Customer Reviews

The greenlander

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This is excellent fiction, with an historical basis. Anyone with an appetite for Arctic literature or northern sailing stories will enjoy this one. Apart from giving us some fine writing and a simple, vivid story, Adlard takes us back to the last days of sail and the hunting of whales in Greenland waters. The timbers creak on board ship and the whalers somehow engage our entire attention and sympathy, simple poor men that they are, even though in our so much more developed world, we shun the very notion of their trade. But for generations they had to do this job, leaving for months at a time, frequently falling victim to the ice. In seaport towns on both sides of the Atlantic and in parts of the Southern Hemisphere as well, there are rich traditions associated with the ghastly ritual of the harpoon. It is just as well that their stories be preserved; it is a vanished way of life and one that needs to be more carefully documented.

I don't know any more about Mark Adlard, but it is indeed a pity that he seems not to have published much other work. "The Greenlander" whether as history or as fiction, is very good quality material.

"The Greenlander" by Mark Adlard is a good attempt at bringing back the old-fashioned novel. It is about a whaling ship and its crew "Greenlanders" who embark from Northumbria, England to the Greenland Sea to find whales. Tragedy occurs, and the ship has to turn back to England. Will the crew survive the trip back? Will the hero get the girl he loves? It is a good saga of survival and brotherhood. I did like the competant Shetland woman, she was a good character.