certainly more than you need.

The main narrative, and the one Melville got his hands on, is that of first mate Owen Chase. As a true adventure story, it's pretty great. Gripping stuff. Surprisingly well [almost certainly ghost-]written.

As a companion read to Moby-Dick, though, it's not terribly helpful. The description of the actual fight with the whale has clear connections to Moby-Dick, particularly in a short passage describing the strength of a sperm whale's head; it's the inspiration for chapter 76, which is an entire chapter about sperm whale heads because that's how Melville rolls.

The other major narrative here is by a cabin boy named Nickerson, and it's even less useful. He goes into much greater length about the pre-ramming part of the trip, which is a little fun - he's a kid, so he's mostly interested in relating awesome stories about pirates that he heard from other people - but once the ramming happens, he basically plagiarizes Chase the rest of the way.

There are also some notes by Melville that are nowhere near as interesting as you'd like them to be - mostly concerned with starfuckerish descriptions of his own encounter with Chase - and some random other letters and bits, dimly interesting due to the lack of agreement about who exactly shot Owen Coffin.

Four stars for being a great survival story; two stars for we didn't really need all that other stuff.