Does “The Sea in Me” Sink or Swim? A Review and Analysis
by Stephanie McCarthy
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Anonymous lady jumping in ocean from pier by Ben Mack At the beginning of summer, the power went out in my
apartment building for about five hours. Normally, my overachieving self
would’ve freaked out over this. However, I decided to use the time to catch up
on some of my reading. So, I pulled up Krishan Coupland’s short story, “The Sea
in Me,” on my computer. I originally came across this British writer when I was
researching literary magazines to send out my short stories to. He runs Neon,
one of the longest-running independent literary magazines in the UK. It’s also a
small press that publishes chapbooks, which are collections of poems, short
stories, or other literary works. You wonder if the guy ever sleeps. His short
fiction has won a couple of awards, including “The Sea in Me,” which appeared
in the esteemed collection, Best British Stories
2017. The story opens with an unnamed, gifted female swimmer in the
bathtub. She’s willing the scars on her neck to open. However, nothing happens.
Maybe the water is too shallow? Whatever it is, this unsettling detail
immediately draws you in. You want to know how those scars got there. Were they
self-inflicted or did someone else cause them? Was she born with them? I
applaud the author’s gutsiness in delving into such macabre material this early
on. The main character is instantly likable, and the description
of her hair is glorious: “When my hair went green [sic]
I told Mum it was because of all the chlorine, and she wrote me a note for
school. Nobody else has green hair, and it’s soft and never gets tangled.
It floats around my head [sic] like a coral reef plant [sic]
and turns with me, follows me [sic] slender and obedient [sic]
like a tail. I like the way it makes me look: mysterious and strange. And sexy,
I think.” Readers, particularly young adults with overbearing parents,
will be able to relate to the girl’s predicament all too well. To keep her
relationship with her boyfriend, Martin, a secret from her stage mother, she
fakes swimming laps by running her bathing suit under the faucet at his house. Another
time, she makes up a story about having a field trip so they can go to the beach. When a parent lives vicariously through you, you wonder what
he or she cares about more—you or your achievements? There’s a heartbreaking
moment in the story where the girl likes her latest trophy so much that she’d
like to keep it in her room, but her mom snatches it away from her, puts it in
the cabinet with the rest of her trophies and awards, and locks it. It really
is all about appearances and impressing others, isn’t it? It definitely sheds
light on a couple of instances earlier in the story as to why she gets annoyed
with her mom: “She’s
even kept the stupid paper certificates I got for completing my swimming lessons
at school,” as
well as her mom’s behavior when she practices at the rec center: “They’ll let me in
for free sometimes, if they recognise [British spelling] me from the local
paper. Every time this happens [sic] Mum goes all quiet and pink
and smiley, and I hate it.” The protagonist
vacillates between feelings of powerlessness (and being trapped) and being
powerful: “I don’t know how many thousands she has spent on pool fees
and swimming lessons and competition entries for me. I don’t know how many
hundred hours she’s put into driving me to and from and training. With all that
weight behind me [sic] there’s no way to stop now.” Fast forward
to the next paragraph: “I am powerful. I could flick up from the bottom of the
pool and swim so fast that nobody could catch me. That’s what all the trophies
and the medals and certificates at home mean. Nobody can catch me, even if they
tried.” A few of the scenes tell us what’s going on instead of showing
us. One is when the main character is younger and her mom catches her kissing a
boy. She proceeds to scream at her daughter, saying that she’s jeopardizing her
career. What a great scene it would’ve been had it turned into a heated exchange
between them and we knew exactly what was being said. Had a flashback been
added, exploring the girl missing out on her normal life due to her swimming
obligations, the material would’ve been impossible to put down. Another is when
the girl shaves off her pubic hair after overhearing some guys say they like it
that way. Again, it would’ve been much more immersive and engaging if it had
been broken up into dialogue. Furthermore, the story’s otherwise rich characterization
falters significantly during moments of intimacy, such as the sex scene between
the girl and her boyfriend. The narrative voice, which elsewhere offers sharp,
nuanced observations, descends into cliché: “When he puts his dick inside me [sic]
it feels right. Doesn’t hurt at least, for the first time in ages. It feels
like floating in hot water and I want it to go on forever.” This superficial
prose contrasts sharply with the more evocative, complex writing seen earlier
in the text. By relying on generic, impersonal descriptions, the author
bypasses a crucial opportunity for character development, and as a result,
misses out on creating an authentic moment of connection. The frequent omission of commas throughout the prose slows
the reading process and hinders the flow of the storytelling. Polishing these
specific errors would have allowed the story’s emotional weight to come through
more clearly. While some may argue the omissions are a stylistic choice to
quicken the pace or simulate stream of consciousness, the repeated
pattern—notably in complex-compound, simple, and declarative
sentences—ultimately pulls the reader out of the narrative and makes it
difficult to focus on the story. The use of [sic] in the quotes,
therefore, is for keeping track of this pervasive issue. She has a recurring dream of swimming among fish, which
causes her to swim deeper and deeper in the water to get to them in real life.
Each time she does this, she’s gone longer and longer and her boyfriend grows
increasingly concerned. When her dream finally comes true, and she swims in the
ocean, it is described as “thick with life” and “where life came from.” As she
rides the waves, she feels like she “can breathe clearly for the first time in
ages.” The openness and depth of the water are also liberating. Her feelings of
being powerful return, whereas, in the confines of the swimming pool, she “was like
a tiger in a shipping container, always swiping at metal and empty air.”
Too many key factors in the story are left unresolved.
We never really find out why her skin splits into silvery scales on a few areas
of her body. Is she turning into a fish, or is she
having a psoriasis flare-up from being in the chlorinated water of the
swimming pool too long? Is this ultimately a productive or destructive journey? We
can’t help but wonder if it’s the latter, as she continues to get further and
further from reality. Remember when she was willing the scars on her neck to
open at the beginning of the story? What if they were, in fact, caused by her
and she’s trying to bring this suicide attempt full circle by using her
swimming expertise to drown herself? The protagonist’s aimless journey weakens the central
conflict. The story references a poignant childhood memory with her father, but
insufficient detail prevents it from carrying real emotional weight. The writer
fails to use her physical descent into the ocean as a vehicle for internal
exploration, squandering a chance for a more layered character arc. Moreover,
what happened to her father? Why isn’t he in his daughter’s life? Is he dead, or
is he estranged from the family? Because the story poses more questions than it answers,
readers are forced into endless conjecture. After a while, our patience wears
thin, and we’re tempted to abandon the girl and her journey and follow her
boyfriend, Martin, to solid ground. C- For a far better, easier read, check out Coupland’s
2018 article in Hidden Compass, “The Disneyland of Socialism’s Demise,” about
the once-abandoned Spreepark from the communist era of East Germany. That piece
gets an A+ from me, and I hope to cover it once I get the insane amount of
writing projects off my to-do list. |
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