Nathaniel Philbrick's 'In the Heart of the Sea' has rightfully taken its place as a classic for its literary merits. It has a special place in the cannibalism canon as well.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Lovers of literature will look for the remains of the golden treasure in that shipwreck on the bottom of the sea of criticism.
I think the novel is not so much a literary genre, but a literary space, like a sea that is filled by many rivers. The novel receives streams of science, philosophy, poetry and contains all of these; it's not simply telling a story.
However, the difficulties and pleasures of the writing itself are similar for a novel with a historical setting and a novel with a contemporary setting, as far as I'm concerned.
Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning.
I remember having to read 'The Old Man and the Sea,' and I didn't want to read it; I didn't want to like Ernest Hemingway. I was being a stubborn teenager.
There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates.
I traveled to Ireland to research 'Sandcastles,' to visit the coastline where my ancestors looked toward America, the tiny town they once loved so much, and the docks from which they sailed toward their dreams of building a better life for their family. The answers I found on that journey are woven through the novel.
But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean.
As with all great works of literature, 'Of Mice and Men' moves with the inexorability of a huge river, and it pours itself, exhausts itself, in the sea of our unconscious. Having read it, we carry the book inside us forever.
The novel is not so much a literary genre, but a literary space, like a sea that is filled by many rivers.