Author: Sy Montgomery
Translator: Maria Jose Diez Perez
Narrator: Marta Milla
Playback: 10hrs 17m
Publisher: Grupo Planeta
Genre: Memoir, Science, Nonfiction
First published: May 12, 2015
Book Description: Sy Montgomery’s popular 2011 Orion magazine piece, “Deep Intellect,” about her friendship with a sensitive, sweet-natured octopus named Athena and the grief she felt at her death, went viral, indicating the widespread fascination with these mysterious, almost alien-like creatures. Since then Sy has practiced true immersion journalism, from New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, pursuing these wild, solitary shape-shifters. Octopuses have varied personalities and intelligence they show in myriad ways: endless trickery to escape enclosures and get food; jetting water playfully to bounce objects like balls; and evading caretakers by using a scoop net as a trampoline and running around the floor on eight arms. But with a beak like a parrot, venom like a snake, and a tongue covered with teeth, how can such a being know anything? And what sort of thoughts could it think?
The intelligence of dogs, birds, and chimpanzees was only recently accepted by scientists, who now are establishing the intelligence of the octopus, watching them solve problems and deciphering the meaning of their color-changing camouflage techniques. Montgomery chronicles this growing appreciation of the octopus but also tells a love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about consciousness and the meeting of two very different minds.
Review:
This is a quick and easy-to-get-through story. If you already love octopuses, your love to cephalopods is simply going to be fueled. You get nice anecdotes, if you like to hear about a few people and their interaction to marine life, this does scratch that itch a little bit. Unfortunately, it does have the same defect a lot of my nonfiction books suffer from. Not enough science.
The author spends most of the book writing a memoir about hanging out at an aquarium, touching octopuses, and learning to scuba dive and swim with them. While there is something to be learned, many of the anecdotes are not surprising to someone who already knows about octopuses. The author's philosophical shortcomings would have been less bothersome if there was more actual information about octopuses.
The stories are ok to read about but I just wanted this book to be a bit more science-heavy, that it had more facts about not necessarily only octopus. She does mention she has been working with aquariums, so she should have access to fun facts and information, not everyday people have about sea creatures.
The only mention of the ethics of keeping wild sea creatures in tanks occurs when the author describes how a certain individual who catches wild octopuses for aquariums has no regrets because displaying octopuses to the public is necessary for people to care about their preservation in the wild. As an animal lover, the reader would have appreciated more consideration of this issue.
This should be considered a memoir that touches on a few snippets of marine life fun facts. It will give you a nice storyline of the author. If you start it with the correct mindset you'll enjoy it more.
This was used to accomplish the challenges:
#30DaysWild2023. Blue Planet
Read in Spanish
Translated works
Kommentarer