'The Soul of an Octopus': Natural history
While we were on a family vacation in New England last month, my 18-year-old made a surprising request: Could we go to Mystic Aquarium? We hadn’t been there in ages, so off we went, two parents trailing two teenagers who gleefully insisted on seeing as many exhibits as they could amid the summer tourist rush.
Somehow, we missed the octopus, which I could watch for hours. So upon our return home, I gave myself a consolation prize: borrowing the 18-year-old’s copy of “The Soul of an Octopus,” which he’d given a big thumbs up.
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Author and filmmaker Sy Montgomery makes no bones of her views of giant Pacific octopuses. She credits them with high intelligence, intense curiosity, incredible strength and a variety of moods and emotions. She’s interacted with enough giant Pacific octopuses one on one to have considered them friends, friends who recognized her when she visited them month after month and friends whom she mourned as much as any human loved one upon their deaths.
Her much-lauded 2015 book, “The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness,” takes a memoir-esque approach to enlightening readers about an invertebrate that’s fascinated humans through the ages. Using her personal experiences with octopuses as the book’s narrative spine — from the ones that literally embrace her at the New England Aquarium to the ones that spy on her from their hidey-holes in Pacific reefs — Montgomery muses about what it means to be sentient, conscious and self-aware.
She’s convinced by her observations that octopuses (not “octopi,” she notes) not only distinguish among the humans who care for them but also develop affection for some and dislike of others. She’s watched an octopus act exactly as if it were stalking a diver, just to see what the other species is up to. And she’s recorded an octopus behaving in ways that indicate a sense of humor — doing something that a human might do solely to amuse herself or get a laugh.
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I’m an adventurous omnivore, but I do draw the line at eating some things: Gorgonzola, liver, sweetbreads. Then there was the dish that landed in front of me at a wedding banquet years ago. With dismay, I recognized the course as octopus. I don’t like the idea of eating octopus because of their intelligence. Still, the one that had just been served was well past saving. I took a tentative bite. It was tough to chew, and bland. I was relieved to not enjoy it.
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Montgomery’s enthusiasm for her subject is contagious; I found myself repeatedly pausing to read aloud to my husband a sentence or paragraph about one fascinating octopus fact or another. (He finally suggested that I just pass along the book when I was done.) Some of what I learned about the octopus felt so alien from our human experience as to be almost incomprehensible, as if it were from another planet. Indeed, Montgomery notes the octopus’ reputation in some quarters as a fearsome thing. She shares her encounter with a group of teenage girls who clearly consider the octopus in front of them to be grotesque. But that’s because they don’t know how to relate to it. When Montgomery gently points out the octopus’ strings of eggs, it becomes a mother protecting her young, and the girls coo.
Montgomery doesn’t limit her observations to octopuses. Readers also learn a lot about another denizen of the New England Aquarium’s octopus exhibit, a large sea star that despite its lack of eyes somehow always knows when it’s feeding time and hustles over to get its share. Which this human can certainly relate to.
“The Soul of an Octopus” challenges us to seek out and recognize the similarities and commonalities between humans and other species, including that intangible spark inside each of us. Montgomery interweaves this challenge with impressively detailed immersive reporting, deep affection and respect for her subject, and elegant prose. By the end, I felt the octopus was my friend, too.