Rawr Reader,
October was a taxing month. With work and trying to read a book a week, November became my wind down month reading wise, but still super stressful work wise so at the end of the day I only finished one book. I exhausted myself of fiction and wanted to take a break. I loved Silent Spring earlier this year and wanted to check out another one of Carson's works. Let's see how it fared.
The synopsis of The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson is provided by the 2018 edition published from the Oxford University Press:
Reference:
I read Silent Spring and this was listed first among her other works.
Review:
What I love most about Carson's writing is that she interweaves history with science with literature and paints a mural that showcases the different studies and yet still cohesively creates a single image. Her storytelling is enlightening, enriching, and reflective. Carson doesn't shy away from showing how powerful and destructive the ocean is and has been for millions of years. At the same time she describes how sensitive the ocean and its inhabitants are against the whims of man. How seemingly predictable and immutable and endless it is but also how it has evolved over time. She discusses ocean currents, the tides, the winds, plankton, the ocean floor and the remnants of every creature that ultimately found its way onto its stygian depths, along with many other tiers of nature.
What I take away most is while we have studied the ocean for sixty more years since The Sea Around Us was published, we're no less in the dark about what is found there and how animals survive and why animals rise from the depths to come to the surface but only at certain times. Our interest, our money, and our time is spent on beyond our atmosphere. Being that TSAU was written and published before the Space Race gained traction, Carson doesn't highlight the emphasis the world has had since the late 50s/early 60s looking beyond and not valuing what remains here. Even it had been post-Space Race kickoff, I don't think she would have. She doesn't need to. Carson focuses on what's here, what we have to marvel at. The ocean isn't just a tool for us, it isn't just a beauty to behold, it's a home and a filtration system and a power for us to respect as much as utilize.
The ocean is a mystery, but it connects continents, allows trade, feeds communities, maintains economies—all man-focused benefits, not including what the ocean does for the planet itself like stabilizing the atmosphere, balancing world temperatures, even play a part in the rotation of the earth (with the trusted help of the moon). It's not only a vast expanse, it's the home to billions upon billions of creatures who rely on it to survive.
The details become minute, which is all the more impressive reminding oneself that this was pre-Internet and research was through books and networking and long stretches of patient study, because Rachel Carson was a brilliant mind and it displays in her language and how she portrays her deep love of the oceans.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Quote:
"And then, as never on land, he knows the truth that his world is a water world, a planet dominated by its covering mantle of ocean, in which the continents are but transient intrusions of land above the surface of the all-encircling sea."
—Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us
My Goodreads:
Next To Read:
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa
Spoilers:
While there isn't really much to spoil with my complete lack of expertise on marine biology and oceanography and related fields, and adding to the fact this was published over seventy years ago, it's safe to say there have been advancements in science that would make any "spoiler" something we might have already learned in high school or college.
I would like to point out that Carson has a moving rhetoric of galvanizing her readers. Not in a dramatic sense, spewing propaganda like an election TV ad, however her rhetoric's calm and patient like the timeline of the oceans over time. Mankind is very much the guest. We have made our impact on earth in our short time here and as destructive as we can be, we cannot defeat the planet. It will always win against us. It will survive and recover, even if it takes thousands or millions of years after humans are gone. The planet will take care of us.
So long as we take care of it.
Until Next Time,
Nicole Ciel