Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero

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Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero

In a masterful work of cultural history, Charles Sprawson, himself an obsessional swimmer and fluent diver, explores the meaning that different cultures have attached to water, and the search for the springs of classical antiquity.
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In nineteenth-century England bathing was thought to be an instrument of social and moral reform, while in Germany and America swimming came to signify escape. For the Japanese the swimmer became an expression of samurai pride and nationalism. Sprawson gives is fascinating glimpses of the great swimming heroes: Byron leaping dramatically into the surf at Shelleyâ€™s beach funeral; Rupert Brooke swimming naked with Virginia Woolf, the dark water â€œsmelling of mint and mudâ€; Hart Crane swallow-diving to his death in the Bay of Mexico; Edgar Allan Poeâ€™s lone and mysterious river-swims; Leander, Webb, Weissmuller, and a host of others.
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Informed by the literature of Swinburne, Goethe, Scott Fitzgerald, and Yukio Mishima; the films of Riefenstahl and Vigo; the Hollywood â€œswimming musicalsâ€ of the 1930s; and delving in and out of Olympic history, Haunts of the Black Masseur is an enthralling assessment of manâ€”body submerged, self-absorbed. It is quite simply the best celebration of swimming ever written, even as it explores aspects of culture in a heretofore unimagined way.

Country	USA
Author	Charles Sprawson
Binding	Kindle Edition
EISBN	9780307823649
Format	Kindle eBook
Label	Pantheon
Manufacturer	Pantheon
NumberOfPages	320
PublicationDate	2012-08-29
Publisher	Pantheon
ReleaseDate	2012-08-29
Studio	Pantheon

Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero

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