New Cousteau Bio--by Brad Matsen

[Sam Miller III]

"Jacques Cousteau; The Sea King"
by
Brad Matsen.

"Jacques Cousteau opened up the undersea world as no one has done before or since. But not generally know is the fascinating and compelling individual behind the acclaimed television personality.

With the cooperation of many of Jacques Cousteau’s collaborators, friends, and family, Brad Matsen gives us the first full picture of this remarkable life. ... developing<< with Emil Gagnon..from a modified Gasogen >>—and risking his life to test—the regulator that made scuba diving possible; running the world’s largest scuba equipment manufacturing firm; <<US DIvers>> becoming a legendary catalyst of the worldwide environmental movement; starring in The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau and in hundreds of documentaries; and publishing more than fifty books.

The widowed Cousteau marrying his longtime mistress Francine —forty years his junior and the mother of two of his four children—kindling a bitter family feud that continues to this day. <<< Francine aka: The out of step, step mother >>>

Vividly conveying the people, the adventure, the science, and the lure of the sea that shaped Cousteau’s life, Matsen paints a luminous portrait of a man who profoundly changed the way we view, and treat, our planet.


Brad Matsen is the author of Titanic's Last Secrets, Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss, and many other books about the sea and its inhabitants. "
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ed note:
Previous Cousteau biographies;

** Undersea Explorer; the story of Captain Cousteau --James Dugan 1957
James Dugan was his PR man: First of the men fish..etc

** Cousteau; Unauthorized biography - Axel Madsen, 1986
Probably the best bio. no holds barred

** Cousteau, the Captain and his world -a personal portrait-Richard Munson.1989
Rushed into publication glorify Cousteau and to negate Madsen's book

All must have must read if you are a Cousteau fan: Dugan, Madsen, Munson & Matsen....

 

[drbill]

So this bio goes into the "dirt" as well. Seriously, sounds like an interesting bio of a man I was privileged to work for... but never met (I was on Alcyone with JMC rather than Calypso during the filming we did in 1985).

 

[covediver]

I am two chapters away from completing the book and plan to do a full review when I have more time to think about all I have read. I wasn't sure whether I was going to buy this book when I first saw it at Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago, especially after reading the short review it got in National Geographic Adventure this month. I got it instead of the new latest self promotion by Her Deepness, Sylvia Earle.


But, I have an interest in this family having watched JMC tool around Santa Barbara for many years and having lived across the street from one of his cameramen, Louis Prezelin, for a brief time in the 1980s. (In fact, Louis asked to use our pool one evening to test a new strobe set up, he came tooling across the street in full wetsuit, mask, fins, and snorkel, carring a camera, a Papa Smurf doll for use as an underwater model, and a Color Tile chart from the local paint store. The experiment ended when the glue holding the tiles to the sheet disolved in the pool water. Louis spent about 15 minutes picking up individual tiles from the pool bottom)

The book presents a very readible picture of a very complex man full of paradoxes and dichotomies. The book starts with his youth where he felt alienated from pretty much everyone but his older brother and found solace in movie making. The invention of the aqualung is fascinating, especially during the war when everything was in short supply, expect the prying eyes of occupiers and hardships brought about by war time shortages (the book relates how they had to be careful spearfishing so as not to expend more energy than they could get from consuming the fish they caught). The early years are the most interesting part of the story for me, up until the 1960s when the operation became a multinational business. I had not realized the extent to which the early years were dependent on research grants from oil companies for charters to do geologic surveys for oil bearing areas of the sea floor and the pioneering effort of the Cousteau team in deep water construction (saturation)techniques because of the depths the platforms has to be emplaced, including those off of California. One of the paradoxes of his life's work.

I had to be cautious not to evaluate his jet set environmental lifestyle using today's concept of the carbon footprint. From the description in the book, I can only speculate that it was huge, but needed to support his stature as one of the leading environmentalists of the day. (Unlike many pretenders to the throne today, say like James Cameron, who have lavish lifestyles while preaching that I need to limit mine.)

While those of an older generation may claim Mike Nelson and Sea Hunt as their inspiration for going underwater, for many of us just a few years later it was really the life and times of Captain Cousteau portraryed by his television shows in the 1960s that got us in the water.

When I am finished, the book will share a spot on the bookshelf with the bios of other adventurers and ocean people such as Farley Mowat, Scott Carpenter, Francis Drake, Captain Cook, Willard Bascom (The Crest of the Wave), and Tristan Jones (Wayward Sailor). All acheived things heroic and all were humanly flawed...Defintely worth buying for anyone interested in this ocean icon.

 

[JohnPeters]

Bought the book and very glad I did. Highly recommended.