Top 10 Seafaring Tales

The Guardian:

"Given that men have sailed the seas for thousands of years, it's perhaps surprising how few great works of literature have been inspired by the seafaring life. Sailing may have promised adventure, but in reality it was a dangerous profession that attracted only the toughest, few of whom were equipped with a talent for writing. Their yarns remained fixed in the oral tradition, and in general, writers directed their attention elsewhere. But the exceptions are majestic."

Read the whole story: The Guardian

Comments

[uniskywriter]

04:11 PM on 04/15/2010

Carsten Jensen wrote that publishers today would not publish the novel Moby Dick, "I doubt that any contemporary publisher would take on such a vast.....work, if it crossed their desk today.......and how much has been wrecked by a book industry catering to the most conventional taste."

Luckily a lot of good and great books got through before the current state of affairs!

The Marketing of New Literature by Scott Esposito in his blog Conversational Reading has a good explanation on the current state of affairs in publishing:

"The marriage between art and business is always problematic, and you’ve pretty much got to accept that fact...... Nonetheless, what comes across pretty clearly here is that the smart business decision is to not publish anything that doesn’t already fit into a particular market segment", Jan. 13, 2010.

[c-tom]

08:12 PM on 04/14/2010

The little mermaid is great literature? It must have lost a lot in translation.

[BikeFreak]

01:59 PM on 04/14/2010

So it isn't a "seafaring" story, but "The Heart of Darkness" features a ferry journey into Africa.

And I found "Moby Dick" overrated, but the story (and a book was written about it in "In the Heart of the Sea") behind Moby Dick is fascinating.

[wm1066]

11:39 AM on 04/14/2010

"Count Luckner the Sea Devil" by Lowell Thomas is a favorite of mine. And what about "Two Years Before the Mast " by Henry Dana? For a couple of years I was reading all the seafaring tales I could get a hold of and in my art I was painting sailing ships galore, it was a great time in my life. Tai Pan by James Clavel was also good, and "Kon Tiki" was the ultimate seafaring tale.