Shark Drunk - (Vintage Departures) by Morten Stroksnes (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The Lofoten islands in Norway are as isolated and forbidding as they are majestic. In this true story, two friends, the author and the eccentric artist Hugo Aasjord, set out onto the icy waters surrounding the islands. Their quest: to pursue the infamous Greenland shark--a massive creature that can grow to twenty-six feet in length and more than a ton in weight--from a tiny rubber boat. But the shark is not known for its size alone: its meat contains a toxin that, when consumed, has been known to make people drunk and hallucinatory. Together, the two men tackle existential questions, survive the world's most powerful maelstrom, and, yes, get drunk, as they attempt to understand the ocean from every possible angle, drawing on poetry, science, history, ecology, mythology, and their own, sometimes intoxicated, observations.

Review Quotes

"Charming, thoughtful and often hilarious.... Strøksnes has a Sebaldian gift for straying from his themes, then circling back to catch them in ambush." --The Times Literary Supplement (London)

"Strøksnes beautifully describes the midnight sun, majestic fjords and moody stretches of sea...[and] brings a little-known world to life.... A homage to the sea and a call to arms to protect the ecosystem that humans treat so abysmally yet rely on so much." --The Economist

"Melville's Ahab and Hemingway's Old Man spring to mind. . . . Rich and fascinating. . . . Morten Strøksnes's clever trick is to remind us for one last time that the catching of the big fish is the least important part of the story." --The Wall Street Journal

"Utterly engrossing... A triumph... A work of meditation and wonder with a horizon as wide and open as the far Nordic coastlines that [Strøksnes] so beautifully evokes." --The Spectator (London)

"Strøksnes follows his capacious curiosity.... The end result reads a bit as if Geoff Dyer had written 'Jaws.'" --The New York Times

"Its beauty, undemanding science and soothing, musing qualities have made [Shark Drunk] a bestseller in Norway and beyond. In vexed times, gently informative escapism is a winner for publishers and a refuge for readers. Strøksnes nails the appeal." --The Guardian

"Strøksnes's erudition, salty humor, and unfussy prose yield a fresh, engrossing natural history." --Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

"Outré cool . . . [A] chromatic, investigative work . . . There is [a] wonderful radiance [to] these two gents out chasing their curiosity [and] that romantic mingling of terror and beauty, the sublime." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Accomplished Norwegian historian, journalist, and photographer Strøksnes invites readers into the fantastical ocean environment of his quest to capture a Greenland shark. . . Readers will happily devour this smorgasbord of delights." --Kirkus Reviews

"Move over, Ishmael. Move over, Jonah. Move over, Izaak Walton and Norman Maclean. Make room for a fish tale, wry and fantastical, weird and melancholy, that must now take its rightful place among our classic existential stories about the denizens of the deep." --Hampton Sides, author of In the Kingdom of Ice

"The Greenland shark is the bait, but the point is not to catch the fish. Shark Drunk is a phantasmagoric journey, both ultra-vivid and laconic, through the history and natural history of a remarkable region, its teeming seas and tough, resourceful locals. Strøksnes weaves his tale from a dense wool of close observation, fishing yarns, erudition lightly worn, and a helpless, consuming love of the ocean." --William Finnegan, author of Barbarian Days

"A beautifully crafted, slyly funny meditation on friendship, nature, history, literature, and most of all, the sea. That, and a gripping adventure tale about a hunt for a flesh-eating, razor-skinned sea monster. I don't know how Strøksnes makes it work, but he does, brilliantly." --Mitchell Zuckoff, author of 13 Hours

"Gorgeously written and thoroughly addictive. With the open-minded inquisitiveness of Charles Darwin and the obsession of Captain Ahab, Strøksnes heads out to sea, chasing a monster of the deep known as the Greenland shark. Every page feels like a cabinet of curiosities, filled with head-scratching surprises, nuggets of wisdom, and wondrous insights." --Michael Finkel, author of The Stranger in the Woods

"Some great quests defy any logical explanation but by virtue of their whimsical turns lead to unexpected wonder and enlightenment. This is one such quest--it transports us with humor and insight to forbidding coasts and unexplored depths." --Peter Stark, author of Astoria

About the Author

Translated by Tiina Nunnally.