I actually fell asleep last night with my copy of Shadow Divers in hand and woke up this morning (being a Saturday) simply taking up where I left off. I was done before brunch! I just gobbled it up, that’s how riveting I found it (now I understand where you guys are coming from).
Ah, yes, the painstaking research. It is a mystery. It is a protracted investigation. Best of all, every exciting bit really happened and I'm made aware too of the value of these guys’ U-boat obsession beyond, say, personal fame (there’s rewriting historical accounts for example, and informing families...).
Just as astounding I felt is author Kurson’s ability to string it all together so I'm not just bludgeoned with his mountain of data, I'm moved by the characters -- their passion (to see for themselves, to know for sure), and even their strategies (penetrating a wreck) and principles (respecting it as a war grave) drawn up along the way.
The setting-up, man, did the author do a good job, no an artful job -- from character motivation to diving physiology to equipment. With that, I know I can recommend the book to a non-diver and he’ll get it. For example, early on the book when panic proved to be Drozd’s undoing, Kurson writes:
“A great diver learns to stand down his emotions. At the moment he becomes lost or blinded or tangled or trapped, that instant when millions of years of evolution demand flight or fight and narcosis carves order from his brain, he dials down his fear and contracts into the moment until his breathing slows and his narcosis lightens and his reason returns. In this way, he overcomes his humanness and becomes something else. In this way, liberated from his instincts, he becomes a freak of nature.”
Even a purely recreational diver who doesn’t go beyond 130 feet like me appreciates that thought.
Did I say it was a pleasure to read? It's like I’m feeling my way in the dark along with Chatterton too. And I did find myself smiling here and there (the initial one-upmanship between Chatterton/Seeker and Kohler/Bielenda; and when they believed they struck it rich with mercury for a total of 12 hours). But as I got to picture the men, it hurt too -- like when the Rouse father-and-son tandem (all-smiles in their photo in the book) bolted for sunlight and to their doom; when the once great Nagle just had to cap his nth hospital discharge with drinking himself to death; when Chatterton and Kohler’s single-mindedness made casualties of their respective marriages. There’s no mincing on the costs.
The shift in place-and-time towards the end was a surprise bonus, I thought -- bringing to the fore again Kurson’s ability (like Nagle and Chatterton if you think about it) to fit the pieces to reveal a coherent whole.
OK, forcing myself to stop now. I do get carried away