RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR by Philip Hoare review - a love of the sea

In the third of a remarkable trilogy, Hoare tells stories of people and water, from Sylvia Plath's love of the Atlantic to submariners trapped in an air pocketA storm sends waves as tall as houses rushing up a beach near Southampton. They breach the sea wall, pushing aside blocks of stone. Spray reaches the tops of trees. Philip Hoare, faced with flying shingle and a wall of water, decides after some consideration not to take his morning swim. But the following day he is out in the water amid floating doors and tree trunks. He swims every day if he can. Anxiety builds up if he is not sure how he can get his daily fix. He swims with sperm whales. Deep down, one twists to look up at him. To hear the song of a nearby humpback whale, he hangs upside-down in the water, imitating the whale's posture. His body throbs with the sound. In harbour waters, he touches a huge seal, its back green with algae. At Cape Cod, he swims as the air drops to minus 20. In Bantry Bay, clouds of jellyfish surround him, and he swims into them, feeling their stings as tiny penetrating caresses.Leviathan, published in 2008, established Hoare as a leading writer about the ocean and its creatures. That book moves between Hoare's love of whales, their place in industrial history and the western imagination, and his encounters with them in the water. Like many "new nature writers", Hoare entwines genres that have traditionally been separate. His books mix personal memoir with science, history, cultural commentary and poetic description. It is a method that recognises our need, in this time of ecological crisis, for bridges between the immediate stories of our personal lives and the great processes described by scientists. How can the two connect? Continue reading...