Christmas Is All Around Us

The Soul of an Octopus, by Sy Montgomery, makes for a wonderful introduction into the world of cephalopods. From the very beginning, we learn that Montgomery herself “knew little about octopuses,” and we get to accompany her on a very personal, albeit not very scientific, discovery into the world of the New England Aquarium. Montgomery does a fantastic job of accurately portraying a behind the scenes look at what goes on at such a large-scale aquarium as this one, located in Boston. She does such a fine job, in fact, that I found myself boiling over at times, indignant at the thought of a place that keeps wild animals in captivity: breeding them, swapping them with other zoos and aquariums, transporting them, bumbling about until they manage to keep them alive for an extended period of time—only to shake up the whole system by performing a major and disruptive remodel that stresses out all the animals. Such is the lucrative world of animals as entertainment.

But I digress.

I very much enjoyed reading about the author’s interactions with the many successive octopuses that find themselves being held at the Aquarium. It was thoroughly entertaining, and gave wonderful examples of how these incredible creatures can vary in personality and temperament. She brings out the highlights of many of the other animals in the aquarium, giving vivid examples of how fish and lobsters and even starfish can become personable, if you get to know them well enough. And she does proper justice to the amount of love and care given to these individuals by their caretakers and their admirers.

I didn’t learn much in the way of cold hard facts from the hours I spent reading this book. The author makes no “surprising exploration into the wonder of consciousness,” as is promised within the subtitle. But she did manage to make me care, even more than I already did, about these animals, and all sea creatures, as individuals (my outrage at their exploitation notwithstanding). And that is a feat in and of itself.

Sy Montgomery’s memoir about her adventures with octopuses is an easy, fresh, somewhat naive look into the world of captive sea creatures. If you think you might want to learn the basics about cephalopods, this would be a great place to start.