Pondlife: A Swimmer's Journal (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781408841020)

The ponds of Hampstead Heath are small oases; fragments of wild nature nestled in the heart of north-west London. For the best part of his life Al Alvarez--poet, critic, novelist, rock-climber and poker player--has swum in them almost daily.

An athlete in his youth, Alvarez, now in his eighties, chronicles what it is to grow old with humor and fierce honesty--from his relentlessly nagging ankle which makes daily life a struggle, to infuriating bureaucratic battles with the council to keep his disabled person's Blue Badge, the devastating effects of a stroke, and the salvation he finds in the three Ss--Swimming, Sex and Sleep.

As Alvarez swims in the ponds he considers how it feels when you begin to miss that person you used to be--to miss yourself. Swimming is his own private form of protest against the onslaught of time; proof to others, and himself, that he's not yet beaten.

By turns funny, poetic and indignant, Pondlife is a meditation on love, the importance of life's small pleasures and, above all, a lesson in not going gently in to that good night.

Author: Al Alvarez
ISBN-10: 1408841029
ISBN-13: 9781408841020
Publisher: Bloomsbury Paperbacks
Language: English
Published: 06/16/2015
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 7.80h x 5.00w x 0.70d