Comments on: The Book of the Ocean

By: Verity

Verity — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 03:45:27 +0000

You may well crush the keyboard with your forehead when I suggest this, as the poet is male, and translated from Spanish, but Pablo Neruda is the most astounding writer of the ocean. ‘Ode To The Sea’ (a little obvious), ‘Rapa Nui’ (Easter Island), ‘The Ships’. Evie Wyld’s ‘After the Fire’ holds a few great visits to the ocean, too.

By: Steven Lang

Steven Lang — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:28:12 +0000

James, there’s a remarkable book called ‘the Outlaw Sea’ by William Langewiesche which covers shipping in our time, which might sound as interesting as a stack of containers but is truly fascinating, almost required reading. But then of course there’s Stephen Crane’s story ‘the open boat’ which I heard again recently on the book reading and must be one of the most vivid descriptions of shipwreck…

By: Jack Robertson

Jack Robertson — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 07:18:27 +0000

James, thanks for the graciousness. Never mind my Avatar post, just my usual grandiloquent waffling over-reach. I seem to have caught a rare literary disease in the last few years which requires me to write ‘epistemological’ at least once a day somewhere online.

Looking forward to your next Avatar instalments, if/as domestic obligations permit. (Yikes, I have only the three year old, and that’s pram enough in my hall – AKA, convenient male excuse for procrastination). I’ve always enjoyed immensely what you have to write on the big shifts underway, invisible under our very noses. And your blogroll link to the great Kevin Kelly is a kind of secret sign; a discrete shingle heralding your prescient purchase of the local franchise rights, even!

By: Barbara

Barbara — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 05:39:19 +0000

This is a northern waters one … One of the most impressive books about the ocean that I’ve read in recent years is The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger. Apart from the dramatic story of the creation and duration of the storm, and the human element, I loved the “science” (for wont of a better word) of the making of waves, and the way Junger filled in the gaps in the factual story from imagination.

By: James Bradley

James Bradley — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 03:09:00 +0000

It’s funny, isn’t it? Our idea of the ocean and wilderness in general is inextricably tangled up with the Romantics, but despite that there is a sense that both are places where language runs out, and you start grasping for superlatives, or lapsing into silence, rather as Lopez does in that wonderful scene of bowing to the bay at the end of Arctic Dreams.

By: James Bradley

James Bradley — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 03:01:23 +0000

Ahh, Jack, if typing before you think was a crime I’d be a lifer. But good call on Delia’s story and her work in general. And thanks again to everybody who’s made suggestions. Probably unsurprisingly, many of them are things I’ve already thought of (something which is actually reassuring in a way) but a number aren’t, and I’ll be checking them out. Sorry if it sounds like I’m being coy about which is which, but since I’m still in the process of doing permissions I don’t want to preempt a piece I don’t have locked down yet by saying it’s in or out. One exception might be Cousteau, who I read, then excluded on the grounds it was in French, but David’s comment sent me back to it and I’m delighted to discover it was actually written in English. So thank you.

And if I could just say I think the best moment in all this has been reading Rebecca’s suggestion about the Shoemaker collection and my story in it. Hilariously I’d completely forgotten that story existed, which doesn’t say much for my skills as an anthologist: overlooking someone else’s writing on the subject is one thing, overlooking your own is another altogether, I think. (FWIW I don’t think I’ll use it).

So thank you everyone, and please, keep the suggestions coming.

ps Jack – sorry I haven’t replied to your comment on my Avatar post. I wanted to say something sensible but it’s been such a nightmarish week (small baby, 3yo and loads of work do not mix well) I haven’t had a chance. But thanks – it was appreciated.

By: Jack Robertson

Jack Robertson — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:07:18 +0000

‘Giggs’, pardon me. And now I’ll slink off back to Hicksville…

By: Jack Robertson

Jack Robertson — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:05:12 +0000

OK, so having read the thread properly I feel like my (usual) twit. ‘Pologies to you (and Rebecca Griggs) for the redundancy. Too-earnest DF fan, s’all.

By: Jack Robertson

Jack Robertson — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 01:57:43 +0000

Possibly not quite literal enough to be of use, but Delia Falconer writes about water with unforgettable lyricism and unsettling…um, sensibility, mystery, I dunno, something. I’m struggling a bit to remember titles – pardon my gaps and bad memory, there’s only a few links online quickly accessible – but aside from the innate fluidity of her style a short story like The Water Poets might sneak in? Even more unhelpfully, probably…the first DF thing I ever read, which I think won her a short story award, perhaps way back in the early nineties, sticks in my mind as being..well, oceanic. Can’t say how literally so that was either; I just remember some lines were pure ‘ocean’, all looping, dreamy, fertile, slick, wet, salty…my memory of it could be too vague and/or incongruous to be of any use; could be you’re way ahead of me re: DF, anyway (and much better read). But I do hope you’ve found space for her work/a piece that fits the theme. Even writing about the arid mid-West she brings to mind the topic at hand, somehow.

More prosaically, Malcolm Knox has done some top stuff on surfing recently – even better, I reckon, that Winton. But somehow I doubt you’ve had any probs finding blokey, chin-strokey, (mmm…hokey!?) prose about wax worship to consider…!

Good luck with it, James, it sounds wonderful.

By: Chuck Norris

Chuck Norris — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 13:33:07 +0000

Storm Boy?