Ahab's Wife: Or, the Star-Gazer [Paperback]

Sena Jeter Naslund (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1999

Woodcut illustrations by Christopher Wormell. A novel inspired by Herman Melville's Moby Dick. 9 inches tall, 668 pages.

Product Details

• Paperback: 668 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Co.; 1st edition (1999)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000GYT68C
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (273 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,371,322 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sena Jeter Naslund is the author of the novels Four Spirits and Abundance, A Novel of Marie Antoinette and a short story collection, The Disobedience of Water. A native of Birmingham, Alabama, she is a winner of the Harper Lee Award; Distinguished Teaching Professor and Writer in Residence at the University of Louisville; director of the Spalding University brief-residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing program; former poet laureate of Kentucky; and editor of The Louisville Review and the Fleur-de-Lis Press.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

92 of 101 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A read good to the last word, January 19, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Ahab's Wife: Or, The Star-Gazer: A Novel (Hardcover)

I'm confused. Has the mark of good fiction now become brevity? I didn't find a single word in this glorious book wasted. If anything, I was sorry that the book ended when it did, as I would have willingly continued to follow Una's adventures. What an amazing character! Women in the nineteenth century lived fascinating lives, but since "social" history did not come into vogue until the 20th century, we are only now beginning to know about the lives of women. Novelists, drawing on the knowledge that we do have, are filling in the gaps to create fully fleshed-out characters such as Una.

If you're looking for a quick read, best look elsewhere. If you love rich language, love strong female characters, love tales of the sea, then read this book. Ms. Naslund is to be congratulated for creating a truly memorable character and for allowing such a character to experience a full banquet of life experiences.

Brava!

91 of 103 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a yarn, what a novel! What a writer!, March 22, 2001

By 

Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ahab's Wife: Or, The Star-Gazer: A Novel (Paperback)

Author Naslund takes up the tale of the young wife Ahab mentions but briefly in Moby Dick. It takes place during and after the loss of the Pequod during its fatal hunt for the great White Whale and is the first-person memoir of Una Spenser.

This book is so literary, so well crafted for its subject that I can't believe it was written in 1999 and not in the late 1800's. Only a few anachronisms betray the modern date for Ahab's Wife. (A mention of kiwi fruit for one, they were not cultivated outside of China nor known as Kiwi until the early 1900's)

Una Spenser (named for Spenser's character in the Faerie Queene) is a courageous yet imaginative heroine. She struggles against God, against slavery, against traditional women's' roles in pre-Civil War America, runs away to sea, and meets Captain Ahab after a harrowing experience aboard ship.

The scope of this book is grand and it is written a bit in style that pays homage to Melville, grasping some of Melville's poetry and symbology of Nature and also the sexual ambiguity. But Naslund also stitches in a bit of Virginia Woolf and To The Lighthouse. Sections of Melville's work are patched in to form a smooth story of Ahab's soul mate, his female side, Una, whom he loved and abandoned for his destiny with Moby Dick.

In fact, this book reminds me of the patchwork quilts mentioned many times in Ahab's Wife. The pieces are stitched together (12 stitches to the inch, Una can sew) in colors that blend to make a pleasing whole. Yet pieces of fabric come from many diverse sources, such as the Melville classic and Woolf as well as others.

This is a brilliant achievement of a novel yet reads like a magnificent yarn. Naslund is not only a master writer but also a master storyteller. I could not put this book down until I finished every last page and I am going to re-read it immediately.

66 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a good if not long winded read, January 8, 2000

By 

D. Cheong "danby4me" (Iowa,U.S.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ahab's Wife: Or, The Star-Gazer: A Novel (Hardcover)

Ahab's Wife suffers from being perhaps a little too long. I had to struggle to finish the final quater of the book because it seems to lack a certain dramatic impact, especially when compared to the rest of the book. However, in general, this novel is still a fabulous read. I found it epic in scope and extremely poignant. I loved Naslund's initial premise - placing a woman with 20th century morality and "modern" fears, desires, loathings and hopes in the middle of the 19th century just as the age of industrialisation was dawning. We are witness to not only Una's incredible adventures but also her uncanny ability to rise above the social restrictions of the day and develop a wonderfully liberal, tolerant and free thinking attitude towards life. The novel reads like an ocean going sailing ship, swaying and flowing gacefully across the sea. And the cast of characters are truly eclectic: From intelligence and sexual ambiguity of Una's fellow sailors Giles and Kit to the staunchly seaman like Captain Ahab. Naslund introduces to many memorable people. Naslund also raises some delightfully "modern" issues: Cannibalism, the nature of sexuality, single parenthood, feminism and the state of the man and his psyche in a time when the individual was becoming increasingly aware of his position in the universe.

Although the length is an issue this is still a fine novel which certainly packs a wallop and it surely begs a sequel.

Michael Leonard