Just, icky. But train wreck icky where you know it's kind of weird that you want to see what happens, but you are horrified the entire time. That's North Water for ya.
Whaling in the 1800's was perhaps not the most glamorous job. In fact, it was definitely full of violence in killing the whales, in the sicknesses that often occurred, and in this book's case, the evilness that man can be and it's physical and emotional effects on people.
Sumner is a surgeon who is running away from a horror of the war in India. He joins the whaling expedition. Brownlee is the captain who has a secret about the trip, but isn't quite in control as he thinks he is. And Drax is just a bad, bad, bad man, evidenced brutally in the first chapter.
I can honestly say I would never, ever pick up this book on my own. It is nothing like I enjoy, and yet, I can not discredit the amazing writing, or the themes of what is the standard to create good versus evil. I can see why it was a long listed book. But it doesn't want to make me ever read it again. Or go whaling.