Kayaks

As an angler in pursuit of fish across some 45 countries, I have travelled in a variety of precarious watercraft, from a Tahitian va’a to a coracle in Coorg, and remain convinced that all buoyant vessels are merely looking for somewhere to sink. In his study of the cultural history of small boats around the north Atlantic, David Gange, an academic historian and devotee of the kayak, argues that they are in fact transports of delight, and a key component in the survival of precious maritime communities.

When reviewers say that some new book reminds them of some famous old book, it often ends up as a blurb on the paperback edition, so I want to be clear: when I say that George Dyson’s Analogia reminds me of Robert Pirsig’s New Age classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I do not mean it exactly as a compliment. I don’t mean it as a dig, either. I just mean it has the same sense of dreamy, ambitious oddness, of trying to piece together some grand theory from disparate parts, from practical techne as much as academic logos. Pirsig’s book was a theory of philosophy dressed up as a memoir of a motorcycle trip; Dyson’s is a memoir of a strange childhood and youth, dressed up as a theory of —what? Intelligence?