Books of the Sea

william kent

Well-known member
Melville and Conrad probably the big hitters, Luke's beloved Patrick O'Brian's another. Under the Volcano gets all the plaudits, but Lowry was also a sailor and set his first novel, Ultramarine, at sea.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Golding did a trilogy of nautical novels, which I've not read, although I have seen a TV adaptation of them featuring Benedict cumberbatch


A Wizard of Earthsea isn't quite the same thing but there is a lot of sailing in it

There was that recent novel about whale hunting and cabin boy rape which was adapted for BBC too
 

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O9A INSIGHT ROLE
B.S. Johnson's Trawl

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The skipper does not endorse my enthusiasm for the catch, even though it is larger than the two I saw yesterday. I begin to understand him as a professional pessimist, I begin to wonder what size the cod-end would have to be to draw enthusiasm from him, to raise him from the set anxiety shown in his eyes. His dedication since we started fishing is complete. It would be too much to say he is a different man from when we were on passage, but certainly he now has little time for conversation, or anything but searching for fish.

3 weeks of stream of consciousness on a trawler, dredging up memories of failed relationships, etc
 

DLaurent

Well-known member
It ain't really the sea as it's on an desert island, but similar, Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell. One of my favourites.
 

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O9A INSIGHT ROLE
Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle

A massive, sprawling affair where I learnt, and promptly forgot, more than I ever needed to know about coinage, promissory notes, the origins of capitalism and fiat, the grisly experiments of the Royal Society, the feud between Newton and Leibniz, Alchemy, non-conformism, tantric techniques involving prostrate massage, the great fire of London, condoms made of sheep intestines, the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment, symbolic logic, the bloodlines of the rulers of 17th century Europe, etc.,

but huge chunks of the text involve various journeys by sea, naval battles instigated by privateers, capture by Barbary pirates, a heist intercepting Spanish gold* from the ships conveying it from the New world, the Pirate Queen Kottakka and her predilections, etc.,

*maybe it was SOLOMON'S gold! In Alchemy that is important, especially when it involves the Trial of the Pyx

not advertised as a "book of the sea" and there is much else in it's 3000+ pages, but it is a seafaring novel for what seems about a 1000 of those

not sure I can recommend it unless you are prepared for a massive "nerd out"

edit: a sort of prequel to Cryptonomicon, a book which had its origins in a article about undersea cabling for data transfer
 

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
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i love fish so much. the fish that swims but also the fish that is wrapped in a newspaper. i love fisherman as well, the paradigmatic ones, with big white beards and who are men of few words. the book is about such a fisherman, his love for dolphins, about the sea of marmara.
 
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