Todhunter at times misplaces his fear, though his artful talent for describing the telling moments in extreme sports, as...
Top-draw extreme sports writing from Todhunter (Fall of the Phantom Lord, 1998), unadorned and vital and appealingly decorous.
This collection of magazine pieces, mostly drawn from The Atlantic Monthly, showcases Todhunter's talents as a chronicler of extreme sports—some of which he partakes of himself. Although the author now has a family to bevel his more flamboyantly dangerous sporting appetites, that doesn't deter him from a short, roped free fall off a cliff or hairy icefall ascents—but he draws the line at storm kayaking in the Pacific off northern California. He writes without bravado, without false modesty or striking poses. He is simply fascinated (bewitched, maybe) by dangerous sports, by what motivates people to engage in them. But there are no clear answers to the question of his own motivation, and just disturbing intuitions: about the aesthetics of danger, or regarding his convictions that some climbs are "worth dying for," that "the wisdom of timidity reeks so powerfully of death." There is a passion for the genuine, whether that is winter climbing in the Scottish Highlands, which still feels a grizzled affair best done in hobnailed boots, or if a chainsaw is worth the price: "that what relieves us of our labor removes us from our lives. We grow more frail and dim-witted with each invention that outstrips us." The best piece of all concerns an activity made of magic rather than stark terror. It happens on—make that in—a frozen lake: Todhunter and a friend are ice diving and have inflated their suits so the buoyancy allows them to stand on the under-surface of the ice. They are tethered to tenders by a long rope a good distance away from the entry hole. The tenders start to pull: "The lines go taut and we begin to move, gaining speed. Howling through our regulators, we ski upside down across the ice."
Todhunter at times misplaces his fear, though his artful talent for describing the telling moments in extreme sports, as well as their often-otherworldly settings, is everywhere.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2000
ISBN: 0-385-48643-X
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
While the author may attempt to mirror this ideal, the result is less than satisfying and more than a little irritating.
A disjointed debut memoir about how competitive swimming shaped the personal and artistic sensibilities of a respected illustrator.
Through a series of vignettes, paintings and photographs that often have no sequential relationship to each other, Shapton (The Native Trees of Canada, 2010, etc.) depicts her intense relationship to all aspects of swimming: pools, water, races and even bathing suits. The author trained competitively throughout her adolescence, yet however much she loved racing, “the idea of fastest, of number one, of the Olympics, didn’t motivate me.” In 1988 and again in 1992, she qualified for the Olympic trials but never went further. Soon afterward, Shapton gave up competition, but she never quite ended her relationship to swimming. Almost 20 years later, she writes, “I dream about swimming at least three nights a week.” Her recollections are equally saturated with stories that somehow involve the act of swimming. When she speaks of her family, it is less in terms of who they are as individuals and more in context of how they were involved in her life as a competitive swimmer. When she describes her adult life—which she often reveals in disconnected fragments—it is in ways that sometimes seem totally random. If she remembers the day before her wedding, for example, it is because she couldn't find a bathing suit to wear in her hotel pool. Her watery obsession also defines her view of her chosen profession, art. At one point, Shapton recalls a documentary about Olympian Michael Phelps and draws the parallel that art, like great athleticism, is as “serene in aspect” as it is “incomprehensible.”
While the author may attempt to mirror this ideal, the result is less than satisfying and more than a little irritating.Pub Date: July 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-15817-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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