Charles Sprawson (1941–2020)

I've been fascinated with the idea of this book since its first publication in the 1990s, but have only just got around to reading. I am glad I did. This monograph on the swimmer, the pull of the sea, and the heroism of the long distance swimmer, is riveting - at least for the first two thirds. Perhaps this is because Sprawson gives opens with his own swimming obsessions, and reveals very little else about himself. He's swum the Hellespont. He is a classicist. He has taught classics in remote places (Saudi Arabla in fact - perhaps its not surprising that he feels the pull of water). The swimmer as loner.

Sprawson takes us through the swimmer in antiquity - or at least the lure of nymphs and pools, through the obsessions of sundry Englishmen and women, who often came to a watery end, through the romantic age of Byron, Shelley and Harte Crane, through the feats of strength - crossing the Channel, the Hellespont, attempting Niagara.

And there it probably should have stopped. Sprawson has less of a feel for modern Olympic swimmers much as he admires their athleticism. Obsessives like Mishima, he completely understands.

Its a wonderful book. No need to read it cover to cover. Fine to dip in when you find yourself anxious to dive into a swell or a lake… (más)

Haunts of the black masseur. The swimmer as hero is a very well-written book in the field of cultural history or cultural anthropology. It provides an overview of the importance of swimming, predominantly in Western culture. The best part of the book are the chapters describing the English cultural history and poet-swimmers of particularly the Romantic, Victorian and early Modern period.

The author, Charles Sprawson describes himself, and many of the personas featured in the book, as an obsessive swimmer. Although the book deals with the history of swimming in general, the main focus is on a limited number of characters who could be described as "obsessive swimmers" a term which is repeatedly used throughout the book.

Haunts of the black masseur. The swimmer as hero is preceded by an introduction, written by the author, in which the author relates his own life as a swimmer. The introduction is one of the most enticing and most beautifully written parts of the book. The introduction is almost mythical. Very little biographical information is available about the author, who seems to have written very few books. In the introduction, the author appears very aged, having lived a life almost as romantic and idyllic as many of the characters in the book.

It appears, that the author had a few chapters which are very good, and was asked to present and expand the book to encompass a greater period and cover more ground. While the chapters about English swimmers are clearly written with passion, the other chapters are not of the same high quality. One of the author's tenets, presented in the first chapter is that the obsession with swimming is, essentially an English thing. The first chapter is about English swimmers of the 18th and 19th centuries. In the second chapter, the author offers a look at the world of antiquity. This chapter is considerably weaker, as the main focus shifts from swimming to water and bathing. Possibly, the author's sources were limited to classical literature, which mainly describes nymphs in and out of the water, Greek gods and godesses, and Greek heros' relation to water in a more general sense. For the Roman, the feature of bathing is added.

Beside Chapter I, chapters 3, 4 and 5 are the strongest, forming the core of the book. Although, over the course of these chapters a very broad range of writers and poets is covered, the main focus is on the early Romantic poets such as Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Later Victorian writers suffered a great deal from the prudishness during the Victorian Age, while the climate in Nordic countries is much colder than in Italy and Greece. However, to the obsessive swimmers this is apparently all irrelevant. Despite winter and cold weather, their urge to swim on a daily basis is apparently so strong that they must get into the water.

Chapters 4 and 5 deal with a large number of English (and American) swimmers, particularly many writers, such as Algernon Swinburne, Denton Welch and the Baron Corvo. There is a little overlap between chapters, at the level of anecdotes being related twice of cross-references to, for example, Byron and Shelly in earlier chapters.

Chapter 6, about German Romanticism is a strong chapter. It describes the exploits of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as a swimmer, in the small brook which flows beneath his cottage in Weimar, and goes on to describe the Freikörperkultur (FKK) and the Wandervogel movement of the early 1910s - 30s, which further developed in the interest of the NSDAP in a healthy body & healthy mind ethics of the Nazis. The chapter extensively describes the artistic work of Leni Riefenstahl in relation to the Olympic Games at that time.

The final two chapters, about America and Japan, are weak. Apparently the author did not find much material about these countries, or swimming culture was not developed or appreciated in the same way

Despite the weakness of some parts of the book, the four chapters about the role of swimming in English culture are fascinating and very well written. Together with the Introduction and the chapter about Germany they form a very interesting book.

While it is a possible option to focus on swimming, the book is not merely a book about swimmers per se. The book offers a marvelous and sparkling description of literary and cultural history of the late Eighteenth to mid-Twentieth Century from the refreshing perspective of surface water and swimming.

Originally published in 1992, Haunts of the black masseur. The swimmer as hero was re-issued in Vintage Classics in 2013, thus becoming available to a broader readership at an affordable price.… (más)