Product Description

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Capturing a crucial moment in the history of exploration, the mid-nineteenth century romance with the Arctic, Andrea Barrett focuses on a particular expedition and its accompanying scholar-naturalist, Erasmus Darwin Wells.  Through his eyes, we meet the Narwhal's crew and its commander--obsessed with the search for an open polar sea--and encounter the far north culture of the Esquimaux.  In counterpoint, we see the women left behind in Philadelphia, explorers only in imagination.  Together, those who travel and those who stay weave a web of myth and mystery.  And they finally discover--as all explorers do--not what was always there and never needed discovering, but the state of their own souls.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3032442 in Books
• Published on: 1999-03
• Format: Large Print
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 624 pages

Amazon.com Review
In Andrea Barrett's extraordinary novel of Arctic and personal exploration, maps are deceitful, ice all-powerful, and reputation more important than truth or human lives. When the Narwhal sets sail from Philadelphia in May 1855, its ostensible goal is to find the crew of a long-vanished expedition--or at least their relics--and be home before winter. Of course, if the men can chart new coasts and stock up on specimens en route, so much the better. And then there's the keen prospect of selling their story, fraught with danger and discovery, to a public thirsting for excitement. Zeke Voorhees, the Narwhal's young commander, is so handsome that he makes women stare and men "hum with envy"--perhaps not the best qualification for his post--but he seems loved by all. Only his brother-in-law-to-be, a naturalist, quietly mistrusts him, though he's determined to stand by the youth for his sister Lavinia's sake. At 40, eternal low-profiler Erasmus Darwin Wells has one disastrous expedition behind him and is praying for another scientific chance. He is, however, familiar with the physical risks they're taking, as well as the "long stretches when nothing happened except that one's ties to home were imperceptibly dissolved and one became a stranger to one's life."

And what of the women left behind? Lavinia knows little of the dangers of ice (though she's well schooled in isolation) and lives only for Zeke's return. Her companion, Alexandra Copeland, is less sanguine. Even after she's been given a secret career break--ghosting for an ailing engraver--she knows how invisible she is and how threatening her family's "dense net of obligations" will always be. Though they get less page time, Barrett is in fact as concerned with these women as she is with her seafarers. Like the heroines of her National Book Award-winning Ship Fever, who bump up against science and history in which only men's triumphs are written, they must somehow escape social tyranny or retreat into the consolations of storytelling or silence.

There is tyranny on board the Narwhal as well, as Zeke alternates between good will and paranoia, his closest companion an arctic fox he has "civilized" and who sits on his shoulder "like a white epaulet." (Alas, Sabine, like many of the men, is not to survive the journey.) Encounters with the Esquimaux--who might know more about the lost expedition than they're willing to share--not having gone according to plan, Zeke determines in late August to head for Smith Sound rather than home, despite the crew's protests. By mid-September, however, the craft is ice-locked, and it's clear they'll have to "winter over." At first the men make the best of their situation, magically sculpting cottages, castles, palaces, even a whale--and offering informal seminars in butchery, Bible studies, and basic navigation. However, as the weather worsens and Zeke grows increasingly despotic, morale plummets.

Barrett excels in both physical and social description, writing with a naturalist's precision and a passionate imagination. With quick strokes (backed up by intense research), she can fill us in on some sensible but threatening Esquimaux footgear: "All five were dressed in fur jackets and breeches, with high boots made from the leg skins of white bears. The men's feet, Erasmus saw, were sheltered by the bears' feet, with claws protruding like overgrown human toenails. Walking, the men left bear prints on the snow." The author also shines in panoramic scenes--her descriptions of the Arctic can only be called magnificent--and in small, precarious, personal moments. When Erasmus eventually returns to Philadelphia, minus his toes and his future brother-in-law, a grieving Lavinia takes to her bed. Eventually, however, she relents: "Lavinia stared straight ahead. Straight at Erasmus, her right hand tucked in her lap while her left turned a silver spoon back to front, front to back, the reflections melting, re-forming, and melting again.... Lavinia said softly, 'I forgive you.' Everyone knew she was speaking to Erasmus."

The Voyage of the Narwhal is full of blood-freezing surprises, a score of indelible characters, and heart-stopping mysteries. As Erasmus watches Alexandra draw landscapes he has seen before but missed something in, each pencil stroke is "like a chisel held to a cleavage plane: tap, tap, and the rock split into two sharp pieces, the world cracked and spoke to him." Readers of Andrea Barrett's novel will experience this sensation again and again. Packed with harsh truths about the not-always-true art of discovery, it is also among the most emotionally wrenching, subtle works of the century. --Kerry Fried

From Publishers Weekly
Having honed her craft in four previous novels and the NBA-winning short-story collection Ship Fever (1996), Barrett delivers a stunning novel in which a meticulous grasp of historical and natural detail, insight into character and pulse-pounding action are integrated into a dramatic adventure story with deep moral resonance. In Philadelphia in 1855, naturalist Erasmus Darwin Wells?40, unmarried and gripped by a despondent realization that his life is a failure?sees a last chance to make his reputation as he prepares to accompany his future brother-in-law, Zechariah Voorhees, on a voyage to the arctic in search of Sir John Franklin's lost expedition. At 26, Zeke bristles with charisma, and a megalomaniacal sense of his own destiny. But loyal, naive Erasmus doesn't grasp the scope of Zeke's recklessness and blind ambition until Zeke has committed a series of colossal and fatal blunders, subjecting his men to unspeakable privation, hunger, cold and danger. When the crew finally refuses to accompany Zeke on a foolhardy mission and he goes off alone and does not return on schedule, Erasmus is placed in an exquisite dilemma: whether to force the men to gamble on Zeke's unlikely survival as the ice closes in for a second winter, or?as he knows he must do?abandon the ship and begin a harrowing trek over land and water in hope of rescue. Erasmus's eventual return home, where he is scorned by journalists, who accuse him of cowardice, and by his sister, Lavinia, who is bereft of her hopes of marriage, is underscored by further ironies so potent that readers will finish the last third of the book in a fever of anticipation and dread. As Barrett describes the provisioning of the Narwhal, the flora and fauna of the arctic, the turbulent seas and breathtaking scenery, the plot seems slow to develop. But her careful depiction of all the characters?a humane ship's doctor; a cook who survived the Irish famine; and, back in Philadelphia, spirited Alexandra Copeland, whose presence in the Wells household as companion to Lavinia eventually leads to an affecting love story?deepens the narrative texture. Meanwhile, the extremes of both human behavior and nature?looming icebergs, fatal accidents, episodes of heroism, grisly discoveries of lost ships and dead men, the inexorable tyranny of winter darkness?are described with an accuracy that make one forget that this is not a memoir but a work of the imagination. The denouement, when it arrives, is a triumph: a confluence of justice, retribution, spiritual faith, metamorphosis and love. Maps and illustrations. Agent, Wendy Weil; editor, Carol Houk Smith.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In 1855, the Narwhal sets sail on a mission to find Sir John Franklin, lost while exploring the Arctic. On board is timid naturalist Erasmus Wells, whose sister is affianced to the ship's commander, Zeke Voorhees. The Arctic waters may be unforgiving, but they're not nearly as dangerous as Zeke's overriding ambition to make his name by finding Franklin. Barrett puts us on the deck of that ship, letting us feel the fear and the bitter cold; her prose has all the brilliance and heft of a looming iceberg. A novel of 19th-century grandeur that exhibits 20th-century sleekness and control.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Beautiful descriptions of Arctic life. Weak characterization
This is about human endeavour and evil, initially set in the hostilities of the Arctic. The first 2/3 of the book is brilliantly written and researched. The semi-historic descriptions of an ill-fated exploration into the depths of the Arctic is fast-paced. Ms Barrett writes clearly and beautifully. I could envision life in that hostile locale, during all seasons; and almost wanted to be there, too. Normally, I am not a reader of such historic novels. She created excellent suspense, too. The last 1/3 revealed the author's weakness. Despite her extensive research into Esquimaux culture, the story plods to an end. I feel that this is due to her inability to develop characters convincingly. She describes events, geography, climate and "history" wonderfully. Much less convincing are the people central to the story. Most are either weak and without usual human passions, or purely evil. She had difficulty concluding the story that became somewhat ponderous, considering the writing skills well demonstrated at the beginning. Humans and their behavior are not her descriptive strength. I really recommend the book. It was a different reading experience for me. I re-read many paragraphs just to let the prose sink in. She understands and describes great beauty in it's many forms. Her knowledge of evil, fundamental to the story, is more conjectural. Very well done, none-the-less!

A thoughtful, elegant page-turner
A fictional ship, The Narwhal, heads up to Greenland and the Canadian Artic to search for the remains of John Franklin and his crew. It is the mid-1800's. The civil war has not yet begun, and no one knows whether there is an open artic ocean. The story is narrated by Mr. Wells, the ship's naturalist and the commander's future brother-in-law. He is a flawed 19th century gentleman who struggles to reclaim his life and to understand what he has experienced.

This book is a page-turner in the best sense of the word. I stayed up late three nights in a row because I wanted to know what happened. More than that, I felt my own life slip away as I joined the crew of the Narwhal, so convincing was Barrett's portrayal. Isn't that why we read fiction? Perhaps one more reason: to see our world differently when we close the covers. This book satisfies that demand as well.

It is nourishing, thought-provoking and beautifully written. One of the best modern American novels in recent years.

In a word: marvelous.
What do you say about a book this good? Perhaps it's enough to say it can make you want to start reading again. At the end of the twentieth century, it may seem impossible for any writer to return us to the state of mind in which we read as teenagers while still giving us a literary experience that is altogether adult. Or impossible for a work of fiction to be worthy of the glowing reviews that now are thrown, as if in desperation, against any product of the imagination somewhat outranking "The Phantom Menace" in taste and style. Perhaps it will do to say that "The Voyage of the Narwhal" is better than any movie and will probably defeat any effort to film it, uncannily visual though it is. Its reality is not virtual: it does not imitate the truth; it merely provides it, giving us imperfect and believable human characters and dispatching them to their fates in ways which compel us to think deeply about the human need for stories and the lengths to which we will go to furnish ourselves an acceptable life-narrative. While this book will not be to everyone's taste--some will find it anachronistic in its feminist touches and other products of a twentieth-century consciousness; others will be impatient with its earnest, anti-postmodern narrative--those who are gripped by it will not be cheated. It is emotional, but never manipulative; its morality is clear but subtle, with Erasmus Wells never a pure hero or victim, Zeke's evil a product of socially sanctioned immaturity rather than malevolence (like many dictators, he is good with children and animals), and the women and native peoples neither marginalized nor improbably noble. The novel's literary excellence shows a similar sense of balance. The unevenness of "Ship Fever" is replaced by a near-perfect tension between introspection and a narrative that gets on with it; within the boundaries set by this tension, characterization is limited but rich; the prose is gorgeous but tightly controlled. Again, it's not a book for everyone but those who read it will not come out the same. Perhaps the most wonderful gift of all is the promise that Barrett has many more books to write and can only get better and better. BRAVA!!!!!!!