This book deserves to become a classic. Waterlog is a vivid and
sensual record of one man's immersion in the looking-glass world of
Britain's waters, rivers, seas, lidos and locks; Deakin tastes them
all in a private quest born from a daily swim in his Suffolk moat.
Reflections on otters, the history of spas, the degradation of our
chalk stream or birth of the crawl stroke - this is a brilliant and
peculiar compelling catch-all, beaded with the moisture of the
author's physical and psychological journey. A solitary as well as
a natural subversive, vaulting private fishing fences and arguing
with water bailifs in his bid to swim wild in a country devoted to
denying such basic rights, Deakin's human encounters nevertheless
remain as memorable as his watery ones. In liquid but never gushing
prose, he plunges us time and again into icy, galvanizing currents,
emerging on the knife-edge between aching and glowing. The book is
also a discreetly impassioned plea for a change in our literally
poisonous attitude towards Britain's waters, replete with health
warning signs, chemical run-offs and sewage. Yet the ecology is
never preaching; Deakin is all for the anachic flow and joie de
vivre of a tumbling burn, as witnessed in the memorable scene of
leather-clad Hell's Angels leaping off a vertiginous bridge into
the lovely River Lune. If you don't yet know that the nearest thing
to heaven is skinny-dipping in a cold, clean river, then read this
book. It's about as invigorating too. Review by ADAM THORPE (Kirkus
UK)
Roger Deakin set out in 1996 to swim through the British Isles. The result a uniquely personal view of an island race and a people with a deep affinity for water. From the sea, from rock pools, from rivers and streams, tarns, lakes, lochs, ponds, lidos, swimming pools and spas, from fens, dykes, moats, aqueducts, waterfalls, flooded quarries, even canals, Deakin gains a fascinating perspective on modern Britain. Detained by water bailiffs in Winchester, intercepted in the Fowey estuary by coastguards, mistaken for a suicude on Camber sands, confronting the Corryvreckan whirlpool in the Hebrides, he discovers just how much of an outsider the native swimmer is to his landlocked, fully-dressed fellow citizens. Encompassing cultural history, autobiography, travel writing and atural history, Waterlog isa personal journey, a bold assertion of the native swimmer's right to roam, and an unforgettable celebration of the magic of water.
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