Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780688171872
ISBN number: 0688171877
Label: William Morrow
Manufacturer: William Morrow
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 688
Printing Date: October 06, 1999
Publishing house: William Morrow
Release Date: September 22, 1999
Sale Popularity Level: 120531
Studio: William Morrow
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
'Captain Ahab was neither my very first husband nor my last.'
This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized very first sentences in literature--along with 'Call me Ishmael.' Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe with a transcendent heroine at its center who will be every bit as memorable as Captain Ahab.
Ahab's Wife is a novel on a grand scale that can legitimately be called a masterpiece: beautifully written, filled with humanity and wisdom, rich in historical detail, authentic and evocative. Melville's spirit informs every page of her tour de force.
Una Spenser's marriage to Captain Ahab is certainly a crucial element in the narrative of Ahab's Wife, but the story covers vastly more territory. After a spellbinding opening scene, the tale flashes back to Una's childhood in Kentucky; her idyllic adolescence with her aunt and uncle's family at a lighthouse near New Bedford; her adventures disguised as a cabin boy on a whaling ship; her very first marriage to a fellow survivor who descends into violent madness; courtship and marriage to Ahab; life as mother and a rich captain's wife in Nantucket; involvement with Frederick Douglass; and a man who is in Nantucket researching his novel about his adventures on her ex-husband's ship.
Ahab's Wife is a breathtaking, magnificent, and uplifting story of one woman's spiritual journey, informed by the spirit of the greatest American novel, but taking it beyond tragedy to redemptive triumph.
'Captain Ahab was neither my very first husband nor my last.'
This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized very first sentences in literature--along with 'Call me Ishmael.'Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe with a transcendent heroine at its center who will be every bit as memorable as Captain Ahab.
Ahab's Wife is a novel on a grand scale that can legitimately be called a masterpiece: beautifully written, filled with humanity and wisdom, rich in historical detail, authentic and evocative. Melville's spirit informs every page of her tour de force.
Una Spenser's marriage to Captain Ahab is certainly a crucial element in the narrative of Ahab's Wife, but the story covers vastly more territory. After a spellbinding opening scene, the tale flashes back to Una's childhood in Kentucky; her idyllic adolescence with her aunt and uncle's family at a lighthouse near New Bedford; her adventures disguised as a cabin boy on a whaling ship; her very first marriage to a fellow survivor who descends into violent madness; courtship and marriage to Ahab; life as mother and a rich captain's wife in Nantucket; involvement with Frederick Douglass; and a man who is in Nantucket researching his novel about his adventures on her ex-husband's ship.
Ahab's Wife is a breathtaking, magnificent, and uplifting story of one woman's spiritual journey, informed by the spirit of the greatest American novel, but taking it beyond tragedy to redemptive triumph.'Captain Ahab was neither my very first husband nor my last.'
This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized very first sentences in literature--along with 'Call me Ishmael.' Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe with a transcendent heroine at its center who will be every bit as memorable as Captain Ahab.
Ahab's Wife is a novel on a grand scale that can legitimately be called a masterpiece: beautifully written, filled with humanity and wisdom, rich in historical detail, authentic and evocative. Melville's spirit informs every page of her tour de force.
Una Spenser's marriage to Captain Ahab is certainly a crucial element in the narrative of Ahab's Wife, but the story covers vastly more territory. After a spellbinding opening scene, the tale flashes back to Una's childhood in Kentucky; her idyllic adolescence with her aunt and uncle's family at a lighthouse near New Bedford; her adventures disguised as a cabin boy on a whaling ship; her very first marriage to a fellow survivor who descends into violent madness; courtship and marriage to Ahab; life as mother and a rich captain's wife in Nantucket; involvement with Frederick Douglass; and a man who is in Nantucket researching his novel about his adventures on her ex-husband's ship.
Ahab's Wife is a breathtaking, magnificent, and uplifting story of one woman's spiritual journey, informed by the spirit of the greatest American novel, but taking it beyond tragedy to redemptive triumph.
Amazon.com Review:
It has been said that one can see farther only by standing on the shoulders of giants. Ahab's Wife, Sena Naslund's epic work of historical fiction, honors that aphorism, using Herman Melville's Moby-Dick as looking glass into early-19th-century America. Through the eye of an outsider, a woman, she suggests that New England life was broader and richer than Melville's manly world of men, ships, and whales. This ambitious novel pays tribute to Melville, creating heroines from his lesser characters, and to America's literary heritage in general.
Una, named for the heroine of Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, flees to the New England coast from Kentucky to escape her father's puritanism and to pursue a more exalted life. She gets whaling out of her system early: going to sea at 16 disguised as a boy, Una has her ship sunk by her own monstrous whale, and survives a harrowing shipwreck: I was so horrified by the whale's deliberate charge that I could not move. Then my own name flew up from below like a spear: 'Una!' Giles' voice broke my trance, and I scrambled down the rigging. No sooner did my foot touch the deck than there was such a lurch that I fell to my face. I heard and felt the boards break below the waterline, the copper sheathing nothing but decorative foil. The whole ship shuddered. A death throe.
The ship dies, but Una returns to land to pursue the life of the mind. The novel's opening line--'Captain Ahab was neither my very first husband nor my last'--also diminishes Melville's hero in the broader scheme of things. Naslund exposes the reader to the unsung, real-life heroes of Melville's world, including Margaret Fuller and her Boston salon, and Nantucket astronomer Maria Mitchell. There is a chance meeting with a veiled Nathaniel Hawthorne in the woods, and throughout the novel the story brims with references to the giants of literature: Shakespeare, Goethe, Coleridge, Keats, and Wordsworth. Although her novel runs long at nearly 700 pages, Naslund has created an imaginative, entertaining, and very impressive work. --Ted Leventhal
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Rated by buyers 
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I really like Sena Jeter-Naslund's writing. Her prose can be very thought provoking and poetic. I did however, have trouble with the overwrought plot that went on too long by about 300 pages. That's why I did not give this book 4 or 5 stars. The other problem I had was Una's narrative was too eloquent in places for this young woman who was not formally educated. I also had trouble with the contrivances of meeting Emerson and Hawthorne via Ms. Fuller. I did however, like the relationship between Ms. Fuller and Una.
I also liked the build up between Kit and Giles in the beginning although I thought the opening exposition, which lasted 85 pages was laborious before I felt the story really began.
I found the natural progression of the love Una and Ahab had for one another to be very believable, but the relationship with her third husband, Robben the sculptor was uninteresting to me and anti-climatic.
In sum, Ms. Jeter-Naslund is a wonderful writer. If her original manuscript of 1,000 pages had been trimmed to 400, I think I would have loved this book even more.
Rated by buyers 
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This book was a gorgeously written, lyrical saga, no doubt. However, I was extremely disappointed by this book. All of the major characters aren't products of their time, but in spite of their time. Men and women from every walk of life, educated or uneducated, are extremely liberal and freethinking, not just for the time, but for today! No one bats an eye at feminism, strong and intelligent women, homosexuality, mixed-race heritage, a couple living together without marrying, and of course all are abolitionists. I'm not saying I don't agree with this viewpoint, but that it is absolutely unbelievable that no major character bats an eye at ANY of these ideas that modern people often find so hard to swallow. (Except one, but he's quickly converted.) Even Una's father, a fundamentalist Christian, is fundamentalist in a modern sense, not a historical one. Also, Una has no flaws, and so although this is the story of her growth to adulthood, I find her largely unchanged (despite the author's claim of her spiritual revelations). Although I like Una, I didn't feel that she followed the sort of character arc that would define a realistic character.
Rated by buyers 
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seem to finish it! I couldn't figure out what was wrong with this book until I decided to check out some of the one * reviews. I have just slogged up to the part when she marries "Crazy Kit" and from what everyone else says it gets worse??? I am not one to put down a book unfinished but I fear this will be one of them (the other one was Toni Morrison's "Beloved"....one of the pretentious selections from "Oprah's Book Club") I can't justify wasting my time on this book!
Rated by buyers -
I was never a fan of Moby Dick but, having been an English major, I am very familiar with it. When I began reading the book, I was pretty excited to have found an interesting take on the original story. B ut then, the plot deviated, and deviated, and deviated. There are just too many plot twists and she "accidentally" meets just too many famous 19th century "luminaries." I must say the most contrived one situation was when she "happened" to me Hawthorne in the woods surrounding Walden Pond--and he was wearinga grey veil no less! Naslund has him leaving a meeting of noted Transcendentalist thinkers...too bad Hawthorne was Anti-transcendentalist! I finished the bookhoping that Naslund might salvage it but, once again she went too far. Una and Ishmael, the man named afterthe Biblical liar? I am beginning to think Naslund needs to change her nom de plume to Ishmael. It'd make her book easier to swallow.
Rated by buyers -
As my title suggests, I found the book to be too long, but that said I loved it. Una was a great character who I found to be thought provoking, real (most of the time) and strong. I did find some of the plot twists unbelievable, but I loved the book overall which is why I can only give my review 4 stars instead of 5.
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