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lifesaverscandyofficial's review against another edition
5.0
lovely! heartening! made me feel at peace with the way of the world and history and science. at times, maybe a little too dense for how stupid I am? still. I love Eleanor! happy to have discovered.
guinness74's review against another edition
3.0
A good book, particularly if you like oysters. I'm not a huge fan, but I have a greater appreciation for them now and the Breton coast has always held an appeal. There's a bit of romance, even among the muck and labor of oystering. Parts of it were a bit of a slog, but the vignettes about the Bretons were interesting and appealing.
hilaritas's review
2.0
Oh, how I wanted to like this book. It's a microhistory of a place, animal, and foodstuff that wears its literary pretensions on its sleeve, which all sounds wonderful. There are brief passages that are beautifully written and very evocative of the tiny area in Brittany that is the subject of the book. However, the bulk of the book is a mishmash of unfinished anecdotes, flip literary and historical allusions, arch half-jokes, and cruel excoriations of the Breton peasants Clark allegedly encountered. All that would be forgivable, except that the book as a whole lacks any organizational principle whatsoever. It meanders maddeningly through endless subjects that have only the most tenuous of connections to oysters. I wanted to learn about oysters, but found myself constantly stymied. Also, the writing style is infuriating for a natural history book. Clark cannot be bothered to write clearly and crisply about her lowly subject, and instead tosses off literary somersaults linked only by chains of indefinite pronouns. Thus, determining whether a particular description applies to Crassostrea or Ostrea requires a level of exegesis which flummoxed and annoyed me, and ultimately, caused me to set this one down before I had quite reached the end.
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