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I have a question for you. In 2008, is there anything or any place of size and significance in the world left to discover?
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It's a valid question. A hundred years ago, people were still pushing into areas man had never set foot in and documenting new species of animals never before seen. I'm not talking about small animals either. I'm talking about large mammals, fish, even insects the size of a man's hand. In the process they were finding places only hinted about in legends; places like Machu Picchu, the peak of Everest and the tombs of Egyptian pharoahs. Discoveries were being made in waves that sparked the imaginations of thousands, if not millions of people both young and old.
Now, it seems that everything of significance has been found. Through satellite imagery, we've even seen into areas we can't physically set foot in. We know how deep the deepest lakes and oceans are and how tall the highest part of the South American rainforest canopy stands. Even better, all of that information is at our fingertips through the very medium on which you're reading this review.
The fact is, there are few people in this world who will ever experience the feeling of discovering something brand new. Robert Kurson's book Shadow Divers documents just such a discovery though and it's one that happened less than 20 years ago. It's a true account of a group of men who, in 1991, followed a local fisherman's set of "mystery numbers" to a location in the Atlantic, dove down 230 feet and stumbled upon the remains of an authentic German U-Boat right off the coast of New Jersey. The discovery sent shockwaves through the diving community and the world in general because according to every available record, there shouldn't have been any U-Boat there.
 What John Chatterton and Richie Kohler (the two men who continued to explore this extremely dangerous wreck over the next four years) soon found was that identifying this sub would be one of the most challenging feats they would ever experience. In fact, each man would face death repeatedly. These were men who had dove the Andrea Doria, gone further into places no one had dared go before and yet this wreck almost proved too much for even them.
Kurson writes the first chapters in a style that will totally captivate most readers. His explanation of the dangers of diving, the horrors of nitrogen narcosis and the tenacity needed to face down ones primal instincts in the alien world of deep ocean diving is masterful. Reading this book actually made me want to suit up and go diving right away. Keep in mind that it's January and the Pacific ocean five miles from my home is really, really cold right now. So cold that ultimately no one would go with me.
However, Kurson goes beyond mere storytelling when he begins to dig into the psyches of Kohler and Chatterton. These two men are definitely of a special breed. Chatterton in particular is world reknowned in diving circles as a first rate explorer and wreck diver. Reading his story gives great insight into what drives this remarkable man. Furthermore, Kurson also interviewed dozens of other people including surviving U-Boat crewmen who tell their stories of what life was like aboard these subs and ultimately tell the stories of some of the crew of the doomed U-Boat.
The thing about Shadow Divers that elevates it above similar books is that ultimately it's less about the discovery of the wreck (a feat that's covered in the opening few chapters) and more about the responsibility of making such a discovery. It's about the passions in life that turn into obsessions and the costs of those obsessions. Kurson unfolds the story in the way a director might bring it to the screen, barrelling right into the discovery of the boat and then offering flashbacks to fill in the backstory. The result is the best kind of nonfiction book in that it's immensely informative yet highly entertaining.
If you've ever wondered what it must be like to find a lost tomb, discover a new species or explore a lost world, Shadow Divers may just be the closest you'll get to the real thing. It may also make you consider whether you would have what it takes to see the discovery through to its end.
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