YANKEE WHALERS

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27641, 23 April 1955, Page 3

YANKEE WHALERS

Yankee Whalers in the South Seas. By A. B. C. Whipple. Gollancz. 264 pp. '

In nineteenth century New England whaling was an important industry occupying many of its population and accounting for a vital part of New England economy. Herman Melville immortalised the Nantucket whaleman in “Moby, Dick.’’ “He alone resides and riots on the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to the sea in ships; to and fro plowing it as his own special plantation. There is his home.’’ Mr Whipple has collected here the raw material of “Moby Dick,’’ the adventures of the whaling boats that put out not only from Nantucket but from many other little ports along the New England and Long Island coast. Sometimes the trip was for as long as four or five years. They sailed the whaling grounds until the cry of “there she blows” brought all hands to action stations, and the little boats, a good deal smaller than the whales they chased, put off in pursuit. Their weapons were harpoons and javelins, which seemed like toys in comparison to the size of the quarry. Once the whale was killed and brought alongside there followed the difficult task of dissecting it and boiling it down for oil. The cutting up meant keeping a foothold on the whale’s slippery sides in a choppy sea, knee-deep in grease and blubber; when that was completed the unpleasant business of rendering began. It was no wonder that whaleboat captains often found it difficult to recruit crews and were sometimes driven to subterfuges. Not only was it a lonely and hard life, it was often dangerous. A rogue whale could sink a ship—as it did in the case of the Essex in 1820. It was the story written down by the mate of this ship, who survived after 91 days of starvation in an open boat, when lots were drawn as to who should be killed and eaten, that inspired “Moby Dick.” Sometimes, as in the case of the Globe, the men mutinied. Others just disappeared into the ocean’s remoteness and wfere never heard of again. Mr Whipple tells his stories of the ships and the men who sailed in them vividly, at times perhaps the reader may even find the vigour of his narrative a little overwhelming. Mr Whipple does not paint his colours—he puts them on with a heavy thumb. But at least his narrative never lags, and his book has all the excitement of the chase. What he does not succeed in capturing quite so well is the monotony that must have been far more common and even more deadly than the danger. But for those who like sea stories it is a book that will hold their interest. »

PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE WRITING

Three Men. An Experiment in the Biography of Emotion. By Jean Evans. Introduction by Professor Gordon Allport. Gollancz. 297 pp. Miss Evans has attempted a new form of psychological case writing. She tells the story of the lives and the development of three men who have mentally developed abnormally. Her studies are genuine pieces of psychological investigation; she has had the case histories and the medical and social workers’ histories at her disposal, and she has been in contact with all the people who have had any hand, in treating the cases. But her aim is not to present cases, but people. She tells the “history” as any biography is told. Here is no technical jargon, though there is precision; there is scientific accuracy and at the same time imagination. Miss Evans has the acute sensitivity for detail of an experienced and gifted novelist added to a disciplined power of assessment. Simply as biographies, they are fine pieces of writing and worth reading for their own sake, but they may be even more useful. As Professor Allport suggests in his introduction, “I hope this volume will find its way into classrooms where students are being introduced to the study of childdevelopment and personality—to the study of abnormal psychology and psycho-therapy. The three cases offer precisely the raw material of which each of these fields of study is composed—the principal reason, I think, why these cases are ideal for teaching purposes is that the author imposes a minimum of interpretation.”

THE 1920’S

Mercury Presides. By Daphne Fielding, formerly Marchioness of Bath. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 256 pp. Nothing makes the 1920’s and the “bright young things” seem more dead and remote from us than the books of gossip and reminiscence of the period that appear from time to time. Memoirs and trivia are the raw material of the social historian and the most uneventful recollections can make the most fascinating reading. But it is necessary that the writer should have been interested in what was going on around him and be an interested observer of his setting, however unimportant it might be. The “bright young things,” on the other hand, appear, to judge from the books they write, to have been interested only in themselves and their doings, and moreover to regard themselves with an astonishing seriousness and importance. There is a monotonous sameness about thenbooks—a plentiful use of well-known names, a good deal of uninteresting anecdote about the owners of the names and a good deal about the author. Mrs Fielding posesses rather more wit and a better literary gift than most of her friends, but her book follows much the same pattern. It is on the level of a social gossip column and is for those who find such matter their favourite reading. Those who are interested in the amount of champagne provided on Lady X’s yacht or the fashionable midnight parties of the time will find the book interesting. The chapters on Longleat are an exception to this general criticism. Mrs Fielding’s account of this famous house and of life as it was lived there in its heyday are most interesting.