The Inner Coast by Donovan Holn ff. Donovan proves that it is not the subject matter that counts in the creation of a great essay. Rather it is a mind pitted against a puzzle. In the tradition fathered by 16thcentury Montaigne, the essays in this book invite you to examen with the author from every angle you could possibly dream up some topic – tools, rust, water, mammoths that are really mastodons, Thoreau, family, America -- and find new connections and new hidden truths. French students will remember (I hope) that an essay is an attempt, and in the case of the essay as a genre, it is an attempt to get at the essence of something.
The essay “Waterworks” is devoted to just this kind of approach to water – water in history, water in literature, water in nature, water in science, water unregulated and harmful, and water in the Great Lakes, the inner coast of our country which furnishes the title of the collection. The essay is framed with literary references to diving. Donovan quotes Melville reflecting on a lecture by Emerson: ”I love all men who dive.” With the author we dive into water in all its complexity. The reference at the end of the essay to Adrienne Rich’s “Diving into the Wreck” links up with his dream of diving into Lake Michigan, a dream which works its way into reality as he takes a scuba diving class.
By the end of this essay, we have explored the Northwest Passage, examined the moral depravity which allowed the tragedy of Flint to occur, and faced how much there is still left to know about water. But what turns out to be important in this essay is how it is written. Here is a random sample to illustrate that it is the quality of the prose that gives the reader his own deep dive. “Since the time of Phoenicians, if not before, navigators and river pilots have learned to read water’s surface well, but it is only over the past century or so that limnologists and oceanographers have begun studying and classifying underwater formations shaped by chemistry and thermodynamics – dense masses drifting through the twilight zone like underwater clouds, or vortices spinning around like underwater storms.” This is an essay I go back to because it is rich, complex, respectful of what has gone before. Myriad aspects of water flow together, as Amos said, “like a mighty stream.”
I chose one essay out of ten. They are all compelling. Much research has gone into this book. The curiosity at the book’s core will make you interested in topics you never thought of. If you are an American Literature buff, you will find new insights. You will certainly be touched by the essays that veer over into memoir.
