Trawler: A Journey Through The North Atlantic (2006) - Plot & Excerpts
About a decade ago, I read Bill Bryon's A Walk in the Woods, a type of book I suppose I had never imagined existed: it was clever, funny, well-written, and loosely categorized as travel literature, a genre I had never heard of. I read other Bryson travel narratives and a few of his interviews. When asked, during one discussion, which writers he admired, the Des Moines, Iowa-born writer replied Jonathan Raban, Paul Theroux, and Redmond O'Hanlon. The interviewer told the interviewee his writing reminded him of O'Hanlon's and Bryson answered with something like, "Aw shucks." I went on to read one book by Jonathan Raban and several by Paul Theroux (the godfather of travel literature, surely), but didn't get around to Redmond O'Hanlon until recently. I suppose I should have begun with one of his more famous books, like Into the Heart of Borneo, In Trouble Again, or Congo Journey, but I found Trawler staring at me from a bookstore shelf one day not long after I had thought a good idea for a story would be to go out on a lobster boat in Eastern Canada and write about it. O'Hanlon has saved me the trouble.I've never read anything like Trawler before. It is highly unique, and for that reason alone it deserves praise. Redmond O'Hanlon, an Oxford-educated academic, joins a Scottish fishing trawler from Aberdeen as it sails into the North Atlantic to go about its business. Yes, there are predictably humourous bits about the author getting seasick and banging his head on things and not being able to get his sea-legs, but this is not an account of a stodgy, over-educated Englishman and his laugh-a-minute travails aboard a working vessel staffed by a no-nonsense, unforgiving Scottish crew. It is more like a running dialogue; like one long, 340-page conversation with a somewhat no-nonsense, occasionally forgiving, extremely brave, superstitious, rather desperate, astonishingly knowledgeable, and slightly mad Scottish crew - members of which are both gracious and hostile, sometimes within the span of seconds. O'Hanlon provides very little commentary, something I've never seen a travel writer do. Instead, he focuses on relaying what happens and what's said, and if that sounds boring, it isn't, because the experiences and discussions are so authentic and so convincing you feel like you're onboard. When O'Hanlon is gutting fish with his tattered gloves in the fish room, listening to Luke explain how a hagfish evolved and what its defensive mechanism is, with tangents about love, life, hope, and fear, the narrative is oddly moving, mysteriously compelling. To say O'Hanlon has an ear for dialogue doesn't quite capture his talent. Perhaps the author has a photographic memory (my first guess), or maybe there were whole days where he mainly took notes and didn't mention this in his book, or he might have been recording the conversations, or I suppose he could have made much of it up - only the conversations are extraordinary, banal, weird, normal, angry, friendly, asinine, and brilliant. Many are not the type of conversations one would make up. O'Hanlon sometimes says incredibly daft things or rambles (because he's out of his element, because he's sleep deprived, because he's a bookish nerd), which he immediately regrets, yet he records his statements and the responses anyway. Again, it's all so real, and that's what makes it all so strangely riveting. What of interest happens on a Scottish fishing boat? Well, just about everything if presented correctly. There's no gloss, no sheen, no special effects -Trawler is like highly literary investigative journalism, with wonderful vernacular and lots of explanations about natural science and ocean life. Because the account is exceedingly realistic, there are lots of disturbing bits (trawlermen tend to verbally abuse each other when they haven't had any sleep in four days; and they tend to be unforgiving toward know-nothing landlubbers), but there are also plenty of deeply funny parts, and in addition to being unpredictable (how would you know when one of the crew is going to say something off-the-charts bizarre?) the humour is situational and fantastically awkward. British, in other words. One part that really got me, that completely had me in stitches, had to do with O'Hanlon's wanting to see a Force 12 hurricane. Apparently, he sort of requested or expressed a wish to see a fierce storm, asking to be woken up if he should be asleep when one occurred. One day he is woken up and sent to the bridge. Presumably, he thinks the skipper, Jason, is going to provide an overview of how a vessel like the Norlantean operates in a tempest. On deck, O'Hanlon is buckled into the First Mate's chair. Jason greets him: "Good evening, Redmond. Welcome to my bridge.""Jason," I said, "yeah, good evening. But is this it? Is this a Force 12?""Aye," he said, not looking at me. "Maybe. Maybe not. Who cares? Only you! But I'll tell you this, Redmond. In my opinion, and please, feel free to disagree, I'd say it's a stormy, stormy night." "Jeesus Jason," I said, turning on him, for some reason, with real aggression (and holding tight with both hands to the arms of the chair, despite my chest-harness), "don't you sleep? How can you do this?"(Jason explains that he sleeps at home and that here he's the ever-alert captain, responsible for everything, before lecturing Redmond on what was wrong with his generation and how it glorified and ruined dope.)"When you were young, your kicks, real kicks, what were they? Jeesus, you sad old fucks, you lot who thought you were going to change the world (save us!) - you beatniks, hippies, flower-power jerk-offs, gentle layabouts, whatever you called yourselves, what did you really do? Books, fine, I'll give you that. You loved books, and that was great. And you loved your music. But give me a break, look, so what? The fucking sparrows love their music. So you gave up and lay around and smoked dope or cannabis or hashish or gear or grass or hemp in spliffs or joints or whatever you chose to call it - all those words! Worse than winos! And that's right, shit, I remember, that's the word, you smoked shit, in a mental world of hippie shite, real shite, and in the least aggressive possible way you fucked up your own lives, and you took away the motivation for your children. And free love! Spare us! So it was all cool, man, to leave a chick and hang out with another. Except, fuck you, one of those chicks happened to be my mother. Yes, my mother! And to me, not to you, a mother is a serious business. And if you leave her, you ought to be shot!" "Jason, hang on, what are you talking about? I thought you'd been here for ever. I thought your great-to-the-nth grandfather swam ashore from the Armada...""You know what I think? I think there's nothing bad in itself about dope. Not in itself. Of course it does less harm than alcohol. Of course it should be legal. It's piss-nonsense. But you people, you, my dad, the old UK hippies - you invested that shite with wisdom. Just because it made you feel good. A herbal ga-ga tranquilizer. It's a plant, for Chrissake! Harmless. A couple of dreamy relax-me pills. No more, no less. And you made a fucking religion out of it!" "Jason, hold on. Please - tell me about your dad, tell me about your mother." "My mother? She's a Costello. Spanish. She was a great beauty in her time. Still is. And one of her very first boyfriends was John Lennon.""Christ."And on and on it goes - one conversation blends into another and into another.... It takes a bit of getting used to, but I would say by page 30, you ought to be hooked. Trawler is more than a simulated jaunt on a fishing boat, more than a documentary in print. It's a commentary on the wonders, dangers, and absurdities of life.Troy Parfitt is the author of Why China Will Never Rule the World
The book follows the author as he braves Force-12 conditions to document life on a trawler fishing off the north of Scotland. The seas in this area present some of the roughest conditions across the globe due to colliding currents and Arctic winds. I have to say that I really struggled with this book. The setting for the novel would usually lend itself to a story that I'd love. However, O'Hanlon writes in such a unique way that it can be tough going at times. The book is made up of huge slabs of meandering dialogue that are often nonsensical, reflecting the crew's sleep deprived state. While it's effective in representing the psyche of the crew and what they regularly have to push themselves through, it also means that you learn little of the desires, motivations and history of the crew. I can recall three or four memorable exchanges. For a book of near 350 pages, that's little reward.
What do You think about Trawler: A Journey Through The North Atlantic (2006)?
Trawler is the book I read the last from O'Hanlon, but did not really like.No journey through the jungle or Amazon-river but Redmond reports from a trawler, on the Atlantic Ocean. Even though O'Hanlon's writing-style is good and with the familiar humour within, this book is too much about fish. The descriptions of the very hard work, his efforts and the tireness after, were absolutely imaginable. But it is fish,fish,fish and fish. I know almost nothing about fish, but I can't really care about it either. It was too repeating..When you are interested in fish, or working at sea on a fishing boat, than you will love it. Not bad, but not for me.
—Stephan van der Linde
"Redsy" is very easy to read: his descriptions of close encounters with gelatinous deep-sea creatures punctuate long monologues about seasickness and dialogues with hardy young men o' the sea. "Trawler" is almost all reconstructed dialogue of the crewmen, whose Scottish brogue and bullshitting are endearing but, for me, a bit wearying.We science-mad, natural-history enthusiasts must supplement this book with something of more substance. Only intermittently does Redsy discuss the aquatic life forms that end up in the trawler's nets, with their poison and electric currents and air-balloon mouth pods. The best: Sylvia Earle's "Ocean - An Illustrated Atlas" which encompasses all the waters of the world, and also sums up her amazing career, exploring waters high and low to learn about life on earth.A brief look at Sylvia Earle and her career: this New York Times article.For visual learners: "The Deep," Claire Nouvian's innovatively designed book of haunting photographs of sea creatures.Ocean: An Illustrated Atlas National Geographic AtlasThe Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss
—Iris
