Ahab's Wife: Or, The Star-Gazer: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Naslund's Book is Meditation
Review: I accidentally received this book through my book club. I didn't order it. I knew nothing of it. But there it was. I sat down one summer evening to see if it was anything worth reading. I was immediately yanked by the collar into Una's world. The opening sentence made me grin, being one of the better opening lines I have read in awhile. This book completely enveloped me. I know I am held fast by a novel when, after I put it down, I find myself thinking and speaking in the same tone as which the book is written, taking a few minutes to shake this tone and return to self. The language is breathtaking. Images of lighthouses, trying pots, and widow's walks remain. One less star than five stars because of my feeling that the plot started getting too muddy towards the end. The first 3/4 of the book, where most of your time is spent luxuriating in the lengthy, all encompassing descriptions given by Una was much more appealing than moving the plot towards a conclusion. I am currently reading it again and carve out a special nitch in my evening to devote to this book.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best
Review: This was a surprise book. One of those stories that grips you, not only with the beauty of the story but also by the quality of the writing. I read ALOT and this is one of my all time personal favorites. I am sending a copy to several of my closest friedns beacause I won't let my own copy out of my library. Well written, moving and a beautiful extension of the tale of Moby Dick.

Rating:
Summary: And I haven't even read Moby Dick!
Review: I was really apprehensive about starting this book, because I've neverread Moby Dick and have absolutely no desire to read it (sorry,Sena). Once I picked it up, though, there was no putting it down 'tilit was all over. ...I didn't think it was too long. It's an epicwork, and like all epic works, it's long and involved, requiring acommittment from the reader--one well worth it. Una's character isvividly, marvelously drawn, as are the characters she comes in contactwith, from Kit to Ahab to Ishmael and all the rest inbetween. Naslundhas become one of my new favorite authors, and Ahab's Wife has becomeone of my new favorite books.

Rating:
Summary: Ahab's Wife
Review: Rarely in one's lifetime does an incredible book come along such as this, that you want to slowly savour, prolonging it's ending, wishing it were even another 1000 pages longer. This was a beautifully written novel full of adventure, history, and wonderful characters that readers will never forget. What a grand book this was to read and reread.

Rating:
Summary: A combustible beginning that runs out of gas
Review: I fell in love with this book in the beginning, the way the writing flowed and took me along. It was charming, educational and pure good reading up until Una married Ahab. Then it just dragged and became unbelievable, from Una's investment into petroleum to the 3 babes named Liberty and their ill-fated outcomes. It could have been summed up in less than 500 pages.

Rating:
Summary: Slightly Dreary
Review: I truly looked foreward to reading this book and after giving it a really good chance, found it to be lengthy and at times, I didn't know what the characters were talking about. Trying to decifer the conversations became trying and it was only when 3/4 of the way through that I became interested in the plot. Although Una was indeed Ahab's wife, it was for a very short portion of the book. I realize that background was needed to introduce the character but this was a little rediculous. It should have had a different title.

Rating:
Summary: A trip to another time and place
Review: Amazing imagery allows the reader to "be there." This book is definitely a keeper as it will be one I will read again. There is simply too much to be absorbed in one reading.

Rating:
Summary: first half was great...then a slow spiralling descent...
Review: Being very impressed with this novel when I first started out, I read through it all with a fervent captivity that I havn't experienced in a while. I found the plot creative, much waxing philisophically, interesting developments, and a fresh uniqueness that I wouldn't have expected coming from a book loosely written around Moby Dick. I was greatly impressed, that is, until I made it about halfway through the book. From that point on, it seemed as if Naslund was running out of the proverbial steam. The writing slowly became a little less creative. The protagonist's liberal thinking got to be a literal extreme (a nod of approval from Frederick Douglas... c'mon) It seemed to be as if Naslund just slapped a conclusion together in order to just FINISH the book. It just dragged on and on... Well, in the end, I was a bit dissapointed. I found the first half of the novel extremely engrossing. It's too bad the second half didn't quite live up to it.

Rating:
Summary: very thought provoking
Review: I was hooked from the minute I started this book--and I was compelled to read the hardcover on the subway, without a seat (very tiresome!).

I agree that some of the plot is hard to believe--I initially had some trouble figuring out from what time period Una was from--but I loved the lyrical feeling to the prose. I thought the insights were very 20 (21st?) century, but I was still very fascinated by them, and I found myself trying to slow my eyes down as I read, so that I could accurately absorb all that there was to offer.

As a conclution, I would like to reread Ahab's Wife, I think there is still some to gain that I failed to the first time, but I don't think I will read Moby Dick. At least not in the near future.

I would not be surprised, though, to hear that in some college somewhere, Ahab's Wife and Moby Dick are taught as companion novels. Ahab's Wife is certainly worth at least one read!

Rating:
Summary: Ahab's Wife
Review: I have the good fortune to have been born and raised on Nantucket...my children are thirteenth generation natives. To finally read what is an acurate description of the women of the time....20th century be damned! The women of the whaling era were strong, self-sufficient, intelligent business women. The situations depicted in the book, from homosexuality to polygamy to children on board ships did indeed happen....we as 20th (and now 21st) century women have nothing on the women of the past! The number of women...and men...that switched from Quaker beliefs to Universalism was astounding...and the island still has an ever increasing Unitarian Universalist community today, with deep rich roots going well back to that time. This was a wonderful story...timeless as well, for strong women are timeless themselves!

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