Book review: Swimming With Seals by Victoria Whitworth
Although she swims off different Orkney beaches at different times of year, sometimes with members of the local wild swimming club, sometimes alone, Whitworth’s typical routine involves a solo swim in the waters of Eynhallow Sound, between mainland Orkney and the island of Rousay. “To the uninitiated eye,” she writes, “the vista is barren, treeless, sparsely inhabited, raw, wild, as though time and humanity have no effect here.” The great thing about Whitworth, however, is that her academic interest lies in the culture and society of Britain in the Early Middle Ages, particularly in relation to death and burial; so whereas a tourist might see a certain “minimalist appeal” in the stark Orkney landscape, to her it is a place overflowing with layer upon layer of hidden meaning.
“The truth is,” she writes, “the landscape in front of me has been overwritten many times across thousands of years, scraped back by forces of geology and weather as well as human activity, revised and inscribed again.” Later, she explains how, against this ancient backdrop, “time feels gossamer-thin”.
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Hide AdSo yes, this is a book about a woman who goes swimming with seals, and some of her encounters with Eynhallow Sound’s permanent residents, first published as Facebook posts and included here in their original format, are wonderfully evocative. But in a sense, though they give the book a sort of rough framework and often serve as jumping-off points for fresh intellectual forays, the swims are really only interludes. The meat of the book consists of fascinating digressions on everything from the rich history of Orkney to the echo-locating abilities of orcas, from the 13th century Orkneyinga Saga to the Old English poem The Wanderer – dating from the tenth century, but in Whitworth’s interpretation, startlingly modern in many of its concerns, particularly to do with its take on the hereafter.
Structurally, there doesn’t seem to be much logic in the way a lot of this hangs together, but – as already mentioned – the regular heartbeat of the swims gives the book an unorthodox kind of rhythm that’s all its own. And when the writing is as consistently alert and engaging as this, who cares if the author doesn’t take you by the hand and lead you down a nice, linear path towards an obvious conclusion? Like a swimmer entering a stormy sea, the trick to enjoying Swimming With Seals is to accept that you’re going to be swept around in some unexpected directions and go with the flow.
*Swimming With Seals by Victoria Whitworth, Head of Zeus, £14.99