Coasting (book)
Encyclopedia
Coasting is a travel book
Travel literature
Travel literature is travel writing of literary value. Travel literature typically records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure of travel. An individual work is sometimes called a travelogue or itinerary. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or...

 by Jonathan Raban
Jonathan Raban
Jonathan Raban is a British travel writer and novelist. He has received several awards, such as the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Royal Society of Literature's Heinemann Award, the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, the PEN West Creative Nonfiction Award, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers...

. It has received a positive review by Beryl Bainbridge
Beryl Bainbridge
Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge, DBE was an English author from Liverpool. She was primarily known for her psychological novels, often set amongst the English working classes. Bainbridge won the Whitbread Awards prize for best novel in 1977 and 1996; she was nominated five times for the Booker...

.

Plot summary

Written as a travelogue, Coasting describes Jonathan Raban's single-handed 4,000 mile voyage around Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

 which he made in 1982 (at the age of 40) in an old restored 32-foot sea-going ketch
Ketch
A ketch is a sailing craft with two masts: a main mast, and a shorter mizzen mast abaft of the main mast, but forward of the rudder post. Both masts are rigged mainly fore-and-aft. From one to three jibs may be carried forward of the main mast when going to windward...

, the Gosfield Maid. An important point is that Raban sailed with a chart and a hand-bearing compass
Compass
A compass is a navigational instrument that shows directions in a frame of reference that is stationary relative to the surface of the earth. The frame of reference defines the four cardinal directions – north, south, east, and west. Intermediate directions are also defined...

; he sailed by the look of the coastline. His story takes various digressions, just as his journey does, as he mulls over his childhood as the son of a vicar in the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

, and the current state of Britain under Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...

 during the time of the Falklands War
Falklands War
The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...

.

Chapter Two is a description of the dogged insularity of the Manx
Manx people
The Manx are an ethnic group coming from the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea in northern Europe. They are often described as a Celtic people, though they have had a mixed background including Norse and English influences....

, who he compares to the Falkland Islanders, whilst the Isle of Man
Isle of Man
The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...

 becomes a metaphor for the insularity of the larger island on which he himself had been brought up and lived up till this point.
Raban himself has commented on his own attitude to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and the influence of Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...

 on Britain at the time of writing his book. The British he sees as being famous for their insular arrogance and condescension. As he describes them:

'They love fine social distinctions and divisions and are snobbishly wedded to an antique system of caste and class ... They are aggressively practical and philistine, with a loud contempt for anything that smells abstract or theoretical. They are a nation of moneygrubbers and bargain-hunters, treasuring peenies for treasuring's sake...When it comes to sex, they are furtive and hypocritical - and their erotic tastes are known to be extremely peculiar. Many Englishmen will pay a woman to take their trousers down and spank them...For the most part, though, the English, both men and women, are afflicted by such a morbid decay of thei libido that it has always puzzled the rest of the world how the English manage to reproduce themselves at all.'

The author is equally bitter about the dominant, hectoring Mrs Thatcher. Whilst comfortably moored up in the Gosfield Maid on a beautiful stretch of the River Yealm, he tunes in to the House of Commons debate on the Falkland's invasion. The Prime Minister talks about sovereign territory being invaded by a foreign power, but to Raban '...her cross, nanny's voice made it sound as if there had been ructions in the nursery and the children were going to be sent to bed without any tea.' Equally absurd are the majority of MPs who are baying for Argentian blood. Raban turns his radio off in disgust, '...sick of the sound of growning men baying like a wolf pack. It wasn't a debate, it was a verbal bloodletting, with words standing for the guns and bayonets that would come later when the fleet reached the islands.' and adds, 'Listening to it, I felt that I'd been eavesdropping on the nastier workings of the national subconscious; I'd overheard Britain talking in a dream, and what is was saying scared me stiff.'

And it is his negative feelings towards an increasingly alien Britain under the dominance of Thatcher that finally persuade him to make the decision to leave his homeland, although the paradox is that they share a ike-minded attitude towards its rigid social hierarchy:
The book is remarkable for its penetrating and highly perceptive insights into the character and state of the British nation at the time of writing. One also has to greatly admire him for taking on the challenge of a single-handed voyage around the British Isles, a feat that requires great personal courage on the part of the sailor. For most of the book, Raban, rather like Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...

, is able to form an objectively detached view of his country whilst out at sea on board his boat. However, rather than taking the battering ram
Battering ram
A battering ram is a siege engine originating in ancient times and designed to break open the masonry walls of fortifications or splinter their wooden gates...

 approach of his eccentric predecessors (men like Middleton, McMullen
McMullen
McMullen is a surname Mac Maoláin with predominantly Irish origins but also with some Scottish history. It means, "One who is bald."-People:* Conley K. McMullen is an American botanist.* Curtis T...

, and Hilaire Belloc
Hilaire Belloc
Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. He was known as a writer, orator, poet, satirist, man of letters and political activist...

), he uses beautifully crafted language to describe the life of a single-handed sailor in great awe of the sea, with detailed almost lyrical descriptions of the characters he encounters along the way. Two passages that particularly stand out are of Raban's rather hostile meeting with Paul Theroux
Paul Theroux
Paul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work of travel writing is perhaps The Great Railway Bazaar . He has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his...

 at Brighton Marina
Brighton Marina
Brighton Marina is an artificial marina situated in Brighton, England. The construction of the marina itself took place between 1971 and 1979, although developments within it have continued ever since. The marina covers an area of approximately...

, himself in the midst of researching a similar book about Britain, and a much friendlier one with Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...

 at Hull
Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...

, a city Raban knows well from his student days while working as a part-time minicab driver.

Criticism

The book is remarkable for its penetrating and highly perceptive insights into the character and state of the British nation at the time of writing. One also has to greatly admire him for taking on the challenge of a single-handed voyage around the British Isles, a feat that requires great personal courage on the part of the sailor. For most of the book, Raban, rather like Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...

, is able to form an objectively detached view of his country whilst out at sea on board his boat. However, rather than taking the battering ram
Battering ram
A battering ram is a siege engine originating in ancient times and designed to break open the masonry walls of fortifications or splinter their wooden gates...

 approach of his eccentric predecessors (men like Middleton
Middleton
Middleton may refer to:-Australia:*Middleton, South Australia*Middleton Beach, Western Australia*Middleton Reef, Tasman Sea-United Kingdom:England*Middleton, Cumbria*Middleton, Essex*Middleton, Greater Manchester*Middleton, Hampshire...

, McMullen
McMullen
McMullen is a surname Mac Maoláin with predominantly Irish origins but also with some Scottish history. It means, "One who is bald."-People:* Conley K. McMullen is an American botanist.* Curtis T...

, and Hilaire Belloc
Hilaire Belloc
Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. He was known as a writer, orator, poet, satirist, man of letters and political activist...

), he uses beautifully crafted language to describe the life of a single-handed sailor in great awe of the sea, with detailed almost lyrical descriptions of the characters he encounters along the way. Two passages that particularly stand out are of Raban's rather hostile meeting with Paul Theroux
Paul Theroux
Paul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work of travel writing is perhaps The Great Railway Bazaar . He has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his...

 at Brighton Marina
Brighton Marina
Brighton Marina is an artificial marina situated in Brighton, England. The construction of the marina itself took place between 1971 and 1979, although developments within it have continued ever since. The marina covers an area of approximately...

, himself in the midst of researching a similar book about Britain, and a much friendlier one with Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...

 at Hull
Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...

, a city Raban knows well from his student days while working as a part-time minicab driver.

Probably one of the best descriptions in the book is of the author's life as a child growing up in assorted Church of England vicarages,in a kind of social no-man's land, unable to mix with the council estate children opposite because they are socially inferior but also out of place in upper class society since a vicar's stipend was about £700 a year, equal to that of a skilled labourer living on a council estate. Raban sums his family's situation up in his own clinically detached manner: 'We belonged nowhere, We had the money of one lot, the voices of another - and we had an unearthly goodliness which removed us from the social map altogether.'

This is a writer at the very heights of his craft. Having become disillusioned with so much low-grade modern writing, it is a delight to come across an author who is on a par with some of the great writers of the past. Whereas Hunting Mister Heartbreak
Hunting Mister Heartbreak: A Discovery of America
Hunting Mister Heartbreak: A Discovery of America is a travelogue of Jonathan Raban's personal rediscovery of America following in the footsteps of European immigrants. It won the 1991 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award.-Introduction:...

and Passage to Juneau
Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings
Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings is a 1999 travelogue by Jonathan Raban. Alongside an account of Raban's own trip by boat from Seattle to Juneau, the reader is presented with the voyage of Captain George Vancouver in 1792-94 and his encounters with the sea-going natives living along the...

are similar in theme but more localized in their American context, Coasting is a finer work because it so successfully reflects and intertwines Raban's perspective on his own life with that of the British nation. It also embodies the melancholic and personal themes of turmoil and loss that re-occur in Passage to Juneau.
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