This is one of those strange books that's mostly realistic
and believable and set in our world…but there's one fantastical element. Usually I find these types of books a little
hard to orient myself in. It's harder to
suspense my disbelief than if I were reading high fantasy with dragons or space
opera with faster-than-light travel. But
I enjoyed this book enough that I just kind of went with it.
So, for the fantastical element: [SEMI SPOILERS] Marcelllus the giant Pacific octopus. Don't get me wrong: I LOVED him.
I loved his role in the plot. He
was probably my favorite character. But
he was so fantastical that you're going to have to make a decision as a
reader: just sort of roll with it…or
beat your head against the wall because how on earth could an octopus learn to
READ ENGLISH??? I believe octopuses are
highly intelligent, in a way we might not fully comprehend, considering their
vastly different "brain" structure.
I could even maybe swallow his very sophisticated narrative if I thought
of it as octopus language, not English.
But for him to learn to READ English, where the only possible
instruction he's had is listening to people read his placard and other aquarium
signs out loud? And for him to have a
vast vocabulary (in English, because he talks about English idioms) that he had
to have learned entirely from the aquarium-goers? It's the most glaringly unrealistic thing
about him, but there are others.
However, if you can just roll with it, you'll love Marcellus and feel so
sad for him being stuck in that little aquarium and love his relationship with
Tova and look forward to his chapters.
So, my advice: just roll with
it. I obviously did, never getting stuck
on the fact that he could READ ENGLISH.
There were some other pretty fantastical coincidences, but
I won't spoil them.
I liked the human characters, even the highly flawed ones.
The writing was good.
Some might consider the pacing a tad slow, but for me it was slow in
that pleasant, spending-time-with-people-I-love way. I enjoyed the plot, though at one point,
[SEMI SPOILERS!] when an important something was obvious to us and to the
octopus, I didn't quite understand how it didn't occur to other intelligent
characters as even a possibility. They
had enough evidence and were obviously thinking about the situation a lot.
Again, I LOVED the relationship between Tova and
Marcellus. And though I would have liked
their ending to be different, I thought it was beautiful. SPOILER!!!
SPOILER!!! I only wished she had
acted sooner, when she realized how intelligent he was. END SPOILERS.
Overall, a really enjoyable book. I spent a lot of time in this review stuck on
the unrealistic parts, but they really didn't affect my enjoyment as much as
you might think. And if you can just go
with it, you'll really enjoy it too.
And the cover...lovely.
Rating: 4 stars.
