Chris reviewed How to read water by Tristan Gooley
None
4 stars
How To Read Water starts you off with small streams like those that are found even here in this outer London suburb, and puddles, and the way you can tell the presence of a river by the vegetation; and otters taking shortcuts across land to go upstream (because why not), and proceeds to the big rivers and their currents and pools and the holes where kayakers get into trouble; and the tales of sailors who could tell the presence of an oncoming reef in the dark by the sound the ship was making. And to the really big stuff, the nature of waves (TS Eliot's line "I have seen them riding seaward on the waves" is still nonsensical to me and I see no reason to change my mind about it from reading this. Waves do not go seaward. Waves, in a way, don't even go.)
The feats of …
How To Read Water starts you off with small streams like those that are found even here in this outer London suburb, and puddles, and the way you can tell the presence of a river by the vegetation; and otters taking shortcuts across land to go upstream (because why not), and proceeds to the big rivers and their currents and pools and the holes where kayakers get into trouble; and the tales of sailors who could tell the presence of an oncoming reef in the dark by the sound the ship was making. And to the really big stuff, the nature of waves (TS Eliot's line "I have seen them riding seaward on the waves" is still nonsensical to me and I see no reason to change my mind about it from reading this. Waves do not go seaward. Waves, in a way, don't even go.)
The feats of Pacific navigators abound - without cliffy islands to head for they had to find other ways of knowing where the land was - the presence of birds, and the gathering of clouds, yes, but these were things even I knew and the navigators knew more. Some men claimed they could feel it in their cojones (am I allowed to suggest that Tristan, a navigator and airman himself, the only living person to have both flown and sailed the Atlantic solo, feels it in his Gooleys?).
The book also comes alive when he is describing his adventures around the Gulf on local boats and I could have done with more than that but I think he has made more of that elsewhere. Reminded me of Gavin Young at times which is no bad thing. Gooley is a proponent of Natural Navigation, guiding yourself by the landscape around you.
It's also appropriate that I'm writing this just before Easter because the significance of an Easter Tide is now known to me - the highest tides occur at full moon (spring tides) and highest of all at the equinoctes. Easter is the first full moon after the Spring Equinox in the northern Hemisphere. The tides will be something big. (and is this why the Universities Boat Race is held just before Easter, I wonder - big high tides and so lots of water guaranteed?).
I read some of this book on a train journey to Basingstoke, and while at my destination I followed the path of an old canal through a park, far away from the concrete and traffic that sadly characterises that town. Didn't quite put my ear to the ground listening for water although there are places that could happen - the River Rea travelling under Fazeley Street in Birmingham or the Fleet glimpsed through a drain under Clerkenwell in London (both former Italian districts, which is a coincidence but nothing more I suspect). On the way home I watched for the rust colour of lichen on roofs facing south.
This was a very enjoyable read and may add much to my experience of this river-threaded part of the world.
