Coasting

Its not often that someone buys you a present that is, 'just what the doctor ordered', a perfect gift that is savoured for each evocative sentence, marvelled at for the crafted nature of the writing.  I  think it reflects much of me in that it glorify's the pleasure of being a loner, looking in, observing yet not quite wanting to join. This sort of knowledge can only come from someone who has taken the time to observe and learn, in essence someone who loves me for who I am. 

The book, it had to be a book, is by Jonathan Raban and is called Coasting. Its a tale of travelling around the coast of  Britain in a small boat but its not a book about sailing its a book about a man's relationship with the country he is circumnavigating, its about his observing from a distance of a mile or two the island he grew up in and of the idiosyncrasies of the people living there. 

Its sad in that it charts change. Change from a product that had intrinsic value to one that has become more of a Theme Park of fakery than a country of substance. The book is not nostalgic rather it is deeply factual in a relatively cheerful way. Behind every lace curtain there is a tale to tell a life to read in the tea-leaf, adjustments made, responsibilities honoured and dreams as yet to be hatched. 

His rich descriptions of living on the turn of the tide and the constant attention to the weather forecast, the

myriad vagrancies of the sea and the wind, the snug shelter of a harbour cove whilst the storm blew over to reveal,  a hundred yds away a land of complacency where life was taken care of by the State and recourse to sue. 

The self imposed isolation of societies who, for protection from ridicule and exploitation put up near impenetrable  walls. 

Raised the son of a vicar in itself isolated him other children with moves from parish to parish, the vicarage a remote, large house, under maintained and rarely visited by people other than from the dwindling congregation. He delves deeply into the physic of the people living on the Isle of Man. Their term for anyone not a Manx man, "Comeovers" says it all and its this self imposed isolationism that people erect in their defences which makes the grim bearable ! 

His description of the boat, his environment, a world outside the bustle and indifference of those living on the land played many sympathetic cord in my ear. The boat (pre Copernicus) was standing still, the land its self moving slowly to Port on its own journey, a separate existence from the observer who revelled in his isolation.