I've read around 60 pages. I understand what you are saying. The beginning packed a lot of info. Overall I've been captivated by the subject and the way Philbrick describes the information makes it easier to understand the technical whale jargon. I can picture being there on the boat with the whale men. I think maybe I would like
Moby Dick if I read it now because I'd understand it better! It's on my list of books to re-read that I under-appreciated in school.
I'm interested to see if it gets more literary when it shifts to the big event and Philbrick explores the causes for it and the stories of survival. I wonder how in-depth he will cover the themes that he mentioned in the preface.
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Even after I’d read these accounts of the disaster, I wanted to know more. I wondered why the whale had acted as it did, how starvation and dehydration had affected the men’s judgment; what had happened out there? I immersed myself in the documented experiences of other whalemen from the era; I read about cannibalism, survival at sea, the psychology and physiology of starvation, navigation, oceanography, the behavior of sperm whales, the construction of ships—anything that might help me better understand what these men experienced on the wide and unforgiving Pacific Ocean.
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