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A Book We’re Reading: The North Water

Mike Jennings by Mike Jennings
5 years ago
in News, Uncategorized
0
A Book We’re Reading: The North Water
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I finished a book on the plane the last time I was visiting home. Satisfying, but then left empty-handed. So I scoured my big brother’s old bookshelf for something to read over the following days that I’d be pottering around the house I grew up in. My brother, noticing what I was doing, threw me this: The North Water by Ian McGuire. It was wrapped in contact and had the stamp of his local library. “No go, then,” I thought, seeing as I was only home for a couple of days, and I’m no speedreader.

“Trust me, man,” my brother said, “Read that one, you’ll smash through it easy.”

And so I did. And he was right. And holy shit am I glad for it.

Brutal. That’s the word for this novel – a sickly, hard to put down story of a 19th century arctic whaling expedition doomed from the outset and told through the eyes and conscience of the ship’s drug addicted surgeon, Irishman Patrick Sumner. The writing rips off the pages with lucid violence to make a classic in the vain of Moby Dick and Heart of Darkness but with the unsettling savagery of American Psycho and the suspense of the sort of thrillers that litter airport book shops. It’s the kind of book that disgusts you, but with prose so good you just have to recommend it to all your friends. It also features one of the best villain characters you’ll ever come across in literature, Henry Drax. Oh dear oh dear, that Henry Drax… a true monster if ever there was one.

I’d text my brother as I was flying through the chapters, just one word and a couple of dots, “Drax…” To which he’d reply, “Fucken Drax!”

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Tags: BookIan McGuireNew York TimesThe North Water
  • From SW417… “You Can’t Kill An Idea… and the floods started our minds flowing” by @jedaum_smith.

“When compassion is your compass, everything is so simple. The only question is how can I help? And the answer always comes swiftly. There is no room for ego in a mass upwelling of service and selflessness. When everyone pulls in the same direction, it becomes an unstoppable force of its own and you realise beyond any doubt, feel in every cell of your body, what the true meaning of life is, what is really possible, and what governments the world over are so desperate to keep secret. That they are little more than an obstruction to the people’s potential to build utopia. That compassion and community are the currency, not cash. That the best outfit is the one caked in mud. That the best gift is love and kindness. That the best job is the most meaningful one. And the most meaningful one is that which has an immediate and tangible benefit for those around you. That materialism is no match for mateship. That consumerism is nothing compared to community. That contentment is camaraderie and shared experience. That the people united will never be defeated. That people power is the world’s greatest resource. That politicians are parasites, centralised government is an abject failure, and revolution is simply communities taking responsibility for themselves. Don’t wait for someone to the job for you. Change comes from the grassroots and moves up, not the other way round.”

📷 @nataliegrono
  • Something special to open SW417. @deandampney spent the day with the legendary Ray ‘Gus’ Ardler, one of the original local Wreck Bay surfers. Ray recalls the early days of his mob paddling out and surfing Aussie Pipe. 

“It’s just Pipe. It was a dream come true for a lot of us. Because, you know, we’d see all these other guys come out, come down and go out, surfers. And we’d just sit down and dream of surfing the spot and having enough guts to get out there and try it. We lost a few brothers along the way. Every time I go out there, I sit in the cemetery, and I sit beside my mum and just look across the point. Because every time I look across the point I can see us all in the water enjoying ourselves. We’d laugh out there and carry on like lunatics.”

SW417 opens with “This is us. This is our spot. Why wouldn’t we wanna surf it!” with photos by the equally legendary @mick_mccormack 

SW417 on sale now, link in bio.
  • Antediluvian: we had to divide SW417 into two halves… before the floods and after the floods. Half the mag is green, half is brown. This was @mikeywright69 before the floods at Kirra, shot by @joshbystrom. The mag’s on sale now… get out and support independent surf culture.
  • From SW417, “Whatever You Want, Your Way: Life With Noa Deane.” by Nick Gibbs @mrfunpig 

@ilovetables: “I’m riding a lot of waves that are kind of boog waves so I see a lot of what they’re doing – mostly just surfing five hours until they’re so torched, eating a can of tuna and bolting to the next spot. They go ‘til they can’t, just living on tinned tuna. They’re nuts. I’m looking at the lines they take, the low lines into the pit, and especially the ‘one line’ approach to hitting huge sections. They sit and wait off the takeoff until there’s that one speed line to the giant ramp, and that what I’ve learned. To do the biggest airs, there’s no messing around with little turns before it. Wait, set that line, and hit it.” 📷 @philgallagherphoto @maguirejay_ 

SW417 on sale now, link in bio.
  • Starting out as a surf band on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, Midnight Oil changed Australia for the better and became the social conscience of not one generation here in Australia, but two or three. By the time you’ve read this however, Midnight Oil will have just about played their last live show. It’s a significant moment for a lot of people, least of them Peter Garrett. But the Oils aren’t going quietly. Their new album, Resist deals with issues of today – climate, Adani, Takayna – and is an acknowledgement that the fight never ends. @brettburcher interviews @peterrgarrett in SW417, on sale now, link in bio. 📷 Tony Mott
  • Is the lucky country running out of luck? We pulled Surfing World 417 together at a time when you had to seriously ask yourself the question. With the east coast underwater for much of summer – just two years after it had burned during the Black Summer fires – it felt like we were getting a glimpse into our future. Midnight Oil lyrics as prophecy. Mad Max as a documentary. Leadership has not only been absent, it’s felt like we’re being led back to the Stone Age. So for SW417 we talk the state of the nation. We’ve got longform interviews with @peterrgarrett, @otishopecarey, @nikkivandijk and @scottie.marsh. We’ve got definitive pieces on the Northern Rivers floods from @andysummons, @jedaum_smith and Pete Bowes. We’ve got the story of the original Wreck Bay surfing mob and we track down @ilovetables, who’s been living quietly and surfing large. SW417 is a statement piece and a mag for the time. On sale now, on the street or online, link in bio. @maxime.rayer 📷 @lucasalisburyphoto @childsphotos
  • From SW417, definitive longform coverage of the Northern Rivers floods by @andysummons: “I got a message from a mate, Simon, on Wednesday when he could finally get through floodwaters in Ocean Shores to get to the top of a hill and into phone reception. He said, “A few of us are heading out to Lismore to help some people do a bit of a clean-up. We have some spare seats if you’re free.” It doesn’t sound like much. A carload of mates with a trailer of shovels, brooms, rakes, gumboots, gloves, a wheelbarrow, some buckets and fresh water. No one really knew it at the time, but the same thing was happening with thousands of other people up and down the coast and across the Northern Rivers. The result was a people’s army – the Mud Army.” 📷 @childsphotos @nataliegrono @andysummons
  • SW417 goes on sale today and asks just how lucky the Lucky Country really is. With the east coast underwater for much of summer, we check out the state of the nation and ask some big questions. We’ve got interviews with @peterrgarrett, @otishopecarey @nikkivandijk and @scottie.marsh. We’ve got a Mud Army special on the Northern River floods by @andysummons, and open the mag with a special piece on the original Wreck Bay surfing mob, written by the legendary Ray Ardler. It’s 180 pages of raw Australian surfing… and possibly the brownest surf mag ever published. Check it out and support independent Australian surf print. @maxime.rayer on the cover, photo by @lucasalisburyphoto
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