Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby van Pelt | book review
An unlikely friendship between a sentient giant Pacific octopus, and older woman, and a 30-something drifter—a reluctant read that became my favourite book
I put off reading Remarkably Bright Creatures for ages. My library hold came up and I let it expire. There was nothing here I thought would resonate with me: the main characters are a retirement-age woman, a 30-something drifter, and a mischievous, grumpy, sentient octopus. I did everything I could to avoid this really, until I couldn’t anymore.
I promptly proceeded to devour the book in 3 days and it catapulted to one of my favourite books of the year. If you were within breathing distance of me in the weeks after, you’d have heard me earnestly yammering on about the talking octopus book.
The characters are vivid and real. We are brought into the world of Tova, whose husband has died and 18-year-old son Erik has long vanished on a boat. Reluctant to declare her life over and move into residential care, and also not having family members to live out her old age with, as some of her friends are doing, Tova works part-time cleaning at her local aquarium. There, she meets Marcellus, an aging giant Pacific octopus nearing the end of his life—it is 160 days away, to be precise. He is also rather grumpy and enjoys a bit of a nighttime romp, sneaking out of his enclosure for a little midnight snack aka to eat his less intelligent aquarium neighbours.
Smart cookie. I am smart, but I am not a snack object dispensed from a packaged food machine. What a preposterous thing to say.
Really, it’s Marcellus’s world. He is the star of the show. He is witty, with dry humour, and thinks humans are rather silly creatures while having tremendous respect for them, especially his friend Tova and later, the less-responsible but still agreeable Cameron. It was really nice zooming out for a while, seeing what people are like from others’ eyes: how we are tremendously slow to realise the important things, yet kind and fallibly loveable.
As a general rule, I like holes. A hole at the top of my tank gives me freedom. But I do not like the hole in her heart. She only has one, not three, like me. Tova’s heart. I will do everything I can to help her fill it.
It seems to be a hallmark of the human species: abysmal communication skills. Not that any other species are much better, mind you, but even a herring can tell which way the school it belongs to is turning and follow accordingly. Why can humans not use their millions of words to simply tell one another what they desire?
Without giving too much away, Remarkably Bright Creatures from Marcellus’ perspective reminds me of what astronaut William Shatner said about entering space:
I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here, with all of us. Leaving that behind made my connection to our tiny planet even more profound.
When viewed from Tova’s perspective, Remarkably Bright Creatures is reminiscent of Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series, albeit with much less murder and fewer guns. You may also like this if you enjoyed The Life Impossible by Matt Haig.
Cameron, who offers the third perspective in this book, wasn’t my favourite to start with, especially with how charming Tova and Marcellus already are. It was also hard to be overly sympathetic with him at the beginning: he’s been dealt some rough hands in life, yes, but he doesn’t seem to be doing much to help himself. But along the way, he grew on me. Cameron often gets things wrong, but he tries, so hard, to do the right thing. We see signs of this from the start with how seriously he takes his promise to his aunt, and later with how he carries out his aquarium duties.
I am so, so glad I bit the bullet with this and one of my greatest achievements of this year was recommending this to my beloved E, who was so riveted she pulled an all-nighter reading this. I also recommended her Hello Beautiful, causing another all-nighter. I am now on embargo from recommending books to her, which may be one of the reasons I started Reads With Alicia…
Book information
Title: Remarkably Bright Creatures
Author: Shelby van Pelt
Published: 2022
Length: 368 pages
Book description
Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.
After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night cleaner shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium. Ever since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat over thirty years ago keeping busy has helped her cope. One night she meets Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium who sees everything, but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors – until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late...
I can't remember the last time I thought to myself, "I wish I could read this book again for the first time." This book is that book for me. I avoided it for forever and then I read it and now I can't get it out of my mind. Reading it lead me to watch the NatGeo "Secrets of the Octopus" and I didn't want it to end either. I'm nervously excited for the movie and hoping that it does the book proud.
This is in my top 3 books of 2024. Absolutely loved it and still most days think of Marcellus in different ways or things. ❤️🐙