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Book Review of The Voyage of the Narwhal

The Voyage of the Narwhal
kkowert avatar reviewed on + 44 more book reviews


The Norwahl sets sail to the Arctic north to find survivors of an English expedition that left years before and never returned. Most of the ships crew are Americans and they leave on this adventure from Philadelphia. There are as many reasons to be on this ship as there are people. The captain of the expedition, Zeke is looking for fame and notoriety; Erasmus (the main character) seeks scientific discovery of plant and animal life; Ned, the cook, is a poor Irish immigrant who fled the famine in Ireland. Through the various characters in the book, you get a glimpse of life in America and Europe in the 1850s, but you will also meet the people of the north Arctic the Esquimax (Eskimos) during the arctic expedition.

This well planned trip to the dangerous icy waters of the north went awry and created some unplanned adventures, but at this point in the book I was not that interested. I could not get into this book and I found the writing tedious and difficult to get through at times possibly because sea voyages are not generally something I am interested in.