THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 27, 1994 TAG: 9411220577
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY EDITH R. WHITE
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
SKINNY DIPPING
And Other Immersions in Water, Myth, and Being Human
JANET LEMBKE
Lyons & Burford. 177 pp. $21.95.
STRIP OFF your old habits and preconceptions and plunge into a stream of consciousness, invites naturalist writer Janet Lembke. ``Skinny dipping,'' she says, ``is the most completely sensuous experience available to humankind.''
If you accept her summons, she will guide you with leisurely essays down through waters of legendary seas and familiar rivers to the ancient myths that lie buried beneath. She promises to bring you the soft, cool, feathery and delicious sensation of ideas slipping over you as you float in the liquid hither and thither imagination.
Lembke, author of Dangerous Birds, River Time and Looking for Eagles, is a naturalist with a wealth of knowledge about the Earth and its bird and animal inhabitants. She is also a classical scholar and a respected translator of Greek and Latin classics. If Annie Dillard and Edith Hamilton combined their talents, Skinny Dipping might be the result.
Lembke lives with her husband, ``The Chief,'' and her Doberman, Sally, on the banks of the Neuse River in North Carolina close to where it runs into the sea. Her roots are in Virginia. She grew up in Staunton and spent summers in a mountain cabin called ``Spit'n Whittle,'' which was close to three wild mountain rivers, Bullpasture, Cowpasture and Calfpasture.
But it likely wasn't cattle that figured in the naming of the three rivers. It may have been the bison that roamed there in the days of the Shawnee, or the elk that early settlers found there. Or it may have been that Bull and Cow and Calf came down from the whales that once swam in the limestone and shale of prehistoric oceans. When you drift on a wave of fancy, as Lembke does throughout Skinny Dipping, there is no telling how far you may go.
Epimetheus, the guardian spirit of afterthoughts and backward glances, swims along with Lembke. From a memory of some small event Lembke squeezes enough for a juicy essay. It may be the sight of a Herakles beetle as she weeds her garden in North Carolina that starts her mulling over the ancient myth of Herakles slaying the giant, Antaios. It may be a rain shower, primeval water pounding down in fat drops on parched soil, that sets her recalling the last play of Aeschylus, which celebrates rain and desire, ``Sky's holy quickfire.''
In ``The Waters of Night'' she recalls a visit to Luray Caverns with her granddaughter. Examining 400-million-year-old dripstone leads her to other ancient caves and labyrinths with Achilles and Aeneas, and finally to recount a daredevil spelunking adventure of her youth. Thence on to the River Styx, the infernal stream known to such poet geographers as Homer, Virgil, Dante and Milton. It is a real river, she claims, and in 1746 her great-grandfather times five surveyed it and recorded the details with a quill pen in a journal that she owns.
Now that a portojohn has been set atop Mount Everest, it is clear that few places on Earth are off limits to tourists. But Lembke has made landfall on a group of tiny volcanic isles where no humans live. They are subantarctic and belong to New Zealand. There are penguins, albatrosses, mollymawks and sea lions, a wonderland of flora and fauna, but they have no voice of their own in myth and poetry. Yet in the glory of sea birds she senses their sacred kairos, their legends in the making.
The Brothers Grimm and Finnegan's Wake float lazily along her river of thoughts. So do Pliny and the Land of Oz. It may be that sometimes the stream of prose is swamped with allusions and bogs down. Some of the wine-dark waters may turn a bit purple with poesy. But if you enjoy rippling language and surging ideas, and you have time and imagination, it is worth taking the plunge and immersing yourself in Water, Myth, and Being Human. MEMO: Edith R. White is a Norfolk storyteller, artist and librarian. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by A. C. Stanley
Janet Lembke
by CNB