RaveHarpersAs Deakin sets off, his reader begins to understand how he sees the natural world. Tiny shells are the souls of drowned sailors; every single flower is named. He follows the flight of a bee or dragonfly so that we share its quotidian errands. He considers the eels he swims with. Really considers them ... time expands as he writes it ... he refrains from describing pictures. Instead he averts our glance, makes us look, slowly, at real time ... The remarkable and sad thing about his book is how urgent its concerns remain ... In each body of water, Deakin introduces us to wonderful, marginal characters ... The book is quietly erotic ... His descriptions of swimming are salty and intimate. Throughout its thirty-six chapters, the structure of Waterlog emerges as a river system, where the organizing principle, as it is with water, is gravity.
