Another Shore

This is the review of a partisan: George Hitchcock was my de facto faculty advisor (the actual faculty advisor, a perfectly nice man, was rather disengaged from my standpoint) during my undergraduate years in the early 1970s. I nevertheless post my enthusiastic endorsement of "Another Shore," a surrealistic response to the Cold War novels of the period. You want moral ambiguity? Forget John LeCarre--the nameless protagonist of "Another Shore" has it all over LeCarre's principals. I particularly remember a scene late in the book, as the narrator walks along--well, another shore:"At first the sea was a sparkling blue, but as the sun rose it gradually turned to a milky white. The change is doubtless due to the presence of minute algae in the waves. The water itself was quite warm. A number of times during the day I stopped to wade in it and observed its texture closely. In the afternoon its surface became wrunkled with a diamond-shaped pattern like that of alligator or snake skin. It was definitely abrasive to the touch and was shot through with veins and capillaries of some lighter liquid. I tried cutting it with my pen-knife, but after each stroke the veins would come together as before. This peculiar structure gives it great cohesiveness, and may account for the complete absence of any surf..."It's been over a dozen years since I saw George Hitchcock last. He'd be 86 now if, as I hope, he's among us still. If he's not, "Another Shore" nevertheless deserves to survive us all.