RaveThe Guardian... superbly readable ... gives us, in fascinating detail, the stark, bloodstained true story which Melville raided and then rebuilt to his own grandiose poetical specifications in Moby Dick,, yet it never ignores the wider imaginative context - the ingrained, inexplicable superstitions of sea folklore that lend Melville\'s work its atmosphere of predestined moral tragedy ... What\'s impressive about In the Heart of the Sea is its power to suggest that tragedy is what happens when men cannot rise above themselves ... a compelling study of the infinite human meanings of the sea itself.
