BookBrowse Reviews Underwater to Get Out of the Rain by Trevor Norton

BookBrowse:

A delighful ramble around the shores and shallows of the seas.

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From the Jacket: On a hot summer's day there could be no quicker transport to the seaside than Trevor Norton's cool and entrancing account of a lifetime's adventures under or near the water. Norton's eye for the bizarre, amazing, and beautiful inhabitants of the oceans, and the eccentric characters who work, study, and live by the shore make his book a wonder-filled experience. An intrepid diver and distinguished scientist, Norton's writing is self-deprecating, very funny, and full of wry and intriguing anecdotes; he is an unfailingly delightful companion. Whether his setting is a bed of jewel anemones in an Irish lough, a giant California cavern shared with sea lions, a mildewed research station, or the glittering coral gardens of Sharm el Sheikh, his captivating prose always finds the mark. Sometimes following the shoreline with earlier beachcombers such as Darwin, John Steinbeck, and George Orwell, Norton also takes the reader to depths where the shapes of creatures living without sunlight defy imagination. Admirers of the gorgeous detail of Rachel Carson's The Sea Around Us will revel in Norton's writing, his observations, and irreverent wit.

Comment: Underwater to Get Out of the Rain is a gentle, amusing and informative read but it is a little misleading to call it autobiographical as the flow of the book is only loosely connected to the events in Norton's life, with significant life moments providing jumping off points for enjoyable tangents. 

It is these tangents that are the charm, and ultimately the weakness, of the book. They vary from minutiae such as how and why snail slime works so well, to broader topics such as global warming, over-fishing, famous divers he has known, and the effect of the moon (did you know that a cruise liner is approximately 7 pounds lighter when the moon is overhead?).

Despite Norton's wit and encyclopedic knowledge, after a while the rambling takes on the feel of a "brain dump" rather than a well-structured book, and teeters into self-indulgence towards the end. The saving grace is Norton's deep and profound love of the sea which shines clearly on every page, which is enough to amply redeem Underwater To Get Out of The Rain from its arguable faults.

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in June 2006, and has been updated for the June 2007 edition. Click here to go to this issue.