However, one big flaw ruined it for me: he wrote it entirely in the modish 'present tense' of modern magazine interviews. I believe he is a magazine travel writer, so perhaps he can’t shake off a habit.

For example: "...my stomach grumbles and I pull into the skinniest of fish and chip shops in the nearby village of Rodley. Behind the counter a man the size of the Yorkshire Dales serves me haddock and chips, cooked in beef dripping. It is out of this world, and comes accompanied by mushy peas topped with mint sauce. "The Parmesan of the north, that is," the barrel-shaped owner assures me..."

This style might work in the context of short interviews with movie stars and celebs, trying to illustrate a ten-minute PR interview in a hotel suite, but it hangs very wearily on the format of a long travel book, where every darn thing is 'happening right now'. The style leaves no sense of 'memoir' or fond memory of a long journey. In fact, when the journey ends, he makes it feel almost longer ago than the start of the journey.

The extensive interviews and quotations also don't ring quite true, feeling to me like PR quotes that have been made up and shown to the people concerned for approval. (I write a lot of PR quotes for a living myself, which is why I suspect this!)

It's a potentially excellent book, and he covers all the bases of the modern canal age, but for me it's spoiled by want of a stricter editor. Perhaps he can rewrite it for a second edition?


The meaning of (p)leasure   October 2, 2003
 11 out of 11 found this review helpful

Whilst we all run around complaining of no free time to do the things we want to do, there is no time to stop and work out if there is a better way. Paul Gogarty has found the time to write a great work by slowing down, and where better on the canals of England where 4 miles an hour speed limits prevail.

If this had been published in the 70s, reading it today you would assume that it's not like that any more. And you'd be wrong. The canals of Britain are reviving slowly but surely and this book sends a very positive message of this revival.

Gogarty has captured the spirit of the waterways, and the people who inhabit them, whilst somehow managing to portray the slowed-down life to be led. The best travel books are those that take you there and make you want to jump straight into his shoes. In this case I have spent the last few days aboard Caroline with Paul and had a wonderful time.

I imagine if you are as far as reading this review, the secret of Britain's canals is no secret, but whoever you are, you should find the time in your hurried lives to sit down for a leisurely read of this great book.


The Water Road an Odysey by Narrowboat through England's Wat   August 6, 2003
 4 out of 4 found this review helpful

This is a highly evocative book which proves irresistible reading, especially if you find canals themselves just as irresistible. Gogarty is a natural with a penchant for descriptive phrases which leave little to the imagination. It's one of the best books I have read in a long time.