Through the experiences of those people who fully embrace the romance and adventure that seaside living provides, Wyl Menmuir explores our profound connection to the most powerful of natural forces.
Living in Britain it is impossible to escape the sea and everybody here has to an extent a meaningful relationship with it. The Draw of the Sea focuses its attention on the southwest peninsula and the coastlines of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Here we dip into the lives of beachcombers, surfers, free-divers, shell-seekers, artists, wildlife-watchers and more, whose obsessions bring them into a daily embrace with depths that can be beautiful and dangerous in equal measure. The author understands this relationship implicitly, and admits to a fear of the sea, but fear and attraction often overlap. Menmuir’s own story is threaded through the chapters, each one a wave of sorts with its own distinct character. These portraits of people who are married to the ocean tell us much about ourselves but there is only one star in this book - the sea itself - magnificent, untamed, mysterious, often generous, sometimes deadly but always connecting us with distant shorelines and ultimately each other.
Wyl Menmuir's The Draw of the Sea is a beautifully written and deeply moving portrait of the sea and the people whose livelihoods revolve around it, examining the ephemeral but universal pull the sea holds over the human imagination.
Since the earliest stages of human development, the sea has fascinated and entranced us. It feeds us, sustaining communities and providing livelihood, but it also holds immense destructive power that threatens to destroy all we have created.
It connects us to faraway places, offering the promise of new lands and voyages of discovery, but also shapes our borders, carving divisions between landmasses and eroding the very ground beneath our feet.
In this lyrical meditation on what it is that draws us to the waters' edge, author Wyl Menmuir tells the stories of the people whose lives revolve around the coastline and all it has to offer.
In twelve interlinked chapters, Menmuir explores the lives of local fishermen steeped in the rich traditions of a fishing community, the beachcombers who wander the shores in search of the varied objects that wash ashore and the stories they tell, and all number of others who have made their lives around the sea.
In the specifics of these livelihoods and their rich histories and traditions, Wyl Menmuir captures the universal human connection to the ocean's edge. Into this seductive tapestry Wyl weaves the story of how the sea has beckoned, consoled and restored him.
The Draw of the Sea is a meaningful and moving work into how we interact with the environment around us and how it comes to shape the course of our lives. As unmissable as it is compelling, as profound as it is personal, this must-read book will delight anyone familiar with the intimate and powerful pull which the sea holds over us.
