Comments on: Beyond the break: On Surfing and Writing http://cityoftongues.com/2009/02/15/beyond-the-break/ Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:56:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: James Bradley http://cityoftongues.com/2009/02/15/beyond-the-break/#comment-4463 Sat, 29 Oct 2011 05:02:56 +0000 http://cityoftongues.com/?p=828#comment-4463 Thank you, both for liking the book and for writing in the first place. I think you’re absolutely right, both about the connection between the immensity and the loss of the self, and about the way we use risk and fear to make ourselves feel alive, even if we try and find more romantic ways to talk about it. But I also think (as you suggest) that it’s easy to over-romanticise the ocean, or at least to forget how dangerous and violent it is, and experiences like yours are a reminder of that. Certainly it’s interesting the way modern writers tend to talk about the ocean as a life-giving force, in contrast to people who worked on it, or made their living from it, like sailors and fishermen, many of whom seem to have had a much more ambivalent relationship with it (or at least rather more experience with what it can do), and if you look back to pre-20th century depictions of the ocean they tended to be as much about its melancholy and violence as about its timelessness and wonder. And even in a contemporary context it’s difficult to read something like the Langewiesche piece in the Ocean book without feeling a bit uneasy about romanticising the ocean (if you can find a copy of the Langewiesche book it’s fantastic, and very worth reading in its entirety).

But anyway – thank you again: I really appreciate you taking the time to write.

]]> By: Glenn Orgias http://cityoftongues.com/2009/02/15/beyond-the-break/#comment-4462 Sat, 29 Oct 2011 02:48:15 +0000 http://cityoftongues.com/?p=828#comment-4462 An interesting piece, James. Subjects with which I have my own fascination. On the “escape” of surfing, I’d concur that it is related to the fragility of facing the ocean, physically that is. I’ve seen my life flash before my eyes in the surf. I’ve seen the ocean turn blood red. I’ve looked down into ink and seen below a loneliness that I thought would last forever. These were extreme moments, but a similar kind of feeling of “disconnection”, from everyday life, from a businessmans perennial anxieties, is what the ocean can bring about. I mean, its dangerous out there, it adds to the thrill, doesn’t it, admit it? Its the wilderness, a wilderness at the edge of the city, and we alll know that the vast expanse of ocean that we see is only a fractional percentage of the expanse below, and of the “down below” what do we know? I mean, shit, what’s down there.

And, that’s like writing too, isn’t it? I mean, one might get an idea, and this might start a piece of writing, which might lead to an exploration, and may also lead to much crapola (or for some, brilliance) from the imagination to rise up, or become discovered, and one might then have a further realisation there are possibly greath depths to this idea; this is kind of anxiety causing (that is, considering how one might get imagined depths onto a page in an intersting way). And maybe the whole writing process might cause one to stare off into space at regular intervals, and also, perhaps, cause some friends or acquaintences to say, “you know, you seem a bit out of it – a bit disconnected?”

Anyway, I came across this blog after reading a few stories from Penguin Book of the Ocean, and I wanted to say thanks because it has brought to my attention several books that I didn’t know much about (ie, Old Man and the Sea, Lord Jim). Its been a good read. Highly recommended.

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