(Cover image by Pola Maneli, via New York Times)

The most frustrating part of studying literature published within the last two years and under a not-so-unique name is that when you search through the library for peer-reviewed critical interpretations of Caleb Azumah Nelson‘s gripping, romantic (yet bleak and brutal) realist novel Open Water, which is rich with poetic imagery depicting the lasting effects of grief and police brutality on a young Black man, you could instead end up writing about the much less impactful 2003 film of the same name, featuring disappointingly small sharks and a camera so shaky it puts the singers at karaoke nights to shame. In this short analysis, we will pick apart why this name was chosen and just how useful the conceit of “Open Water” is in providing us with a deeper understanding of the main character’s feelings, and the plot as a whole.

The first thing that greets you when you start reading a book is its title, followed by the publisher gloating about all the raving reviews the novel got from several online tabloids, and then the title again. We all like to point out the “title drop” in films, an observation so deeply ingrained into our ape-like, pattern-recognition-electric-meatballs to the point where I genuinely believe we as a society actively encourage titles of all media to be directly tied into an important quotation from said media: just imagine how out-of-place the title “Billie Jean” would be for a song that made absolutely no mention of “Billie”, on top of the fact that Michael Jackson was not wearing Jeans at all in the music video. Much to the enjoyment of those of us who lost our collective shit – pointing aggressively at our TVs with our mouths wide open and letting out an audible gasp of excitement – when the Sea People in James Cameron’s latest CGI technology flex-fest taught the Forest People “The Way of The Water“: Nelson’s gritty exploration of how racism affects British society does, in fact, adhere to the time-honoured tradition of using its title as an important plot element. So what exactly does “Open Water” mean as a metaphor, and how is it used for effect? And perhaps more importantly, where are those damned sharks I was promised?

Open Water uses many colourful and poetic metaphors to convey emotions; in fact, the entire novel is written with this kind of imagery at its centre, and as a result, each sentence in this novel provides more emotional context than a hundred pages of Game of Thrones could even dream of. One way in which Nelson achieves this is through his usage of weather imagery, and the subversion of what we would expect from that (far more sophisticated imagery is used than “Oh look, how clever, rain means he’s sad!” which, shockingly and inexplicably, is still a widely accepted approach to emotional storytelling throughout popular media).
In Chapter 5, for example, snow – which is often described as a very delicate and peaceful kind of weather – is balled up and thrown in our face, ice chunks and all, as it is now being used to represent death, with our unnamed protagonist (who for the record, does not become stranded at sea whilst scuba diving at any point) comparing falling snowflakes to the ashes of his recently deceased grandmother:

The sky has erupted, and there’s white ash on the ground.

Nelson, C.A. (2022) in Open water. UK: Penguin Books, p. 18

The word “erupted” also calls to mind a much more violent image than one would expect from imagining snowfall, as a sudden and aggressive burst of snow can only happen when the two main characters finally kiss after an hour and a half in a Christmas romcom – so I instead choose to interpret the “eruption” of snow as mirroring a sudden outburst of grief.

With a basic understanding of how Nelson uses natural imagery with multi-faceted meanings to illustrate complex feelings, we can now read more deeply into the ending of Chapter 15, the “title drop” moment that I have been hyping up since – ironically – the title of this post.

‘I love you, you know?’
She has swum out into open water, and it is not long before you join her.
You take but a moment before saying, ‘I love you too.’

Nelson, C.A. (2022) in Open water. UK: Penguin Books, p. 83

Put simply, the act of swimming “out into open water” in this case is the act of opening up emotionally, and allowing oneself to be vulnerable, as someone in reality would be vulnerable when actually swimming in open water: there might be sharks down there. Jokes aside, the protagonist’s love interest has allowed an opening for him to join her and their relationship has become deeper, however, the idea of swimming alone in the ocean does bring along with it an undertone of danger, and it could be said that just as a mutual romantic relationship truly begins between them, the signs of its inevitable end (Spoiler alert, by the way! I’m still harbouring an intense resentment for my classmates who decided to break my heart about fifteen pages early) are already starting to show: just how long can they stay afloat, and where are they swimming to? That last question is especially pertinent, as the water being “open” with no clear path forward suggests that the relationship was always going to go nowhere; just two people lost in foreboding, isolating (potentially shark-infested) waters. The protagonist ignores this potential danger however: the timing shown through the phrase “it is not long after” suggests an immediate and unquestioning trust in (and/or devotion to) his love interest, through his willingness to take risks to be with her.

Put simply, the act of swimming ‘out into open water’ in this case is the act of opening up emotionally, and allowing oneself to be vulnerable

If I haven’t convinced you to read Open Water yet, as of writing this article the audiobook version is available for free with a trial of Audible, with other formats being more than fairly priced, especially when considering the incredible amount of emotion that Nelson has managed to make me feel within so few words. You can also buy the book on Amazon, for anyone confident enough to volunteer themselves as sacrifices for Jeff Bezos’ future human experiments. Whilst there may not be any sharks in this novel, there sure is a powerful and moving tale of romantic tragedy born from intense grief and societal othering set in the brutally racist and corrupt present-day London.