First Versagraph: “First having read the book of myths”
In Adrienne Rich’s “Diving into the Wreck,” the speaker announces that she has “read the book of myths.” She does not identify which book of myths she had read, a significant omission because there are many books of myths—Hindu, Buddhist, Judaic, Christian, Islamic, ancient Greek and Roman,—and these identify only the five major religions and the two ancient cultural nationalities that have influenced Western civilization from its beginning. So the reader must assume that his unnamed “book of myths” is a concoction of the speaker’s imagination.
So thus armed with the information she gathered from reading this non-existent book of myths, the speaker prepares for her journey. She takes a camera and sharp knife with her. She dresses like a scuba-diver in “body-armor of black rubber / the absurd flipper / the grave an awkward mask.”
Lest readers think she is really going on a Cousteau-like diving expedition, she disabuses them of that notion—she will not be “aboard the sun-flooder schooner” with an “assiduous team”; she will be “here alone.” She will remain in her library/study while examining further the unidentified “book of myths.”
The speaker creates an extended metaphor likening her scrutiny of “the book of myths” to diving down to a shipwreck. She compares herself to the divers who plunge deep below the Atlantic to gather information about the Titanic. The speaker, therefore, has made a judgment about that “book of myths”; it is like a giant ocean liner that hit an iceberg and sank into the sea, and now this brave speaker will determine the cause and possibly salvage whatever she can from the “wreck.”
“There is a ladder”
The speaker notes the ladder, which she uses to descend into the water. The ladder “is always there / hanging innocently.” The comic effect jars the senses: what would a guilty ladder do? Hang guiltily, one supposes. Also rather comical is the claim, “We know what it is for / we who have used it.” Whether they have “used it” or not, who over the age of two does not know what a ladder is for?
The absurdities are beginning to accrue, damaging the credibility of this speaker and achievement of the art, especially her final remark about the ladder, which, if it were not used, would be merely, “a piece of maritime floss / some sundry equipment.” Any equipment that has no specific use would be considered superfluous.
“I go down”
The diver/reader descends the ladder into the ocean and cannot tell “when the ocean / will begin.” She reports that her flippers cripple her, and she “crawls like an insect down the ladder.” She seems to have difficulty approaching that “book of myths.”
“First the air is blue and then”
The speaker describes the color of the air, seeming to have forgotten that her metaphor created a diver entering the ocean: there would be no “air.” She claims she is “blacking out,” but she also claims that her mask is powerful. The mask does a remarkable thing: “it pumps my blood with power.” Another absurdity, the mask protects the diver from drowning by cover her nose; it has nothing to do with pumping blood. Alone, she has to learn how turn her body in the water.
“And now: it is easy to forget”
She reports that she almost forgets why she came, as she observes the sea creatures that are used to their habitat, and that “you breathe differently down here”—another ludicrous remark.
“I came to explore the wreck”
In a failed attempt to bring the metaphor together, she baldly states what the reader has known all along, “I came to explore the wreck.” She adds, “The words are purposes. / The words are maps.” Nothing new here to further her narrative. All agree that words have purpose and are similar to maps.
She adds, “I came to see the damage that was done / and the treasures that prevail.” Again, nothing new here, that is what all divers who explore shipwrecks do.
“the thing I came for”
The speaker then emphasizes that she came for the wreck itself “not the story of the wreck.” This metaphorically presents a very huge problem. Remembering that the “wreck” is “the book of myths.” “Myths” are stories, and although she now claims she is really after “the thing itself and not the myth,” she has no way of securing that thing, because it exists only in the “book of myths.” She is now asking the reader to accept only her interpretation of the myths and not what others have found. She is implying that only she has truth of “the thing”; she can take the myth and make it not a myth.
“This is the place”
In order to turn the wreck/myth into “the thing,” she speaker creates a drama of a mermaid and merman who “circle silently / about the wreck / we dive into the hold. / I am she: I am he.” She now transforms herself from a mere reader/diver into an androgynous creature that has the delicious ability to report about the wreck merely because the speaker says so.
"whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes”
This creature is actually dead displaying a “drowned face [that] sleeps with open eyes.” The open eyes, unfortunately, cannot see any better than closed eyes when they are situated in the head of a corpse. But then again, maybe they are not really dead, for she claims, “we are the half-destroyed instruments” that once worked but because of that iceberg now lie ruined beneath the waves.
“We are, I am, you are”
The speaker sheds the scuba-gear and rouses up a universal, all-encompassing, profound statement: that “book of myths” does not contain our names. Whose names? The speaker need not answer the question; she has not even identified “the book of myths.” She anticipates that by evoking a mound of clay, she can rely upon the readers to sculpt it any way they choose, to form any animal they suits their fancy.
Linda Sue Grimes - As a writer, researcher, and SRF devotee, Linda Sue Grimes has studied poetry and practiced Kriya Yoga for over thirty years..
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