A captivating call to take time to observe and live in the moment.
An exploration of the underwater habitats that inspired the Oscar-winning documentary.
In an intriguing nature memoir packed with beautiful photos, Foster and Frylinck share memories of their adventures in and around the kelp forests off the coast of South Africa, which inspired My Octopus Teacher. Foster writes about how he committed himself to diving every day of the year and to do it without a scuba tank or a wetsuit in order to adapt to and reap the benefits of the cold waters. Frylinck was apprehensive about diving under these conditions and didn’t always share the same level of enthusiasm. As they continued to dive, Foster notes how their regular diving schedule allowed them to learn the habits and preferences of these underwater creatures. Just as the animals taught him, Foster began to teach Frylinck how to track an animal. In time, Frylinck had an experience that enabled him to understand the state of “primal joy” that Foster had described numerous times. Foster also notes how our ancestors often sought this sense of wonder, which is often missing in contemporary life. In her foreword, Jane Goodall echoes the authors’ sentiment that spending time in wilderness can be healing and transformative and that the “barriers between humans and animals are just illusion.” The authors alternate their narration, which interweaves with stunning images that capture the intricate details of the marine life they have encountered—not just octopi, but also countless types of fish, sharks, mollusks, otters, and the blue dragon, which “lives by floating on the open ocean, eating bluebottles and storing their stinging cells in its own body to repel predators. The authors also share childhood memories. While these stories are important to understanding their current lives, some of the personal details are disturbing, including accounts of abandonment and abuse.
A captivating call to take time to observe and live in the moment.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-358-66475-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
This is our life, these are our lighted seasons, and then we die. . . . In the meantime, in between time, we can see. . . we can work at making sense of (what) we see. . . to discover where we so incontrovertibly are. It's common sense; when you-move in, you try to learn the neighborhood." Dillard's "neighborhood" is hilly Virginia country where she lived alone, but essentially it is all those "shreds of creation" with which every human is surrounded, which she is trying to learn, to know — from finite variations to infinite possibilities of being and meaning. A tall order and Dillard doesn't quite fill it. She is too impatient to get about the soul's adventures to stay long with an egg-laying grasshopper, or other bits of flora and fauna, and her snatches from physics and biological/metaphysical studies are this side of frivolous. However, Ms. Dillard has a great deal going for her — in spite of some repetition of words and concepts, her prose is bright, fresh and occasionally emulates (not imitates) the Walden Master in a contemporary context: "Trees. . . extend impressively in both directions, . . . shearing rock and fanning air, doing their real business just out of reach." She has set herself no less a task than understanding emotionally, spiritually and intellectually the force of the creative extravagance of the universe in all its beauty and horhor ("There is a terrible innocence in the benumbed world of the lower animals, reducing life to a universal chomp.") Experience can be focused, and awareness sharpened, by a kind of meditative high. Thus this becomes somewhat exhausting reading, if taken in toto, but even if Dillard's reach exceeds her grasp, her sights are leagues higher than that of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea, regretfully (re her sex), the inevitable comparison.
Pub Date: March 13, 1974
ISBN: 0061233323
Page Count: -
Publisher: Harper's Magazine Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1974
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