There She Blows! Or, The Log of the Arethusa — Themes and Context

Logbook Structure and Movement

The book’s chapter titles trace a literal voyage: “From Peck Slip to Nantucket Bar,” “In and Out over the Bar,” “From the Bar Round Great Point,” and so on. Each chapter functions as a log entry, anchored to a specific location or event. The narrative moves steadily westward—from the Western Islands to the Falklands, Juan Fernandez, the Marquesas, and Japan—before turning homeward. This geographic progression gives the episodic incidents a coherent trajectory, even when individual chapters focus on self-contained set pieces like a bill-fish attack or a prisoner escape.

Recurring Images: The Bill-Fish and the Ship’s Bow

A striking episode in Chapter XIV involves a bill-fish that impales itself on the ship’s bow while chasing bonitas. The fish’s bill breaks off “short up to his head,” and the crew speculates it may “caulk its own” hole. This image recurs thematically: the ship as a vessel that both receives and deflects violent impacts. Earlier, the author describes bonitas “gambolling ahead” of the ship, and the bill-fish’s attack is a sudden, almost suicidal collision. Such moments of abrupt physical contact—whale strikes, boat launches, man-overboard alarms—punctuate the log’s steady rhythm of sailing and processing.

Voice and Prejudice in Dialogue

The narrator’s voice is matter-of-fact, but the dialogue of characters like Jeff reveals sharp prejudices. Jeff, a sailor, recounts being betrayed by a “Cholo” who sold him for a bounty, concluding: “Gi’me white or black, I say; for where you mix ’em, you spile two good things.” This line, delivered with a “greenish kind of blush,” exemplifies how the book embeds racial attitudes within casual seafaring talk. The author does not comment on these views; they are presented as part of the “real characters” he claims to depict. The reader must weigh such moments against the narrator’s own observations.

Scene Shifts and the Log’s Gaps

The narrative often jumps between scenes with minimal transition: “Down the coasts of Chili and Peru we pursued our voyage, and then off-shore among the Galapagos.” These shifts mirror the logbook format, where weeks or months may pass between entries. The author acknowledges this by noting “No incident of note occurred during this pleasant cruise” before introducing a new event. This selective reporting means the reader experiences only the highlights—whale catches, near-disasters, encounters with other ships—while the long, uneventful stretches remain implied. The structure thus emphasizes the dramatic peaks of whaling life.

Readers should approach There She Blows! as a curated log rather than a continuous novel. The author’s blindness, mentioned in the preface, lends weight to his claim of recording “real incidents.” Pay attention to how the narrator’s voice shifts between observation and reported dialogue, and how the ship’s movement from port to port organizes the episodic material. The book rewards those who read for specific, vivid moments rather than overarching plot.

The rain drummed on the windows that day, and I remember losing myself in the logbook of the Arethusa, feeling the salt spray between those blind captain’s lines. That search for something beyond the horizon stayed with me, so I found myself, almost without thinking, drifting toward The Strange Voyage and Adventures of Domingo Gonsales, to the World in the Moon — Context and Discussion, another journey just as improbable, yet somehow just as real.