Charlotte Appleyard
One Man In A Boat
Downstream: Across England in a Punt
By Tom Fort
Century 326pp £14.99
As a teenager I spent a day in a field in Kent waist deep in water with a large ruler and some string. I was, along with a group of equally disgruntled teenagers, measuring the gradient of the bend in a river. After five hours of rain, soggy sandwiches and far too much water in our wellies we concluded that the river was officially ‘meandering’: imagine our joy. Since then, I must admit to have given little thought to rivers. Tom Fort would be disappointed. He adores them. So much so that he is annoyed that there is no official name for his passion: fluviophilia and river-love are unsatisfactory, as neither captures the sheer breadth of his devotion.
Fort does not just like rivers for their aesthetic or sporting potential. Downstream demonstrates a fascination bordering on obsession with everything from the physical dynamic of moving water to the cultural and economic history that springs up around riverbanks. The author traces the history, romance and modern everyday life of
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
‘I have to change’, Miles Davis once said. ‘It’s like a curse.’
@rwilliams1947 tells the story of how Davis made jazz cool.
Richard Williams - In Their Own Sweet Way
Richard Williams: In Their Own Sweet Way - 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the Lo...
literaryreview.co.uk
The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act by Fredric Jameson - review by Terry Eagleton via @Lit_Review
for the new(ish) April issue of @Lit_Review I commissioned a number of pieces, including Deborah Levy on Bowie, Rosa Lyster on creative non-fiction, @JonSavage1966 on Pulp, @mjohnharrison on Oyamada, @rwilliams1947 on Kind of Blue, @chris_power on HGarner