Ian McGuire’s second novel is an exercise in extremes: extremes of suffering, violence, environment, language and character. It tells the story of Henry Drax and Patrick Sumner, who we first encounter on the streets of Hull in March 1859. The two men have joined the crew of a whaling vessel, the Volunteer, about to set sail for the Arctic captained by one Arthur Brownlee. Brownlee, renowned for his misfortune at sea, has undertaken the expedition with the largely private intention of wrecking the ship in the waters of the north (motivation: insurance money). Drax is party to his secret plan. Sumner, along with most of the rest of the crew, is not.
The two men, Drax and Sumner, have what look like very different sensibilities. The harpooner Drax, a rapist and a murderer, is a terrifying creation: proudly indifferent to the truth (‘Words are just noises in a certain order’), defiantly thoughtless and unreflective (‘He only acts’), and in thrall to death (inflicting it fills him with ‘arousal, a craftsman’s sense of pride’).
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