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The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery
ploopl's review against another edition
emotional
informative
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
3.5
bookish_leslie's review against another edition
emotional
informative
sad
3.5
While this book started off strong for me (I thought it was going to be 5 stars), I started to feel a bit bored the further into it I got, which, among a few other things, dragged down my rating.
I knew virtually nothing about octopuses before reading this book (including that the scientifically correct plural is, apparently, octopuses and not octopi), so I was amazed and delighted by many of the facts about octopuses that the author shared at the beginning of the book. I had no idea that they are venomous, for example, nor how dexterous or strong their suckers are. I was fascinated, too, by the idea that an octopus has more neurons in its arms than in its brain, but also that its arms might actually have separate personalities. What??? 🤯
I wasn’t expecting this book to be so memoir-heavy, relating the author’s experiences and perceived friendship with various octopuses at the New England Aquarium in Boston, but I found many of Montgomery’s stories and anecdotes to be interesting and even emotional. Her passion and love for these creatures, as well as her awe, really shone through in her writing, and I, too, felt a connection with the octopuses (and people) she befriended.
Because the writing leaned heavily into storytelling, it was both more interesting and easier to connect with than something more sciency and technical, but the author’s description of her interactions with various octopuses, while I’m sure amazing in person, started to feel a bit repetitive after a while. I was also bored by the section about the author learning to dive. Then there was the part where she skipped Valentine’s Day with her husband and flew across the country to watch two octopuses have sex at the aquarium in Seattle, which was just…weird. I think Montgomery did a better job of balancing octopus facts with personal anecdotes at the beginning of the book and turned too heavily to memoir as the book progressed.
Also, the capturing and keeping of wild sea creatures in tanks really bothered me, and progressively more so as the book continued and more of the octopuses’ personalities, intelligence, preferences and needs were revealed. Kali, especially, spent most of her short life in a dark barrel with no space or mental stimulation because of the aquarium’s space restraints. It’s clear that she was deeply loved by both the author and the aquarium’s staff, but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her, nor wonder how people who purported to love her could justify her captivity and distress.
Montgomery’s comments about Kali’s escape and death felt especially cavalier. Wilson Menashi, one of the aquarium’s octopus volunteers, seemed to recognize that Kali had escaped from her tank because she had wanted her freedom, but the author instead thought Kali was extremely lucky to have lived as long as she did (I think it was only 6-8 months) since most octopuses die as paralarvae. She projected her own good day onto Kali’s last and then proclaimed that Kali “died like a great explorer.”
She likened Kali’s death to the astronauts who died blasting off in Challenger or to the people who had perished in their various exploration attempts in places like the Amazon, the Nile, and the poles. What Montgomery didn’t seem to recognize or acknowledge was that these explorers consciously chose to do what they did, understanding to some extent the potential consequences, while Kali was plucked from the wild and imprisoned by people. So, no, she didn’t choose to “face unknown dangers in the quest to widen the horizons of her world,” as Montgomery claimed; she simply wanted her freedom. To make these comparisons to explorers of yore felt, at best, wildly inaccurate and inappropriate.
Wilson’s parting comment about Kali’s death - that he hoped the aquarium would learn from their mistakes - was hard to swallow when Kali’s replacement was immediately put in the same dark barrel that Kali had been kept in.
I appreciated that the author at least made a surface attempt at addressing these ethical concerns when she asked Ken Wong, who supplied octopuses to the aquarium, how he felt about capturing animals in the wild and sending them to a life in captivity. His response was that:
I knew virtually nothing about octopuses before reading this book (including that the scientifically correct plural is, apparently, octopuses and not octopi), so I was amazed and delighted by many of the facts about octopuses that the author shared at the beginning of the book. I had no idea that they are venomous, for example, nor how dexterous or strong their suckers are. I was fascinated, too, by the idea that an octopus has more neurons in its arms than in its brain, but also that its arms might actually have separate personalities. What??? 🤯
I wasn’t expecting this book to be so memoir-heavy, relating the author’s experiences and perceived friendship with various octopuses at the New England Aquarium in Boston, but I found many of Montgomery’s stories and anecdotes to be interesting and even emotional. Her passion and love for these creatures, as well as her awe, really shone through in her writing, and I, too, felt a connection with the octopuses (and people) she befriended.
Because the writing leaned heavily into storytelling, it was both more interesting and easier to connect with than something more sciency and technical, but the author’s description of her interactions with various octopuses, while I’m sure amazing in person, started to feel a bit repetitive after a while. I was also bored by the section about the author learning to dive. Then there was the part where she skipped Valentine’s Day with her husband and flew across the country to watch two octopuses have sex at the aquarium in Seattle, which was just…weird. I think Montgomery did a better job of balancing octopus facts with personal anecdotes at the beginning of the book and turned too heavily to memoir as the book progressed.
Also, the capturing and keeping of wild sea creatures in tanks really bothered me, and progressively more so as the book continued and more of the octopuses’ personalities, intelligence, preferences and needs were revealed. Kali, especially, spent most of her short life in a dark barrel with no space or mental stimulation because of the aquarium’s space restraints. It’s clear that she was deeply loved by both the author and the aquarium’s staff, but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her, nor wonder how people who purported to love her could justify her captivity and distress.
Montgomery’s comments about Kali’s escape and death felt especially cavalier. Wilson Menashi, one of the aquarium’s octopus volunteers, seemed to recognize that Kali had escaped from her tank because she had wanted her freedom, but the author instead thought Kali was extremely lucky to have lived as long as she did (I think it was only 6-8 months) since most octopuses die as paralarvae. She projected her own good day onto Kali’s last and then proclaimed that Kali “died like a great explorer.”
She likened Kali’s death to the astronauts who died blasting off in Challenger or to the people who had perished in their various exploration attempts in places like the Amazon, the Nile, and the poles. What Montgomery didn’t seem to recognize or acknowledge was that these explorers consciously chose to do what they did, understanding to some extent the potential consequences, while Kali was plucked from the wild and imprisoned by people. So, no, she didn’t choose to “face unknown dangers in the quest to widen the horizons of her world,” as Montgomery claimed; she simply wanted her freedom. To make these comparisons to explorers of yore felt, at best, wildly inaccurate and inappropriate.
Wilson’s parting comment about Kali’s death - that he hoped the aquarium would learn from their mistakes - was hard to swallow when Kali’s replacement was immediately put in the same dark barrel that Kali had been kept in.
I appreciated that the author at least made a surface attempt at addressing these ethical concerns when she asked Ken Wong, who supplied octopuses to the aquarium, how he felt about capturing animals in the wild and sending them to a life in captivity. His response was that:
“Unless people know about and see these animals, there will be no stewardship for octopuses in the wild.”
This, sadly, rang true for much of our species, but I wish the author would have explored this idea more deeply and included some evidence of the successful connection between captivity and stewardship that could potentially justify it beyond one man’s claim, especially one who profited financially from his opinion.
mollygraceful's review against another edition
3.0
Wow are octopus fascinating creatures! but too much of this story got bogged down with repetitive awe of the author and not enough was focused on the animals for me
kaylapfunk's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
reflective
relaxing
3.5
opal360's review against another edition
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
3.5
This was a light, easy read about someone spending time behind the scenes at a busy aquarium in New England. Octopuses are one of many species represented there, so she covers not only the octopuses but other types of marine life, as well as the personal stories of the staff and volunteers at the aquarium. A pleasant read overall but does not really live up to its billing, in case you are expecting a monograph on octopuses and consciousness…
mroemmich's review against another edition
3.0
A quick read that kept my attention but didn't wow me. Several octopus facts were repeated multiple times as if they were new revelations, which I found annoying. If I had read it more slowly, I might not have noticed as much. Overall, fine.