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Romancing the book with Nathaniel Philbrick
by
Mim Harrison
"Reading and romance have always gone hand
in hand in our household," says Nathaniel Philbrick. It was through books
that he and his future wife pursued their college romance. "We spent a lot
of time in the library, and we were always writing notes to each other in
the margins of our various books," he confesses. (Editor's note: in the
interest of love, we ask that no librarians report the infraction.)
Nathaniel remains a marginaliaist,
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As college sweethearts, part of the
Philbricks' courtship was writing notes to each other in the margins
of their books. | though not for romantic
reasons. Instead, "it sometimes feels like a conversation with the
author."
As a child he was surrounded by
books, thanks to a father who was an English professor and a mother who
also was a teacher. "It always seemed like that was how you were supposed
to spend your day—reading," he says. All the more surprising, then, that
he says he was not an early reader, waiting until the second grade before
he took the plunge, and until the fifth before he was swept away.
(Fittingly for this historian of New England, the book was Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes.)
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"I can open Moby-Dick almost anywhere and become lost in it. It's a kind of
bible for me."
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It was his
senior year in high school that would prove to be his defining moment as
both a reader and future writer. That was when he first encountered
Moby-Dick.
Years
later, Nathaniel Philbrick would come to write In the Heart of the Sea.
The book chronicled the fate of the Nantucket whaling ship Essex, whose
disastrous end inspired the story of Moby-Dick. The book netted him the 2000
National Book Award in nonfiction. From the landlocked Pittsburgh of
his childhood he would come to call Nantucket his home, becoming one of
the leading historians of the island as well as a champion sailboat racer.
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"From the time of the Mayflower, Americans have been readers. The Puritans read
their bibles with passion and real yearning."
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whale. Nathaniel returns to Moby-Dick like a sailor to the sea. "It's a
kind of bible for me," he says. "I can open it almost anywhere and become
lost in it. It's such a big and sprawling book that the story of the Essex
is really just a small part of it."
Reading,
it turns out, actually played a large part in America's Puritan
beginnings. In researching his bestselling history Mayflower, Nathaniel
discovered that the Pilgrims set great store by the written word. "Even
someone like Miles Standish, the colony's military officer, was very well
read," he says.
Asked if he sees a
connection between America's first readers and what Americans read today,
Nathaniel offers this observation: "The Puritans felt the best way to
access God was through the Bible—reading was essential to their religious
beliefs, and they read their bibles with passion and real yearning. I don't
know how alive that tradition is today, but I'd like to think the fire
still burns."
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Nathaniel Philbrick was a speaker at the Books &
Books at Levenger author series on June 5, 2006. His most recent book is
Mayflower (Viking Penguin).
Mim Harrison is the founding editor of
Levenger Press and the author of Spoken Like a Pro.
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