The Naked Shore: Of the North Sea review – across the sea that shaped us
At the end of this long, rich, illuminating and enjoyable study of the North Sea, Tom Blass describes his subject as an entity that "words can only fail". "What I know," he continues, "is that it is everything we say it is and none of those things, that it exists inside us and yet transcends us - possesses no boundaries other than those we inflict on it, neither moral values, nor narrative structures. They are all with us and not the sea."
This might strike some as a curious admission. But it is Blass's knowledge that his study is doomed to be partial, combined with his concern that he risks dispelling the wonder and the variety of his subject by containing it within language, which lends this book much of its power. He is often uncertain about how to think and write about the subjects he encounters - and that lends his judgments weight.
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