![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/ahabs-wife.jpg\" "\\"Ahab's")
<\/a>Ahab’s Wife or, The Star-Gazer\nSena Jeter Naslund<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
<\/strong><\/em>Sena Jeter Naslund took a brief reference in Moby Dick<\/em> mentioning Captain Ahab\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s young wife (and son) and from that seed, she planted and grew herself a transcendent novel.\u00c2\u00a0 What kind of woman could hold up against the magnificent (and stubborn) Captain Ahab?\u00c2\u00a0 If Naslund had asked herself this question, then she easily found her answer in Una. \u00c2\u00a0I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how long I have waited for a heroine like her.\u00c2\u00a0 Reading Ahab\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Wife<\/em> was like swimming through an extraordinary adventure \u00e2\u20ac\u201c constant awe at the strength of Una\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s character, and such pride.\u00c2\u00a0 It takes a woman like Una to brave the storms she faced and to still hold a willingness to live, and allow herself to be happy.\u00c2\u00a0 For the novel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s entirety, you are in the hands of an amazing story-teller.\u00c2\u00a0 The book itself is like a ship: Naslund your captain and Una your first-mate (though sometimes, it may seem to be the other way around).<\/p>\n Our book begins:\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s every bit an adventure as it is a spiritual journey.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Naslund has created a woman who can not only hold up against the infamous Captain Ahab, but who also sees into his innermost being while retaining her own integrity.<\/p>\n Within the first few chapters, Una, struggling under the religious microscope of her father, is sent to live with her aunt, uncle, and young cousin, Frannie, on a remote lighthouse island.\u00c2\u00a0 While Una is living there, the family is visited by two young men, Kit and Giles, who come to change the lens in the lighthouse.\u00c2\u00a0 For me, this is where Una\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story becomes something other than the tale of a young woman.\u00c2\u00a0 Her initial interaction with the men along with her means of socializing reminds us that we are not in the hands of a weak narrator \u00e2\u20ac\u201c she isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t swooned or flirtatious any more than she allows herself to be.\u00c2\u00a0 I love her control, her concentration, and above all else, her compassion.\u00c2\u00a0 I believe that the strongest female characters are not the ones who are susceptible to fate, but those who choose to be vulnerable \u00e2\u20ac\u201c thus claiming their independence.\u00c2\u00a0 They do not experience pain because they are weak; they experience pain because they allow themselves to.<\/p>\n One thing I particularly enjoyed about this novel was the freedom and honesty of the story.\u00c2\u00a0 It is a pet-peeve of mine when (I feel) an author is bending their characters to their will to make their story work, rather than letting the characters be themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 This allows them to make errors that are true to themselves \u00e2\u20ac\u201c rather than ones that are just convenient for the narrative.\u00c2\u00a0 Ahab\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Wife<\/em> gives breathing room to everyone \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I believed in everyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s choices, their actions, and especially their understanding of the human spirit.\u00c2\u00a0 Una is open to the pain and the joy of everything she endeavors.\u00c2\u00a0 I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have asked for a better narrator.<\/p>\n For me, the novel is broken up into the phases of Una\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life.\u00c2\u00a0 We see her chapters from the lighthouse island where she first meets Kit and Giles.\u00c2\u00a0 We follow Una through her turmoil at sea.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We experience her first marriage, we react to her second, and we ultimately witness, however briefly in the novel, her last.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We mourn with her, we rejoice, we bond, we believe, we argue.\u00c2\u00a0 I would say this book was all-encompassing for me.\u00c2\u00a0 Una is my favorite heroine, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think this novel could have been written by any other author or in any other way.<\/p>\n I loved it absolutely, completely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ahab’s Wife or, The Star-Gazer Sena Jeter Naslund Sena Jeter Naslund took a brief reference in Moby Dick mentioning Captain Ahab\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s young wife (and son) and from that seed, she planted and grew herself a transcendent novel.\u00c2\u00a0 What kind of woman could hold up against the magnificent (and stubborn) Captain Ahab?\u00c2\u00a0 If Naslund had asked…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":1086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false},"categories":[98,9,175],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/ahabs-wife.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}