Remarkable Creatures

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The chapters are short which leads to the reading enjoyment along with the wonderful prose and observations. Life is sad and can be devastatingly difficult to endure, yet Van Pelt writes of the human spirit, the human need to find light and happiness. Tova has made friends with a 60-pound Pacific octopus, Marcellus. Viewers of the award-winning documentary 'My Octopus Teacher' will understand how intelligent these creatures can be. Tova talks to Marcellus and thinks he understands her conversations. The octopus can manipulate his large body, enabling him to squeeze out of a small opening in his glass cage and wander about the room. He can only be outside the cage for 18 minutes, or his life is in danger. He has been in the aquarium for about three years of captivity and is nearing the end of his life span. He longs to return to the sea. Marcellus seems to understand what Tova says to him and is adept at observing people's features, mannerisms and emotions. He likes to collect and hide his miscellaneous treasures out of sight in his cage. He is very bright and knows things that Tova and another cleaner haven't figured out yet. Then we have the characters. The author has a real gift when it comes to creating real, complex characters. She crafted unique personalities where their choices fitted perfectly with their traits. Some authors struggles with getting into the head of characters, but this author managed to bring new people into my life and I got fond of them. I didn’t want to say goodbye to them. Thank you to *Cheri* for her wonderful review who first turned me on to this priceless quirky novel.

When Mary and her brother uncovered an unusual fossilized skeleton in the cliffs near Lyme Regis, she shook the scientific world and posed a challenge to religion. The creature was named an "ichthyosaur," ("fish-lizard") and it was a creature that had been totally unknown to science and, apparently, no longer existing on Earth. But if the creature had been created by God, why had God caused or permitted it to go extinct? That was a question that could not be satisfactorily answered, as it implied that God had made a mistake. And how could God make a mistake?Historical fiction based on the lives of real people, amateur paleontologists Elizabeth Philpot and Mary Anning, in the early 1800s in Lyme Regis, England. Elizabeth is an educated lady who has relocated from London, and Mary is a working-class daughter of an impoverished cabinet maker. They become unlikely friends, bonding over their love of fossils and searching for them by the sea. When Mary unearths a skeleton of what appears to be a large crocodile, it ultimately leads to their interaction with well-known male paleontologists of the day. Tova began working there after her husband died, preferring to share her time with those who don’t ask a lot of questions, and so she and Marcellus develop a kind of silent bond. Tova shares some stories, but Marcellus can also see the sadness that weighs her down, and so periodically he will leave her small tokens. While he manages to, periodically, stray beyond his glass walls that are meant to keep him from straying, Tova’s fondness for him grows. Her affection for him grows, as does his for her. I now know more than I ever expected to about fossil-collecting by English women during the Regency period. Cameron is a young man who has come to town looking for the father he never knew. His mother left when he was young and he was raised by his aunt.

I don't read a lot of historical fiction. I enjoy reading history enough that I worry about getting the historical fiction confused with the history. But there is a benefit: historical fiction can open my eyes, get me interested in a time, the people and events, of which I previously knew little. There is much to appreciate in Remarkable Creatures. You get to observe and consider the lives of Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, their friendship, their support for one another, their jealousy of one another. You learn what an amazing person Mary Anning was with no formal education, the expertise she develops in paleontology and the reputation she earns. She and Elizabeth accomplish what they do in the face of the gender discrimination of the time that forces women into very limited, tightly defined roles and ignores them as capable of contributing intellectually. The class barriers are just as big a problem. Mary Anning, being a woman that is part of a poor, barely surviving family faces all these challenges. Mary’s mother, Molly, is in her own right just as unique and strong as her daughter.

The narrators were absolutely great and the voice of Marcellus is just as I expected it would be, he is intelligent, a bit of a grouch but has formed a bond with Tova. The strong bond between Mary and Elizabeth sees them through struggles with poverty, rivalry and ostracism, as well as the physical dangers of their chosen obsession. It reminds us that friendship can outlast storms and landslides, anger and and jealousy.

Marcellus McSquiddles, a giant Pacific octopus who is held in Sowell Bay Aquarium (and a bit of a curmudgeon) begins the story narrating his life in captivity. He has a special relationship with the nightly cleaner, Tova Sullivan. Tova is a widower whose eighteen-year-old son went missing over thirty years ago, and she still feels the loss daily. Tova is an excellent cleaner who takes her job seriously. She’s seventy years old and is on the verge of retiring. Yet she loves all her exhibits of sea life. GR user Hellie writes in her review that "maybe inventing new characters rather than shoehorning some real life people into it would have worked better". I agree.When an unlikely friendship develops between Tova and Marcellus, we learn from the fresh perspective of a tale told by an octopus that her mother's intuition was right and that there was more to the police report of her greatest tragedy. The story is also about a guy named Cameron, who is searching for his dad. The chapters alternate between him, Tova, and Marcellus. I loved Marcellus’s chapters the best. His observations about humans are a riot (like, why do they call him a “smart cookie”?). His chapters are short and I always wanted more; it was a jolt to move to a realistic story all of the sudden and it was always a slight comedown.