I have no idea why this was the year that I read all the stuff that was on Best Of lists. It’s not a thing I usually do, but somehow they were all readily available as audiobooks from the library, so I just… did. And honestly, it mostly confirmed my suspicion that these lists are mostly hype. But this book really was excellent. It’s a pretty incredible story — couple stranded on a raft at sea for nearly 4 months. But she tells it SO well (lots of FID, ahem), especially when it comes to managing the complexities of their personalities.
Because it can’t be ignored that the husband is… not the most appealing guy. Elmhirst works really hard, I think, to make him sympathetic, and I *do* have sympathy for him, but he’s also a pretty textbook example of a frustrated, socially awkward guy who has just enough of a sense of entitlement to be really unpleasant sometimes. Meanwhile his wife is this (slightly fanatical) astonishing firebrand, resolute and determined, basically doing everything. Does she resent him? If so, she never lets on. There are moments, especially towards the end, where she seems to acknowledge a bit, what kind of partner he is, but it’s mostly in undertones of sadness, not anger. Maybe, it’s that she really couldn’t imagine that it could be otherwise: this was the cost of a life of adventure, as opposed to a more conventional marriage. You can’t have it all.
Part of what makes the book so remarkable and thought-provoking is that there’s just as much time spent on life before and after as there is on the time at sea. It’s like Robinson Crusoe in that way — people tend to forget how much of the novel is not on the island. And those bookends are much more important than they might seem. In a sense, that’s where the real questions lie. It’s not so much, how did you survive 118 days on a raft (though of course that’s interesting too), as how did you get there in the first place? What did it do to your life thereafter?
Maybe this is because I’m also still thinking about Alex Honnold’s incredible Taipei 101 ascent, but the book does make me ponder whether there are just some people who are not going to have conventional lives, because they refuse to accept the options on offer and stubbornly look for something else. And I guess what Elmhirst recognizes is that it’s not even so much that their adventures are more interesting (after all, even the most boring person can end up in a remarkable situation), but also how they exist in the ‘normal’ world. That’s what really fascinates her, as she explains in the Afterword. People who look for a different way to live.
It’s a really good book, it’ll stick with me for a long time I think.
Kasia Reads 