Darker Than the Deepest Sea

The average reader of Darker Than the Deepest Sea is not someone who bought it choosing at random in a bookshop, knowing nothing about the life and the work of Nick Drake: their involvement ranges from mild fanatism to strong obsession… even though reading a book requires that the readers are able to move eyes and hands, so they aren’t in the deepest sea (and you know what I mean).

I enjoyed this book and the first words that came to my mind to describe it were: sober, calm, clear… very English (its rhythm increases just from Part 3). It provides many details and a deep analysis but author’s opinions are never exaggerated or naive: Trevor Dann is a former Head of BBC Music Entertainment and his professional skills are shown clearly.

An evident example of the deep work he has done is on page 69, where he describes the letter that Rodney Drake wrote to the tutor of Nick in Cambridge; Dann noticed that

There is a change in the shade of ink in the final paragraphs which suggest that they were added later (…)

I suppose that finding this old letter was not easy and observing “a change in the shade of ink” shows great attention and a very sharp eye.

As I’ve just written, Mr. Dann’s prose is calm and placid but here and there you can find some fun: the most unbelievable and amusing story he reports is the adventure in Morocco (beginning at page 124) that alone is worth the price of the book! :)

On page 243, Dann proves once again his professionalism with a bad assessment for the song “Sunday”: a book about Drake is not a good reason to avoid negative notes.

Funnily, on page 258 he remembers that

bootlegs (…) illegally distributed

but just a few lines following, on the very next page, he starts to describe one by one most of the songs you can find on them. :)

My last note is that the website La Luna Rosa is written in Spanish: it’s not Italian as stated, although “La Luna Rosa” (“The pink moon” in English) is a valid name with the same meaning in both Spanish and Italian.

I didn’t write everything, of course: the book contains many interesting things I didn’t mention here. I suggest you buy the book and express your appreciation to Trevor Dann.