Review | Julie Otsuka writes about dementia with vision and wisdom in The Swimmers, but its dazzling opening jars with what follows
- The Swimmers is just the third novel from Julie Otsuka in 20 years, and its opening chapters, about a group of obsessive swimming aficionados, are breathtaking
- When its focus shifts to the fate of one among the group, the tonal disparity that produces detracts from Otsuka’s exploration of mental and emotional fracture
The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka, pub. Knopf
Julie Otsuka’s great gift is to telegraph the experience of the individual through a collective voice so delicate one feels there is no permutation of the human condition that cannot be universally felt. The nameless characters in When the Emperor was Divine (Otsuka’s 2002 debut novel), for example, act as chilling ventriloquists of the plight of Japanese-Americans inhumanely contained within internment camps in the 1940s.
In The Swimmers, Otsuka’s long-awaited third novel, she again invites us into the lives of characters whose specific realities reverberate with far-reaching resonance.
In the beginning, we hear from a plural voice that describes the near-manic obsession a group of swimmers have with their underground local pool. More than the site of leisurely recreation, the pool is their raison d’être.
They swim there with unflagging devotion, often neglecting aspects of their lives “up above” to spend time in a place where they feel an almost magical sense of meaning. “Up there,” one of the swimmers says, “I’m just another little old lady. But down here, at the pool, I’m myself.”
The other swimmers feel the same way, coveting their time in the water with almost religious zeal. The certainty and clarity of being in the pool is an anomalous gift alongside the tedium of real life, so whether they are a former Olympian, an actor, or Alice, the older woman edging towards dementia, they are equals within the reassuring boundaries of the pool’s rigidly demarcated lanes.
