Swimming in Antarctica:Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer
by Lynne Cox
Weidenfeld & Nicolson £18.99, pp336
With the sticky summer nights ahead, this book is sure to cool you down - yet may well raise your blood pressure. And holiday-goers who pride themselves over a little venture into the waves will be put to shame. For this compelling summer read transports us to a black October morning in 1985, the water temperature below freezing, where 27-year-old Lynne is about to swim the Glacia Bay.
'It is cold', she says - the understatement of the year - as she lowers herself into the Alaskan ice soup.
Swimming to Antarctica chronicles the remarkable achievements of a long-distance swimmer from New Hampshire, who aged 14, swam 26 miles from Catalina Island to California. She goes on to break the men's and women's world records across the English Channel, becomes the first woman to swim the 20-mile Cook strait off New Zealand, the Bering strait and the Cape of Good Hope - some of the most treacherous waters in the world.
Lynne's life-long quest to conquer colder and colder waters culminates in her dream swim - to Antarctica. This delightful memoir is more than a testimony of human strength and perseverance. Where other risk-taking books tend to aggrandise human capability, leaving the reader awe-struck yet somewhat deflated, Swimming to Antarctica is less a glorification of the super-hero and more a reflection on the all-too human.
Propelled from one swimathon to the next, the reader barely has chance to come up for air. At times I wanted to shout: 'Stop! Give the swimming a rest!' But for the most part I was swept along by the lure of her 'ventures into the unknown': Lynne escapes a killer shark; swims through flying fish; is escorted 20 miles by dolphins; gets lost in the night fog ... with a steam boat coming her way.
In terms of incident, the book certainly delivers. But what intrigued me most was why on earth she does it. If you're looking for concrete psychological answers (a deprived childhood, lack of love, poverty etc) you would be disappointed. Lynne's psyche remains as opaque as the seas she inhabits. Yet it is precisely for this reason that Swimming to Antarctica is refreshing. Lynne is a natural stoic, a champion of understatement. With her entire body stuck fast against an iceberg, 'it hurt' is about all she can muster. And if the landscape descriptions can sometimes sound like a Christmas card from Granny, this may be forgiven.
In general, the language is spare and terse. Similarly, the slightly grating American optimism - at times verging on the jingoistic (Lynne's swimming is a way of 'bridging cultures', and passing on 'American ideas') - is offset by a self-deprecating humour.
In its exploration into the unfamiliar, both of the self, and of other cultures, Swimming to Antarctica conflates the absurd and the sublime, providing an entertaining yet profound read.
