I usually have very little patience for books like The Seas. From the blurb and the first chapter, I was expecting a book that would be self-indulgent, romanticize mental illness, have no plot and just meander through the pages, coming to an abrupt end like the author couldn’t be arsed to at least write a coherent ending.
But the first thing that struck me about the book was the language and its simplicity. It is not self-indulgent, it does not meander, and though the line between mental illness and magical realism is thin, it is self-aware enough to acknowledge this.
This is the story of a mermaid, the narrator, who is nineteen and in love with a war veteran who may or may not be in love with her, the love-hate relationship she has with the sea – an embodiment of her father – and how she chooses to define her reality.
Like she says,
Are you really a mermaid or does it feel that way in the awkward body of a teenaged girl?
Who doesn’t remember being nineteen and oscillating between loving your body and the changes its going through but also hating it because of the attention it brings to you!
Throughout the story, we see glimpses of this relationship she has with the sea and consequently her father. Just like the sea, her father – or really any father or parent – can be loving and aloof, majestic and cruel, comforting and destructive, within reach as the waves on the beach touch your toes and as far away and mysterious as the horizon.
I too have an interesting relationship with the sea. It fascinates me how people’s ideal writing spot is near nature and mine is with my back to nature. Because if the sea is in front of me, there will be no words. There will be only the sea, demanding my respect and attention. Reminding me that in the grand scheme of things me or my words matter little. It is a deeply calming thought to me, like the last line of the book,
There’s no ship just the sea to rescue me.
We don’t know her name, I realized halfway through the book. Is it because mermaids do not have names or it is because she doesn’t want to be known by something as mundane as a name?
Speaking of identities and how words can have several meanings depending on their context, she says,
If one word can mean so many things at the same time then I don’t see why I can’t.
The seas – within her and outside of her – have such a hold on her that even though she tries to flee the town several times, the sea gets to her and drags her back. In that sense, the mother and the daughter have similar life trajectories: both of them are waiting for men to return to them, men who they know are dead, but men they are unable to let go of because of the way their stories are intertwined, not just with each other, but also with that water body that brings them peace and grief.
Though the two women tell each other to leave, to never come back, they know that they can no more abandon the sea and their men than they can abandon all the parts that make them whole.
This book could have been such a disaster of a read and yet, I couldn’t help but be sucked into it. Maybe my own love for the sea made this such a joyful read for me.
Do you have such a personal preference for some part of nature? Maybe it’s the mountains, or the trees or something else? Tell me in the comments!
tales of Suchita 
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