Shark Drunk, Morten Stroksnes
Shark Drunk, Morten Stroksnes
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Shark Drunk
The Art of Catching a Large Shark from a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean

Author: Morten Stroksnes

Narrator: P.J. Ochlan

Unabridged: 10 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/27/2017


Synopsis

A salty story of friendship, adventure, and the explosive life that teems beneath the ocean
 
The Lofoten archipelago, just North of the Arctic Circle, is a place of unsurpassed beauty—the skyline spikes with dramatic peaks; the radiant greens and purples of the Northern Lights follow summers where the sun never sets. It’s a place of small villages, where the art of fishing, though evolving, is still practiced in traditional ways.

Beneath the great depths surrounding these islands lurks the infamous Greenland shark. At twenty-four feet in length and weighing more than a ton, it is truly a beast to behold. But the shark is not known just for its size: Its meat contains a toxin that, when consumed, has been known to make people drunk and hallucinatory. Shark Drunk is the true story of two friends, the author and the eccentric artist Hugo Aasjord, as they embark on a wild pursuit of the famed creature—all from a tiny rubber boat.

Together they tackle existential questions and encounter the world’s most powerful maelstrom as they attempt to understand the ocean from every possible angle, drawing on poetry, science, history, ecology, mythology, and their own—sometimes intoxicated—observations, meanwhile pursuing the elusive Greenland shark. By turns thrilling, wise, and hilarious, Shark Drunk is a celebration of adventure, marine life, and, above all, friendship.

Winner of the Norwegian Brage Prize 2015
Winner of the Norwegian Critics’ Prize for Literature 2015
Winner of the Norwegian Reine Ord Prize at Lofoten International Literature Festival 2016

About The Author

MORTEN STRØKSNES is a Norwegian journalist and writer. He has published eight critically acclaimed books of literary reportage and contributed to several others.Translated by Tiina Nunnally.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Alessia on October 27, 2018

Confessione: non ho mai letto Moby Dick. Non ho mai pensato che i libri sulle grandi avventure uomo/mare fossero il mio. Sarà che soffro il mal di mare un sacco? Sarà che proprio io e la pesca non ci prendiamo? Eppure ho dato una possibilità a questo romanzo, consigliatomi da più parti. Gente della q......more

Goodreads review by Jennifer on July 07, 2017

Shark Drunk: The Art of Catching a Large Shark from a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean was quite the pleasant surprise. I thought 8+ hours of audiobook was a bit long to listen about someone catching a shark but this endeavor is only the background music to what ended up being a plethora of perspec......more

Goodreads review by Mosco on October 01, 2017

Dove si incontrano lontre e balene, foche e merluzzi; tempeste e bonacce, lunghi giorni e lunghe notti; orche e capodogli, barchette e barconi, pescatori e devastatori. Natura meravigliosa e spesso violenta e inquinamento. Interessi, affari sporchi, sgombri, plastica, puzza di pesce, buoi marci, ari......more

Goodreads review by Giò on August 30, 2017

Animali fantastici e dove trovarli Due uomini in barca nel Mar di Norvegia e l'arte di collezionare squali della Groenlandia. Ispirato da (e non ho scritto di proposito ispirato a, perché non è una scopiazzatura) Hemingway, Melville, Verne, Defoe, Stevenson e molti altri, l'autore racconta la storia......more

Goodreads review by julia on January 02, 2022

2.25 Stars. This was a total cover and title buy, which proved to be not my best decision all in all. I struggled with the whole idea of this book and really, that there was not a whole lot of plot. Honestly, to me this read more like a small encyclopedia covering the oceans and, in particular, the N......more


Quotes

“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
 
“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
“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

“An epic fishing trip reels in fascinating sea lore in this briny eco-adventure. . . .  The author ponders everything related to the ocean, including bizarre luminous squids of the inky depths, frolicking orca pods and sperm whales, ancient disquisitions on maritime monsters, flinty islanders who live off the sea, and the close, testy relationships between fishing friends. Strøksnes’s erudition, salty humor, and unfussy prose yield a fresh, engrossing natural history.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“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