The North Water

Dick Lit, not bad and not good, if you're not into clubbing baby seals you won't be into this book. 3/5

One sentence synopsis... A propulsive journey across the north water on a whaling expedition follows a disgraced Irish surgeon, a psychopathic harpooner, amongst a cast of violent, unfortunate men.

Read it if you like... ‘The Terror' or ‘Godless'.

Dream casting... unfortunately this was a case of knowing who was cast in the show before reading the book. As a result I could only picture Colin Farrell as Drax and Jack O'Connell as Sumner. That being said, I'm not mad.

Moby Dick meets The Revenant, as told by Cormac McCarthy and The Coen Brothers.

Boats, Brutality and Bodily Functions. This book reminded me a lot of Terror by Dan Simmons albeit much shorter. It isn't however the same story by any means. Like Terror it is the story of a shipwreck in the Arctic. One man fights for his survival against starvation and freezing temperatures. He encounters polar bears and Inuit. What Terror doesn't have is the graphic description of gore and bodily emissions which this story has in spades. I'm not a squeamish reader but a few sentences really made me squirm. Not for the faint-hearted.

Listened to about two chapters and it was intriguing and well told, but the story felt too harsh and it didn't offer me any likeable protagonist, so I decided to bail. Maybe a right book at the wrong moment.

I enjoyed it. I mean, it's basically insurance fraud by way of Victorian whaling ships in the Arctic. And I love books about ships. And I love books about the Arctic. Warning, though, since this is a Victorian setting. The Englishmen in it are horribly racist against everyone, from Irish people to Indian people to African people. They're awful to animals. They're rough characters to have to deal with. A lot of what is said and done is horrible. It's dark. But it's sort of ‘The Terror' light, with less likeable characters and no scary bits. And really, I didn't connect with characters in this. But it was still worth a read. And I know, I know, I still need to finish the Man Booker WINNER from this past year, but I'm more emotionally engaged with the Winner than I was with this Man Booker longlister.

A satisfying, stimulating read, driven primarily by the all-to-accurate description of foul odors.

Brutal.

Dark and gripping.

I enjoyed the book but was disturbed by the likness to Dan Simmons The Terror. A far better and more interesting novel