Katherine Harmon Courage

Reading the reviews and blurbs on the cover of this book I was expecting to be fascinated by these wonderful creatures. And in many ways I was. They are indeed intelligent, powerful,and mysterious almost beyond comprehension. The only problem I had with this book was in the way it started. The first two chapters were all about capturing and then eating octopuses. In my opinion, beginning a book celebrating the wonders of octopuses, by focusing on how to kill and eat them, is in pretty bad taste(pun intended). That being said, one of the most fascinating passages in this book was when the author went to a restaurant in New York and was served a live octopus. Her description of that meal and the way it effected her, stands alone, and is by itself, worth the price of the book. I mean, the cut up arms of the octopus fought her all the way into her mouth and down her stomach !

"Many American diners seem generally creeped out by their encounters with this dish. But strangely , as revolting as it might look to to the amateur eater, the dish left me thinking about it and, dare I say, missing it for days afterward. It was the most intimate eating experience I've ever had. Although for the poor octopus it was not the best of times, to me, it felt almost as if we shared the dining experience."

After reading that passage I wanted to hop on a train to Queens, visit that restaurant, and experience that meal myself.… (més)

This book has so many problems it isn't even funny, well it kind of is, unless you paid for this or your tax dollars paid to put it in a library. Let's get started:

1. Chatty magazine-ish prose. Like a People magazine article on octopuses (yes, that is correct, there is no "i" in octopi). Words like "gazillion," "cool," and "bejesus" just don't belong in a natural science book. I cringe.

2. The first two chapters and half of the Introduction deals with, I kid you not, eating octopus. 60 pages including recipes. The first chapters! We are treated to both the details of the author's peregrinations to the various restaurants and then the gourmandizing itself. Complete with the live suckers sticking to her gums! Yeah! Good book so far.

3. Who is this book written for? Page 66: "The mouth is hidden away at the center of the eight arms. But be careful up there - it has a sharp beak and a scary toothed radula for drilling into hard shells. This chitin structure awkwardly positioned on the octopus's underside, at the center of all its appendages, almost evokes the strange myth of the vagina dentata. (But don't worry; because the female octopus accepts sperm from a male directly into her mantle, she keeps the chance for love bites to a minimum.)" Woo-who

4. Bad Science. Page 159. "A sucker's strength depends in part on how much volume it holds." Hmmm, volume of what? Presumably water. The murk becomes inkier. "Under water, that force is limited by the weakness of the water molecule itself." What? The suction force driven by a sucker is dependent on the "weakness" of the water molecules themselves.

'Once a sucker is stuck onto something, "if you reach the point where water capitates (sic) - where you're actually breaking apart the molecular structure of the water - so it is not holding itself together anymore, it will break" he says. So in theory,the octopus could generate more force of attachment if the water itself were stronger'

Where to start? Well the correct word would be cavitate not capitate. Cavitation creates suction by forcing a fluid to cavitate, form a lower pressure vapor by mechanical means instead of thermal means. Like when a propeller in a liquid turns fast enough to start cavitation, small unstable vapor bubbles are formed mechanically.

You are not at any point creating enough mechanical cavitation force to be "breaking apart the molecular structure of the water." There are forces between water molecules that are affected by cavitation, but the structures of the water molecules themselves never break apart. This would require truly tremendous mechanical forces no organic creature could manage.

Journalists should all be required to take at least one science course as an elective.

5. Plain absurdity: Page 97 Caption under a black & white photo that reads thus: "Woods Hole Octopus flashing its blue ring at me." I suppose we're to guess just exactly where this blue ring is on the b&w photo.

6. Dumbed down. The prior quote about vagina dentata excluded, this is written for a ten year old's reading level. It is just cringingly full of childish simile.

I'm not going to savage the author since this will get me flagged and it will serve no good purpose otherwise let it simply do to say Ms. Courage had great courage to attempt to write a science book that is clearly above her depth. (he, he, he)… (més)

This rather thin book on octopuses is delivered in an easy-to-read, informal and occasionally juvenile style more suited to a magazine article than a science book, even a popular science book. There are some interesting facts (ok there are lots of interesting facts) but there is also too much space dedicated to travelogue "stuff", eating octopuses (recipes are included) and being sea-sick. Did I mention there was a ridiculous amount of space dedicated to murdering and eating octopuses? A reference section is included, as well as some bad quality black & white photographs. There really should have been some colour photographs of these magnificent animals. Suitable for children and teenagers.

PS: Promoted from 2 to 3 stars for the simple reason that the science chapters were very interesting and I learned new things.… (més)