Another Great Day at Sea
Life Aboard the USS George H. W. Bush
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- €8.99
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- €8.99
Publisher Description
'We were on one of the technologically most advanced places on earth but the guys in grease-smeared brown sweat shirts and floatcoats, draped with heavy brown chains, looked like they were ready to face the burning oil poured on them from the walls of an impregnable castle. The combination of medieval (chains) and sci-fi (cranials and dark visors) didn't quite cover it though; there was also an element of the biker gang about them. All things considered, theirs was one of the toughest, roughest looks going. No wonder they stood there, lounging with the grace of heavy gun-slingers about to sway into the saloon.'
In November 2011, Geoff Dyer fulfilled a childhood dream: spending time on an aircraft carrier. Geoff 's stay on the USS George Bush - on active service in the Arabian Gulf - proved even more intense, memorable - and frequently hilarious - than he could ever have hoped. The warship become a microcosm for a stocktaking of modern Western life: Religion, drugs, chauvinism, farting, gyms, steaks, prayer, parental death, relationships and how to have a beach party with 5000 people on a giant floating hunk of steel. Piercingly perceptive and gloriously funny, this is a unique book about work, war and entering other worlds.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This persona-driven work follows Dyer (But Beautiful; The Missing of the Somme) during the two weeks he spent as writer in residence on the USS George H.W. Bush, interviewing the aircraft carrier's crew, as well as members of the U.S. navy and taking notes on the ship's general operations. Yet, as is his custom, Dyer makes no pretenses about being a reporter or capturing facts. He claims early on that "the essence of character is the inability to get used to things," and though he makes due aboard the vast and bustling ship, he knows himself well. The result is an often hilarious and aphoristic, short-chaptered account written by a British essayist who is fascinated by American culture. Always the outsider, Dyer spends most of his time thinking about food, comparing himself to other writers in a self-deprecating manner, or lamenting the ship's many inconveniences. Dyer is most engaging when he's coming to terms with his own anxieties, or making sharp observations about the accomplishments of others; he is perhaps at his least sophisticated when whining or indulging his own base desires. Though this isn't Dyer's finest work of nonfiction, and he hasn't tackled his subject matter to its full potential, it is still a highly entertaining read. With color photographs not seen by PW.
