Ahab's Wife

Somewhere in the rich prose of Herman Melville's masterpiece Moby Dick, there is a short paragraph in which Melville tells his readers that Ahab, captain of the whaler Pequod, has a wife. Sena Jeter Naslund, distinguished teaching professor at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, constructed from that brief allusion the story of Una Spencer, the Kentucky farm girl who became Ahab's Wife. I remember reading reviews of Ahab's Wife when it came out in 1999. The New York Times rated it one of the best books of the year. For the past few days I've been reading Ahab's Wife with pleasure, admiration and wonder. It is a magnificently imagined picaresque novel that follows Una Spencer from early adolescence to middle age, from her parents' farm in Kentucky to her aunt and uncle's home on an island off the Massachusetts coast where they tend the lighthouse. Una was schooled in Shakespeare and Keats by her mother, and by her early teens her mind is well formed, full of ideas and independent, sceptical thoughts. She is attracted to two young men, Kit Sparrow and Giles Bonebright, who come to repair the lighthouse. She follows them to New Bedford, disguises herself as a boy and goes to sea with them on a whaling ship, the Sussex, signing on as the captain's cabin boy. One day she glimpses Captain Ahab, master of the Pequod, through the captain's telescope when the two ships are sailing close together. Her keen eyes and excellent vision lead to her task as lookout for whales from the vantage point of the crow's nest high on the ship's mast. Una and the two young men are appalled by the bloody barbarity of whaling but accept it as a necessary part of the American economy. Then the Sussex is rammed by an aggressive whale - perhaps Moby Dick, though it's never stated - and sinks. Una, Kit and Giles, the captain, the captain's little son, and some sailors drift for many days in an open boat. All but Una, Kit and Giles die, or are killed and eaten, before the three survivors are rescued by another ship, the Albatross. Giles falls or jumps from the mast into the sea and drowns. Kit and Una transfer from the Albatross to the Pequod which is homeward bound to Nantucket; they are married at sea by Captain Ahab, but Kit goes mad and after arriving at Nantucket, Una survives by sewing and helping a couple who run an inn on the outskirts of the town. She meets Captain Ahab again and after a whirlwind courtship, marries him. He establishes her in his substantial but almost empty mansion with enough funds to furnish it comfortably. Overnight Una becomes a wealthy woman. She goes to Boston with her neighbour the judge as escort to buy furniture for Ahab's mansion, meets the journalist and feminist Margaret Fuller, and through her meets Ralph Waldo Emerson and other notable New England intellectuals both real and imaginary. Other memorable characters populate this long, opulent literary fiction: a runaway slave girl, a dwarf slave catcher, the Mitchell father and daughter who are amateur scientists on Nantucket. Una is a fascinating young woman: highly intelligent, eager to learn much more than the secure foundation of Shakespeare and Keats she had from her mother, outgoing, adventurous, capable.  

Novels populated by characters invented from the background figures in great literary masterpieces have a special appeal to me. I've tried my hand at writing one myself. The parrot that sat on Long John Silver's shoulder in Robert Louis Stephenson's Treasure Island is the hero - heroine, actually - in the children's story I've been working on for the past year or so. Many others have tried, few have succeeded. Lloyd Jones succeeds in Mister Pip, but this is loosely linked more to Charles Dickens than to Pip in Great Expectations. Sena Jeter Naslund has succeeded brilliantly. I found Ahab's Wife as richly erudite as Moby Dick, easier to read (like others with whom I've discussed it, I found Moby Dick best taken in small doses when I read it 50-60 years ago and life's too short for a second reading). I'll be recommending Ahab's Wife to all my friends who love books and reading.