BOOK REVIEW: By Savannah House, Baldwin Hills Greenhouse Intern, October 3, 2019
Western Tanager, Vol. 86, No. 2, Nov.-Dec. 2019
Contributor Savannah House is a senior at Culver City High School and a third-year intern in the Baldwin Hills Greenhouse Program. Writing, science, and teaching are important activities in her life. Here she reviews of The Soul of an Octopus (2015) in an effort to get people to expand their connection to and compassion for the natural world.
Sy Montgomery strives to discover who an octopus is in her New York Times bestselling book: The Soul of an Octopus — A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness
“And there is another way we alter our experience of time. We, as well as other animals can mimic another’s emotional state. ….Perhaps, as we stroked her in the water, we entered into Athena's experience of time — liquid, slippery, and ancient, flowing at a different pace than any clock. I could stay here forever, filling my senses with Athena’s strangeness and beauty, talking with my new friends.” —Sy Montgomery, The Soul of an Octopus
Magnificently written, the endlessly beautiful and mystical story of The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery, follows the author through her journey of meeting and falling in love with four different octopuses - Athena, Octavia, Kali, and Karma- at the New England Aquarium as well as others during ocean adventures. At the New England Aquarium, she falls most in love with Octavia, who the story follows most closely, from Octavia’s entrance into the aquarium through her relatively short life.
To open the book, Montgomery settles the debate between “octopi” and “octopuses” by explaining that it is grammatically incorrect to “put a Latin ending -i- on a word that is derived from Greek.” The rest of the book follows the same witty and addictive qualities that make it nearly impossible to put down.
Throughout her adventures, Montgomery asks intriguing questions - some of which she finds answers to, while others hang in the air unanswered by the end of the book. The most pressing question Montgomery asks and strives to discover is “Who is an octopus?” The question is answered only though others, such as “What is the behavior of an octopus?” and “Do they remember those who visit them?” Largely, Montgomery discovers, this is a question of consciousness - in particular the comparison between human consciousness and other animals’ consciousness.
Along with describing the other animals around the octopuses, Montgomery tells her readers about her own life. She is married with many animals at home, but her Border Collie is her favorite and presumably one of her best friends. The relation between Montgomery’s life, that of the octopuses and that of the New England Aquarium later in the book leaves the reader feeling attached to the different parts of the story and thus making the digestion of this unfamiliar topic easier as she fishes out the humane characteristics of every aspect in the story.
Montgomery also meets and introduces the readers to many friends she finds through the aquarium. Most noteworthy are Bill, the man who manages and calls the shots for the octopuses living at the aquarium; Wilson, who helps Montgomery in her quest to get to know the different animals; and Anna, the high school intern who is quiet with immense compassion for the animals and finds therapy within the aquarium. Anna, in particular, was one of my favorite parts of the story. Her gentle touch and fearlessness with the animals were endearing. It gave an even further humanization to the animals.
The Soul of an Octopus opens your eyes to the natural world around you and leaves you with new-found knowledge and compassion for the world, you come to realize, you have largely overlooked. This true story is both motivating and captivating, even to those who know little about octopuses going in.