5/30/2023 0 Comments The north water book review![]() ![]() Sometimes I believe Ian McGuire is determined to gross us out. Otherwise if you can’t handle these lines, don’t even try to read this novel. ![]() Swung up onto the deck, they drip not blood, as usual, but some foul straw-colored coagulation like the unspeakable rectal oozings of a human corpse.” “The blocks of blubber they slice and peel away are miscolored and gelatinous – much more brown than pink. If you can stomach lines like the following about an already dead decomposing whale, you will get on with this novel: At the time ‘The North Water’ takes place in the late 19 th century, the petroleum industry was making the whale oil usage nearly obsolete.ĭon’t expect ‘The North Water’ to prettify the whaling business, not at all. Whales were eaten as meat, the whale oil was used widely in lamps, and the whale bones were used in corsets. We tend to think of whales as glorified huge fish, but they are actually mammals just as we are. Whaling was a rough ugly business but I suppose not much more disgusting than any business where animals are slaughtered. ![]() ![]() “The North Water” is a tale about a 19th-century Arctic whaling expedition. ‘The North Water’ by Ian McGuire (2016) – 253 pages ![]()
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