American Brad Matsen is a terrific writer on matters relating to diving, as I discovered when I read his previous book Titanic's Last Secrets, about "Shadow Divers" John Chatterton and Richie Kohler's adventures relating to the world's most famous shipwreck.
Now Matsen has turned to an equally mythic subject in Jacques-Yves Cousteau, or "JYC", who remains, 13 years after his death, undoubtedly the world's most famous diver.
Matsen is a no-nonsense writer with a knack for keeping the reader with him. Cousteau's extraordinary life could have taken up volumes, but he wraps it up in a satisfying manner in around 250 pages plus footnotes.
Generally he doesn't pass judgment on his complex subject, though a telling sentence comes right at the end of the book in the small print of the acknowledgments.
Here he thanks a psychologist for helping him "understand Cousteau's personality and his pattern of involving countless people in fulfilling his visions and leaving most of them behind as he moved on to his next adventure".
It's all set out here - Cousteau's single-minded ruthlessness when it comes to achieving his objectives, underpinned by two beliefs: one, that you live for the present and future, without sentimentality about the past; and two, that if you have good ideas and present them with charm, people will finance them. You worry about where the next dosh is coming from only after the last lot is spent.
He combined these precepts with courage and vision, and look at what he achieved, from the early days of primitive diving exploration; the development of the aqua-lung during WW2; the early stills photography evolving into movie-making; the all-for-one expeditionary force that was the Calypso corps; the incredible vessels, from the underwater flying saucer to the wind-powered Alcyone; the underwater habitats;
the profound effect on audiences of the films Shipwrecks, and especially the Silent World; the TV adventure documentaries; the pioneering environmentalism - it seemed that Cousteau had created a bubble that could never burst.
But it did, as he got old; when he started to take the TV networks for granted; when he began making programmes the public didn't get; and when the death of his younger son Philippe, and then the revelation of his secret life with his mistress and two children, split
his real family apart, in a rift from which it never recovered.
It was clearly the original family and crew that co-operated in producing this book, and it is by and large a tribute to their mentor.
Cousteau's 100th birthday would have been this June. This is also the year in which the Cousteau Foundation has said that the until-now decrepit Calypso will sail again.
This book is therefore well-timed, and even if you thought you knew all about Captain Cousteau (and this book made me realise just how little I knew), it's a fascinating voyage.
Steve Weinman
Pantheon
ISBN 9780375424137
Hardback, 320pp, $27.95
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