In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex Book

There's one thing you need to know about me: I've never listened to a song by Rush all the way through. Really. If Alvin and the Chipmunks were re-imagined as opera singers, the lead singer could be bass. I can't take them seriously.

Okay, okay. Really there are two things you need to know about me: I distrust people who walk on the balls of their feet. You know, that little bounce? Call it instinct, but I see something morally deficient in it. It's like Nature is giving the rest of us a heads-up.

Hold on. There are three things you need to know about me: At the age of three, I watched the movie Jaws in its entirety from the back seat of my parents Volkswagen Bug at a drive-in theater. Poor things thought I was asleep and had absolutely no intention of traumatizing their only child. To this day, I have an abnormal fear of the ocean, yet I am morbidly drawn to stories about the same.

No, wait. There're four things you need to know about me: I don't like to work. At all. I'd go so far as to assert that I am entirely abnormal in my contempt for it. A sort of cynical pragmatism colors my approach to adult life and all its attendant cares. I think of myself as seeking out a sort of hedonistic equilibrium whereby I maximize the amount of money I earn while doing the least amount of work. And to that end, I am happy to report, I have been largely successful.

Why am I sharing all this? Because, taken in total, it shows that I would make a very poor excuse of a whaleman in this, our present age, let alone the early-19th century. Sure, it's altogether speculative to take a modern fellow like myself and plant him in an earlier time. What if I'd been raised in a whaling family? A whaling tradition?

Bosh.

Trust me in this. I was raised in a working class family and it didn't take me long to understand what work does to you: it takes your best years, covering them in spoonfuls of regret little by little until you realize too late all the money in the world can't buy back what you could've done, what you could've been. Why do we American inheritors of the Nantucket Quaker whaling business model always prove so stressed out whenever the United Nations releases its latest sociological metrics? Because we spend all our time away from our friends and families, doing stuff we don't like, so we can buy stuff we don't need.

No. Leisure is the truest wealth. Me? I would've sought out some petty job, made merry in my off-hours and, hopefully, have been literate enough to enjoy some letter-writing and the occasional book.

Fine, you say. What's this got to do with Nathaniel Philbrick's book?

Well. It means all you overachieving-types would've been on that doomed ship while I sat comfortably on terra firma. You should be happy about that, at least. Consider some of the aforementioned details about me -- I'm obviously prone to psychological imbalance. I surely would have cannibalized you had we found ourselves in the dire circumstances of the crew of the Essex, adrift for over three months in the South Pacific. And my probability of success would've been more than fair: I stand 6'4" tall, have pointy eye teeth, and a trailer park adolescence mean streak. True, I am near-sighted, but this would only be a minor inconvenience since I would only have to track you around a twenty-foot long boat.

Where are all your Goodreads votes now, fancy pants?