The Soul of an Octopus – Sy Montgomery
Novel Conversation’s Book Club – December 2017 Book – The Soul of an Octupus, by Sy Montgomery
Hey Everyone! Wow – what a great meeting we had this month. Frankly, I was amazed at the number of participants we had, given it was right after Christmas. We had a really terrific turnout, so thank you!!
We also had quite a lively discussion on our December read – The Soul and an Octopus, by Sy Montgomery. Opinions of the book ran the gamut and we had everything from not liking the book at all to loving it and everything else in between. It seems like most of us had very strong perspectives on the content and every time someone brought up a different idea, I found myself wondering why I hadn’t considered that before.
The author spent some time talking about the science of the octopuses and before I forget – yes, the plural of octopus is octopuses and no, I didn’t know that before reading the book. I also learned that octopus have three hearts and a brain about the size of a walnut and honestly, their life span isn’t that long – three to five years. Even as adults, they can squeeze through holes quite small, so they make wonderful escape artists! They are known to be quite intelligent and can manipulate toys to get food out.
It’s probably these kinds of antics that endeared the creatures to the author. Her writings cover a lot about the emotional aspects of learning to care and love the octopuses. She attributed human emotions to them as she described behaviors we would normally associate with pets. For instance, she describes recognition of humans, liking or disliking them and demonstrating this by squirting water at them or changing colors and textures in their skin. Each octopus has a name and they clearly demonstrate different behaviors. Is that personality? I don’t know but I’d like to think so.
Another part that I found interesting was with the people that took care of the animals. Every person seemed devoted to the octopuses, but what stood out to me was that even though many had their own personal issues going on (some fairly significant), the care of the octopuses brought them together and seemed to give them strength to carry those burdens. Maybe it was just my own imagination caught up with the story. There did seem to be a connection.
One thing we all agreed on was that we learned something new, so if your curiousity is piqued, you can follow this link to the Seattle Aquarium for more information. Also, it looks like there will be no blind date this year as the female has already begun laying eggs. Her name is Raspberry and it looks like they will be releasing her into the wild to find a den. Bummer!
If you want to know more about the book The Soul of an Octopus, check out this link at Goodreads.
January’s book selection is The Girl Who Wrote in Silk, by Kelli Estes. Looking forward to that discussion in January.
Thank you,
Donna
