The sea is one of the most vital and recurring images in human culture. Every civilization has a flood myth, for example, and sixty-five percent of the world's population lives on the coast of a sea.
In The Sea: A Literary Companion:
- Charles Darwin expresses his fascination with the glowing phosphorescence of the nighttime sea,
- Ann Saunders, who crossed the Atlantic in 1826, describes the desperation of passengers stranded for a month at sea,
- the story of the Biblical Flood is told in three versions (from Genesis, Inuit legend, and Timothy Findley's Not Wanted on the Voyage),
- Yann Martel's Life of Pi portrays the modern ark, and
- literary sea-watchers Rachel Carson, Jonathan Raban, and Andrea Barrett are all excerpted.
You can buy this book online at chapters.indigo.ca or amazon.ca, or find it at your local bookstore.
