Human beings are composed mostly of water so it’s no surprise that the element dominates our conscious and subconscious minds. When it is not replenishing, reviving and slaking thirst, it consumes and envelopes with the promise of drowning. It is life and it is death.
Water is also capable of reflection, and the bank of the river offers a unique space for watching the flow and quiet eddies; to think about life away from the business of living.
And so we have the ‘Caught By the River’ website, an ‘antidote to indifference’ curated by the good folk of Heavenly Records, based on Portobello Road near the Ladbroke Grove base of Canongate’s London office.
Check out the site here, their podcast here and the book that's been published this month including contributions from Irvine Welsh, Jarvis Cocker, Jon Savage, Bill Drummond, and many more, here.
The book and website are consitituted primarily by a collection of pieces by musicians who are growing up and taking stock, but it also advocates a frame of mind which is becoming increasingly favoured in this frenzied world.
For me, writing about rivers isn’t all quiet repose. Some of the best writing about mental dislocation and breakdown comes from the depths. ‘The Fire Sermon’ section of ‘The Wasteland’ by T.S. Eliot is a heady and menacing confluence of Ovid, Spenser, Marvell and Shakespeare. How’s this for a depressing fishing trip:
A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.
But don’t let that put you off.
Dive in!
