Subtitled 'The Murderous Voyage of the Whaleship
Sharon'. I think I must have bought this when we were in Martha's Vineyard a few years ago. The whaling ships of the period sailed from New Bedford in Massachusetts, and most of the ship's officers seem to come from Holmes Hole, which is now part of Tisbury, the main port on the Vineyard. However, this is far from being a local history book. It is a story of murder, brutality, and the back-breaking conditions of life on a whaler in the 180s. The main story deals with revelations concerning the events that lead to the brutal murder of Captain Howes Norris on board the
Sharon in 1842. The story also has connections with Herman Melville's masterpiece
Moby Dick. Melville worked on whaling ships very similar to the
Sharon, at the same time, and may have partly based the character of Captain Ahab on Norris. Druett has used journals written by members of the Sharon's crew, that had not been seen before by historians, to piece together a tale different to the one that has been handed down. It's fascinating stuff, and makes me think I should look more closely at the world of sea-faring literature. I loved
Moby Dick, and the more modern
Three Minutes' Silence by Georgii Vladimov, which was published in the late 60s. Druett has done a brilliant job, not only in telling a story of madness and murder, but also evoking the life of those who served on these ships, that sailed across the world in search of giant mammals to kill for their light-giving properties.
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| Benjamin Clough, hero of the Sharon |
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