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Risingtidefallingstar: In Search of the Soul of the Sea
“Every day is an anxiety in my ways of getting to the water. . . . I’ve become so attuned to it, so scared of it, so in love with it that sometimes I can only think by the sea. It is the only place I feel at home.”
Many of us visit the sea. Admire it. Even profess to love it. But very few of us live it. Philip Hoare does. He swims in the sea every day, either off the coast of his native Southampton or his adopted Cape Cod. He watches its daily and seasonal changes. He collects and communes with the wrack—both dead and never living—that it throws up on the shingle. He thinks with, at, through the sea.
All of which should prepare readers: Risingtidefallingstar is no ordinary book. It mounts no straight-ahead argument. It hews to no single genre. Instead, like the sea itself, it moves, flows, absorbs, transforms. In its pages we find passages of beautiful nature and travel writing, lyrical memoir, seams of American and English history and much more. We find Thoreau and Melville, Bowie and Byron, John Waters and Virginia Woolf, all linked through a certain refusal to be contained, to be strictly defined—an openness to discovery and change. Running throughout is an air of elegy, a reminder that the sea is an ending, a repository of lost ships, lost people, lost ways of being. It is where we came from; for Hoare, it is where he is going.
“Every swim is a little death,” Hoare writes, “but it is also a reminder that you are alive.” Few books have ever made that knife’s edge so palpable. Read Risingtidefallingstar. Let it settle into the seabed of your soul. You’ll never forget it.
Many of us visit the sea. Admire it. Even profess to love it. But very few of us live it. Philip Hoare does. He swims in the sea every day, either off the coast of his native Southampton or his adopted Cape Cod. He watches its daily and seasonal changes. He collects and communes with the wrack—both dead and never living—that it throws up on the shingle. He thinks with, at, through the sea.
All of which should prepare readers: Risingtidefallingstar is no ordinary book. It mounts no straight-ahead argument. It hews to no single genre. Instead, like the sea itself, it moves, flows, absorbs, transforms. In its pages we find passages of beautiful nature and travel writing, lyrical memoir, seams of American and English history and much more. We find Thoreau and Melville, Bowie and Byron, John Waters and Virginia Woolf, all linked through a certain refusal to be contained, to be strictly defined—an openness to discovery and change. Running throughout is an air of elegy, a reminder that the sea is an ending, a repository of lost ships, lost people, lost ways of being. It is where we came from; for Hoare, it is where he is going.
“Every swim is a little death,” Hoare writes, “but it is also a reminder that you are alive.” Few books have ever made that knife’s edge so palpable. Read Risingtidefallingstar. Let it settle into the seabed of your soul. You’ll never forget it.
416 pages, Paperback
First published July 13, 2017
37 people are currently reading
450 people want to read
About the author
Philip Hoare
44 books132 followersPhilip Hoare is an English writer, especially of history and biography. He instigated the Moby Dick Big Read project. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Southampton and Leverhulme artist-in-residence at the Marine Institute, Plymouth University, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2011.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
January 21, 2018
We call it planet Earth, but actually, 70% of the surface is of the planet is watery; hence why some think that it should be called the blue planet. Even as humans beings around 60% of our mass is water, entwining us to our planet. There are stories to be found too; at the point where the sea meets the land is a place that people find comfort, face their inner demons and discover their inner purpose. The sea can be a mirror to our moods too, a millpond ocean will calm, whereas a storm crashing against the shore spikes our adrenaline.
Philip Hoare has an intimate connection to the sea, swimming from a beach near his home almost every day. When he is away from home he makes the most of the opportunities to swim whenever he can. He tells us of the moment of feeling rather than hearing whale song, swimming off the coast of Cape Cod and coming out of the water shivering and blue. Woven into his own experiences of the sea are the stories that he has collected about artists, poets, the famous and the unknown and the strands that link them to the sea. There is a little bit of everything in her from science to history and art, but Hoare does return to those magnificent creatures that are his passion and that he first wrote about in Leviathan, the whales.
Having read Leviathan and The Sea Inside I was really looking forward to this third book of musings on all things oceanic. The mix of subjects and genres with black and white photos make this a striking book. There is a lot to like in here too with some truly dazzling prose, but I thought it didn't quite have the focus of his other books and felt like it drifted a little too far from the shore. Still worth reading though. 3.5 stars
Philip Hoare has an intimate connection to the sea, swimming from a beach near his home almost every day. When he is away from home he makes the most of the opportunities to swim whenever he can. He tells us of the moment of feeling rather than hearing whale song, swimming off the coast of Cape Cod and coming out of the water shivering and blue. Woven into his own experiences of the sea are the stories that he has collected about artists, poets, the famous and the unknown and the strands that link them to the sea. There is a little bit of everything in her from science to history and art, but Hoare does return to those magnificent creatures that are his passion and that he first wrote about in Leviathan, the whales.
Having read Leviathan and The Sea Inside I was really looking forward to this third book of musings on all things oceanic. The mix of subjects and genres with black and white photos make this a striking book. There is a lot to like in here too with some truly dazzling prose, but I thought it didn't quite have the focus of his other books and felt like it drifted a little too far from the shore. Still worth reading though. 3.5 stars
February 19, 2018
Each writer has a timbre. It vibrates, when we read, and in an instant a unique world appears. Unmistakable as a voice of a close one. I like to be in a world of Philip Hoare. To listen to him, while picking up words with a licked finger and putting them on my tongue. You never know, maybe those are breadcrumbs, lined up by an evil witch, and you will end up nowhere. But without trusting the writer, it is impossible to read.
Philip Hoare takes my hand and I let him to lead.
In “RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR”, latest book by the British writer, the words of the title are fused together as well as persons, times and events – as in a surreal braid of a mermaid. Philip Hoare has written many books, but this is his third one about the watery side of the world. He is deadly in love with the sea and its creatures, including poets, artists. When you read, you can’t help falling in water like falling in love. Each morning just before the sunrise Philip Hoare goes swimming. Even if it’s pitch dark, even if it’s freezing. Even when scared.
Cultural layers, as in a layered cake, are nourished with autobiographical moments like drops of booze. Haze of the sea. Lots of people drown in this book: Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Percy Bysshe Shelley; Jack London tried. Lots of swimming too. Lord Byron, for example, could forget about obesity and his crippled leg when in water. He finally felt at ease.
Philip Hoare has a habit of stumbling upon stranded bodies of animals and birds. He buried (or planted) a skull of a deer in his garden, so its antlers would be visible like a strange tree. Maybe a new deer could grow… He laid down next to a stranded dead dolphin, but the pair of eyes which see and describe the beautiful sea birds are the sensitive eyes of love.
His heart belongs to whales.
Book is also an amazing love letter to David Bowie, a man who fell on earth and fell in water. Never mentioning his name, but the reader has no doubt. When Bowie left our planet, Philip Hoare wrote each morning his name in sand and let the waves wash it away. The sea has no time. Lord Byron wrote about azure brow of the ocean on which time could write no wrinkle.
“RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR” is full of life. Maybe because death is ever-present on its pages. Just like the sea itself, brutal and beautiful, so full of paradoxes. Sea doesn’t care at all, but at the same time – it’s the pumping heart of our planet, the source of life. If there would be no sea, we would have to find it. Even if it would mean to fall from the sky with a pair of wax wings.
Philip Hoare takes my hand and I let him to lead.
In “RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR”, latest book by the British writer, the words of the title are fused together as well as persons, times and events – as in a surreal braid of a mermaid. Philip Hoare has written many books, but this is his third one about the watery side of the world. He is deadly in love with the sea and its creatures, including poets, artists. When you read, you can’t help falling in water like falling in love. Each morning just before the sunrise Philip Hoare goes swimming. Even if it’s pitch dark, even if it’s freezing. Even when scared.
Cultural layers, as in a layered cake, are nourished with autobiographical moments like drops of booze. Haze of the sea. Lots of people drown in this book: Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Percy Bysshe Shelley; Jack London tried. Lots of swimming too. Lord Byron, for example, could forget about obesity and his crippled leg when in water. He finally felt at ease.
Philip Hoare has a habit of stumbling upon stranded bodies of animals and birds. He buried (or planted) a skull of a deer in his garden, so its antlers would be visible like a strange tree. Maybe a new deer could grow… He laid down next to a stranded dead dolphin, but the pair of eyes which see and describe the beautiful sea birds are the sensitive eyes of love.
His heart belongs to whales.
Book is also an amazing love letter to David Bowie, a man who fell on earth and fell in water. Never mentioning his name, but the reader has no doubt. When Bowie left our planet, Philip Hoare wrote each morning his name in sand and let the waves wash it away. The sea has no time. Lord Byron wrote about azure brow of the ocean on which time could write no wrinkle.
“RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR” is full of life. Maybe because death is ever-present on its pages. Just like the sea itself, brutal and beautiful, so full of paradoxes. Sea doesn’t care at all, but at the same time – it’s the pumping heart of our planet, the source of life. If there would be no sea, we would have to find it. Even if it would mean to fall from the sky with a pair of wax wings.
December 24, 2018
It's the sea that links everyone and everything in this marvelous book. The sea places are mostly of the North Atlantic, the coasts of Cape Cod, of Ireland and England and Northern France, but also occasionally include the Mediterranean and even Mexico. The writers who appear here were all connected to the waters or wrote about those who were. Shakespeare qualifies with Prospero and The Tempest, Wilde and Wilfred Owen were great swimmers, Thoreau, Melville, Woolf, Byron and Shelley have connections sometimes obvious, always interesting. And then there's The Man Who Fell to Earth in search of water to save his home planet. And all these people felt themselves, to some extent, alien in their home places, as does the author, raised in Southampton, but Catholic, Irish (his birth name Patrick Moore) and gay.
The language is beautifully evocative. Although many marine creatures appear in these pages, this is not the book for anyone interested primarily in marine biology or oceanography!
The language is beautifully evocative. Although many marine creatures appear in these pages, this is not the book for anyone interested primarily in marine biology or oceanography!
January 28, 2019
A vortex of a book, Hoare using the sea to think about all manner of things--writers (including some he's considered before, in other works), Bowie, life and its meaning, humans and their connection to nature--and each other. The lynchpin is in the center--the eye of the vortex--page 289: the sea mixes myth and apprehension, human and nature, the sexes--the sea is a symbol of his own "queer nature" (which phrase is also on the page). Once that clicks in, everything else makes this.
The book is fiercely learned, at turns lyrical, thoughtful, mundane: you let yourself be taken by the tide, and enjoy the flow. The only criticism is the book is, at times, perhaps too indulgent--like the sea, too immense. But it also rewards all sorts of approaches, any beach a harbor for starting the journey.
The book is fiercely learned, at turns lyrical, thoughtful, mundane: you let yourself be taken by the tide, and enjoy the flow. The only criticism is the book is, at times, perhaps too indulgent--like the sea, too immense. But it also rewards all sorts of approaches, any beach a harbor for starting the journey.
October 27, 2024
Very much a book by Philip Hoare, which is both the main pro (I like reading his books) and con (I feel like I've already read this book).
August 22, 2017
Wonderful and extremely idiosyncratic compliation. Hoare's favourite authors and idols, from Shakespeare to David Bowie, all seen from an aquatic point of view - mixed with his own observations at seaside resorts, along endless beaches, while skinny dipping at midnight or snorkeling with seals and whales. A swimmer's biography.
January 27, 2018
This book tricked me. Meandering and seemingly unfocused through much of the first third, “Rising Tide Falling Star” actually is carefully hiding a deep, resonating ache. There is a ghost in the pages whose reality and identity—revealed only at the very end—make the whole exquisitely emotionally haunting.
July 4, 2018
A long, rambling, unfocused love letter to the sea. One problem of having the sea as your lover is that it can never return your love or respond to it—it’s the sea, not a lover. Makes for the worst adolescent infatuation imaginable. A dry, empty hump.
August 22, 2018
I really related to the desire for the sea, as I am born and raised by the shore and it physically hurts to be away from it. There is a lot of meandering from person to person and the artistic influence of the sea. Some parts dragged and others were intensely interesting.
October 1, 2017
I read this whilst on holiday travelling around the Devon and Cornwall coast. This book is alive and you will finish it with the sea swelling inside you.
December 19, 2019
Risingtidefallingstar is a translucid blur of biography, nature writing and nautical, literary history. Hoare swims through his self-created murky seascape, briefly surfacing to add his own biographical content before submerging himself into the lives of Herman Melville, Wilfred Owen and Virginia Woolf to name a few. As interesting as these figures are, and Hoare does take a certain delight in narrating their relationship to the sea, I was most fascinated by Hoare's own life and his connection to the sea.
I felt the book teetered on the same sinister edge that David Seabrook threw himself off of at the end his own psychogeographic All the Devil's are Here (both a very apt name and reference, one that Hoare uses himself several times), where the biographer reveals something hidden in amidst their own subjects.
Instead, Hoare merely prods at his own sexuality, and perhaps even perversions beneath the murky depths of the book's content. His connection with David Bowie, or Starman as he calls him, is the most fascinating figure in this regard. Perhaps the only figure that remains dry, Bowie is the solitary lighthouse that Hoare looks up to, a totemic figure that guides him through the tides.
It is at times a very beautifully written book, and one that would be a favourite of mine if it wasn't weighed down by perhaps too much content. Stephen Tennant really felt shoehorned in. I concede he remains a fascinating figure to read about, but perhaps best left to Hoare's earlier bibliography.
Nonetheless, this seems like a book that Hoare has always wanted to write, his interests boiled down and encapsulated into that indefinable sprawl that is the ocean. I look forward to reading Spike Island or Leviathan next.
I felt the book teetered on the same sinister edge that David Seabrook threw himself off of at the end his own psychogeographic All the Devil's are Here (both a very apt name and reference, one that Hoare uses himself several times), where the biographer reveals something hidden in amidst their own subjects.
Instead, Hoare merely prods at his own sexuality, and perhaps even perversions beneath the murky depths of the book's content. His connection with David Bowie, or Starman as he calls him, is the most fascinating figure in this regard. Perhaps the only figure that remains dry, Bowie is the solitary lighthouse that Hoare looks up to, a totemic figure that guides him through the tides.
It is at times a very beautifully written book, and one that would be a favourite of mine if it wasn't weighed down by perhaps too much content. Stephen Tennant really felt shoehorned in. I concede he remains a fascinating figure to read about, but perhaps best left to Hoare's earlier bibliography.
Nonetheless, this seems like a book that Hoare has always wanted to write, his interests boiled down and encapsulated into that indefinable sprawl that is the ocean. I look forward to reading Spike Island or Leviathan next.
September 12, 2018
Have not read a book by Philip Hoare before. I will read others by him now. As many as I find. The way he makes connections across elements of life -- natural, philosophical, historical, literary, and the way he notes along these connections how much we have taken from where we are, and how much where we are -- earth -- gives us over and over again. The sensual details he provides, I am there; I am beside Wilfred Owen; in the room with Herman Melville; under the ocean among the weeds; listening in the shallows to the beautiful song of the male whale who can dive so deep I would die trying to get there; watching Lord Byron's naked body and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's smile wider than her face is long. I am in Scotland. I am on the Irish west coast. I am in Devon. I am in salt water that touches Provincetown and touches the coast of Ireland, England. I am in the sweet waters and the brackish waters that carve continents.
He makes literary connections I never would have known. He makes generational connections. He makes connections across waters, continents, and centuries I never would have known.
This is how to learn!
He makes literary connections I never would have known. He makes generational connections. He makes connections across waters, continents, and centuries I never would have known.
This is how to learn!
May 19, 2019
Although I found Philip Hoare's Leviathan very tedious and a subversive study on Moby Dick; I was pleasantly surprised by his offerings here.
The stories or chapters each revolve around aspects of water, yet remain for the whole, miniature studies of humans, particularly literary humans and their tanglings with water over the centuries.
Despite my like of the subject matter, Hoare's style of writing is at the same time beautifully descriptive but a little pretentious, egoistic and self-absorbed. I always get the feeling that Hoare is writing with a big smug smile on his face, all the while ruminating on what an amazing individual he is!! His swimming prowess is constantly referred to, and he writes about literary greats such as Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde and Keats and pretty much throws himself in there as a "literary great"!! Nothing like a bit of self massaging of the ego!
Nevertheless, I like anything water based so I give this a hearty, pirate worthy 5 stars, arrrr!!!
The stories or chapters each revolve around aspects of water, yet remain for the whole, miniature studies of humans, particularly literary humans and their tanglings with water over the centuries.
Despite my like of the subject matter, Hoare's style of writing is at the same time beautifully descriptive but a little pretentious, egoistic and self-absorbed. I always get the feeling that Hoare is writing with a big smug smile on his face, all the while ruminating on what an amazing individual he is!! His swimming prowess is constantly referred to, and he writes about literary greats such as Virginia Woolf, Oscar Wilde and Keats and pretty much throws himself in there as a "literary great"!! Nothing like a bit of self massaging of the ego!
Nevertheless, I like anything water based so I give this a hearty, pirate worthy 5 stars, arrrr!!!
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July 13, 2023Okay now THIS is a book by a freaky freak. Which other author could literally bring up stuff from all seven of his previous books, often in large sections, and still make it into something that felt strange and new. It's so bizarre to watch him go. The book is crammed with information, knowledge and insight, but Hoare's voice remains one of an overawed child, meaning it oscillates between carelessly phrased air-headed takes, and stunning trans-historical, inter-species intellectual nexuses. To his credit, by the end I did feel actually in awe of whales, and the argument for a kind of marine aestheticism was starting to work on me. Then again, it seemed he picked up and dropped his polemical mode just whenever he felt like it. Hoare is not a rigorous writer, for better and for worse, but he is certainly a profound one.
September 3, 2018
Having thoroughly enjoyed Hoare's previous work, I have this book pre-ordered and I was eagerly waiting to dive into the seascapes Hoare normally provides. I found this book to be far more disjointed than his previous work, and try as I might, I could not get quite as invested into his more human-centred stories of those more peripherally connected to the sea. I found myself checking how long chapters were halfway through. His descriptions of depictions of these poet, actors and eccentrics lack the earnest devotion of his previous work. A tale of a dead fulmar found alone on the stand, stands out for its authenticity and haunting beauty. The fulmar hangs around the author's neck for the rest of the novel, as all other tales seem to fall by the wayside in comparison.
March 9, 2019
Philip Hoare's RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR is part travelogue, part memoir, part naturalist notebook, and part roving literary biography. In these pages, filled with luminescent prose, one encounters Virginia Woolf, Melville, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Wilfred Owen, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, David Bowie, Stephen Tennant, Sylvia Plath, Oscar Wilde, and Byron, to name but a few, in writing that is rendered with such a care for maintaining the ebbtide and flow of ideas and connections and thoughts. Hoare's ability to summon these images for his readers and lay them at our feet like so many shoreline treasures is what keeps me returning to the work of this incredible writer. His brilliance and generosity never fails to inspire me.
August 27, 2017
I liked this book but I haven't rated it as highly as his other books. He has some great insights into the literature of the sea but sometimes I found the text a little too dense and I found myself losing interest. I found the earlier parts of the book on Cape Cod much more interesting - perhaps because this part is more personal. It's perhaps a book to dip in and out of rather than read from cover to cover and it will certainly be staying on my shelves and not wending its way to the charity shop.
July 25, 2018
I've been very lucky with my reading of late, and have picked up some real crackers. I believe this book won an award - it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, it's an excellent read. Taking the general theme of humanity's relationship with the sea, Hoare explores his theme through history, literature, art and myth, using his own travels and experiences as a structure to hang his stories on. Alongside Rachel Carson's The Sea Around Us, this would be a great set for any budding marine scientist or anyone who just can't get enough of the sea. Thoroughly recommended.
August 3, 2017
So much to learn, think about and ponder upon in this wonderful book by Hoare. I loved the sections on Wilfred Owen and Herman Melville and really enjoyed Hoare's descriptions of some of the wild areas he swam in. Some of the chapters were less interesting, mainly because they were about people and a time I wasn't hugely enamoured with, so I zipped through those quickly. All in all, not as good as his book Leviathan, but still a very enlightening read.
July 20, 2023
Beautiful and thoughtful dip into the intersection of language, literature, art, and the sea. I can picture Hoare’s quiet contemplation at the seaside entwining with and evening pile of books, spinning out into what has become this book. I appreciate it deeply and at the same time am surprised that I did not like it as much as I thought I would. My only explanation is that I feel tired of men telling everyone their thoughts on things so I will revisit it again in the future.
May 18, 2018
"We cannot comprehend such beauty beyond ourselves; we must burden it with other meaning." This book is a gorgeous albatross perhaps? The author's obsessions, literary, musical, and maritime, are vast and compelling though, and flow easily between genres. (Sometimes the transitions seem a bit abrupt, but like diving into the sea, that's part of the fun.) At any rate, it's never boring.
September 11, 2017
Magistral como siempre. ¿Puedes habalr del mar y de poetas románticos con afición por la natación y el ahogamiento y que le interese a alguien? Pues, por lo menos, a mi, sí.
Sensibilidad total de Hoare.
Sensibilidad total de Hoare.
July 18, 2018
I received a free copy via Netgalley in exchange for a honest review.
Some of the stories told were interesting but overall I found this to be a long and laborious book.
I have given it two stars but this may be generous.
Some of the stories told were interesting but overall I found this to be a long and laborious book.
I have given it two stars but this may be generous.
October 2, 2021
The author has a very unique and interesting writing style that I largely enjoyed however ultimately I drifted and was unable to finish the book, I found it hard to be captivated or interested in the stories even though I share a passion for the sea
May 31, 2022
A series of essays connected in some way with the sea incorporating the lives of poets, film stars, writers and sea creatures. Captivating prose, sometimes hard to keep up with who was being talked about but fascinating nevertheless.
February 17, 2018
Phillip Hoare is quite clearly a genius. The writing in this is splendid, mesmerising. Just a bit too lengthy for me, hence the rating of 4 stars instead of 5.
October 4, 2018
Subtle and complex and utterly wonderful.
November 15, 2018
A potpourri of genres and a great journey of a book!
March 21, 2020
Not my cup of tea. Boring.
May 7, 2020
DNF, I'm redirecting my attention to his "The Sea Inside"
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews