Ananytical 2 27

I have recently began reading The Perfect Storm written by Sebastian Junger. Though I have not read much of this book so far, I have noticed that the author has a very good way of conveying to the reader what each of the characters are like through his writing. The book starts off describing how, when and where each member of the Andrea Gail fishing vessel gets up in the morning before their hectic and ultimately fatal voyage. The way in which he does this sets the stage for each character amazingly and shows true talent in his literature. Not only does it describe each character individually, but it explains what their whole crew is like as a whole. And, not only that, but what the fishing scene from downtown Gloucester is all about. Each member of the crew goes about their morning a different way according to their situation in life, attitude, and nightly drinking habits only to find themselves in the bars once again before noon, before their voyage. This explains the Gloucester fishing scene very well as it relates to what I have been told.

The crew meets up at the “Crows Nest” bar around 10:30 in the morning. The Crows Nest is known to be one of the rowdiest bars around. To most, just a glance through the door opening the gates into this place is enough to discourage you from entering on any given night, but to these men it can be considered a home. The first deckhand introduced is Bobby Shatford. He wakes up in the morning to a house with empty beer cans and laundry thrown about. He and his attractive wife get into an argument about something ridiculous and he stumbles out with his bloodshot eyes and head pounding from last night's induced hangover. The next crew member, coming from a little bit more civil home with kids and a wife wakes up and makes his way over to the Crows Nest. His wife ends up coming by and a scared look falls upon his face because he doesn’t want her to see him drinking this early. Instead of a violent lecture, she comes in peace just to make sure that he got himself up to get onto the boat for the trip. She still wasn’t thrilled about him drinking though of course. All in all, it seems like just an average day for the three members of the crew as they go about their morning routines. This can be considered as the calm before the storm.

Analytical

The set up of the storm, written by Norman Olstad, is unlike many of the other books that I've read. Instead of a continuous story this book is divided up into the main plot, and some background on Norman's life.these two stories are divided up by chapters. Alternating one by one until the end of the book. I am without a doubt a huge fan of this book, but the interruption of the background story would sometimes aggravate me as a reader because the plot part of the story is very very tense as he is scaling down a mountain during a blizzard by himself. One page would be describing the dissent while and then the next page would be Norman and his mother get him into some basic argument like any mother and child would get into. Eventually the two stories come together but there is no relation between the two besides the fact that The setting part of the story just leads up to the flight that crashed that stranded Norman, his father and soon to be step mom, and a pilot in Californian Rockies. 

It was tough for me to find the purpose behind this format of a book. In other words, I could not figure out what the author was intending. To find this out, I took a step back and thought about the morals and lessons that are described in this book. Strategies like staying calm, trusting your instincts, and using the skills you have down the best to accomplish something are often displayed in the book in both parts of the story. Now, my best guess as to why the author did this was to give the reader a better understanding of how Norman's lifestyle when he was younger shaped him into a person that is capable of handling these sticky situations.