Just as the coastline dominates Even the Sea’s vistas, readers are struck by the proximity and absence of Fife’s vital element, a tide skilfully managed by Eleanor Livingstone.
Even the cover seems to miss something. Stones and shells only offer sharp impedance to the barefoot or casual traveller. They might stop to ask, ‘Where is the water?’ The answer is that it’s in the margins, overleaf.
An afternoon’s intense reading at 60-plus poems, Even the Sea has a few motifs which take turns at the forefront of Livingstone’s imagination. Delicate and forceful, the themes of ageing and decay personal and societal loneliness and the setting sun, are all well examined.
The book’s first “summer” section kicks its feet in detritus. Seaside towns are all chips sometimes of the shoulder kind cigarette ends, lots of sea birds, and people of a certain age on holiday. The second, “winter” part often looks ahead as well as behind, and Breakdown does both at once:
Bad enough to break down and be towed facing the wayyou want to go, slowedby mechanical inertia yet still moving forward
The writing is meditative, often objective, but passion and longing do break through: The Witchfinder’s Daughter probes for expected flaws “in a hidden or tender spot”. Withdrawing, human relationships in The Moment seem like a picture postcard, with their contrary results written on the reverse, all looked back on with hindsight.
People move on and often back, seasons come full circle, and there is a still life painter’s ambition in capturing the results of their passing, whether it is good or bad, getting older or looking backwards.
There are waypoints set all over the east coast, but most of the scenes could take place by any bridge or at any harbour. Livingstone deftly avoids a coat of Tartan tourism gloss, and I believe Even the Sea’s strength lies in her frequently detached and observational style. The writing is always clear and accessible, with a Scottish perspective that doesn’t require a Scots primer.
Her publications include The Last King of Fife, A Sampler, and as an editor, Skein of Geese and Migraasje: Versions in Scots and Shetlandic.Even the Sea is available to buy now.