Spoilers!
When a curmudgeonly cephalopod and a stoic Swede meet at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, it brings one out behind his rock on one last quest before his death and the other out from behind her metaphorical “grief rock” to realize life is still worth living. Shelby Van Pelt’s debut book, 2022’s Remarkably Bright Creatures, is a triumph of optimism in a cynical age, a buoy in a sea of nihilism, and earnestly charming, sweet, and lovely. If you need a balm to against negativity to brighten your day, Van Pelt’s book is like finding a warm message in a bottle cresting on the waves at just the right time.
Tova is a 70 year old widow, whose son, Erik also tragically died at 18 years old in Puget Sound during a boating accident or what the police suspect, suicide (Tova adamantly rejects that theory). For 30 years, she’s lived without him, and for a number of years, without her husband. Stoically, like the Swede characterization she is (influenced by Van Pelt’s own stoic Swedish grandmother), Tova goes to the Sowell Bay Aquarium in Sowell Bay, a tiny town where everyone knows each other, each night to ensure its cleanliness. Cleaning is something to do, to keep busy. Every two weeks, she meets up with her other friends, all retired older women, the Knit-Wits, which has dwindled down from seven members to four. Unlike them, Tova does not have any spouses, children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren to mind her and keep her company.
Fortunately for Tova (and for him), Tova meets Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus, the aforementioned curmudgeonly cephalopod, who is being held captive. He narrates certain chapters in the book, each beginning with how many days he’s been held captive, particularly in relation to the lifespan of a giant Pacific octopus (about four years). He worries he will die in captivity. But beyond the existential crisis, he’s annoyed with humans who don’t realize just how intelligent he is, but also are so dull. Humans eat cookies from the nearby vending machine, but talk about him being a “smart cookie.” They constantly talk about the weather, always seemingly surprised by the heat they ought to be used to by now. And they appear to esteem ignorance with sayings like, “Ignorance is bliss!” Marcellus has his “Collection,” much like humans, of “detritus,” as I think Tova calls it at one point, consisting of items he’s collected over the years, like earrings (one at a time, never a pair), driver’s licenses and credit cards, and so forth. How does he have such items? He’s also a sneaky little guy. Despite his 60 pounds, he’s able to somehow shimmy through a hole in his tank and escape each night to feast on the sea cucumbers and add to his Collection. But he’s timed these excursions to 18 minutes exactly before the “Consequences” happen, i.e., he dies from being out of the water for too long. Aside from being hungry, Marcellus is simply bored. He’s too intelligent for captivity and his neighbors, particularly the dumb sharks (my paraphrasing of his ranting!), don’t provide much in the way of stimulating conversation.
Notably, when Marcellus was in the sea, he encountered Erik’s body, a secret he says he carries with him still. When he is later returned to the sea, there is a circle of life reverence to it for Marcellus being back with Erik.
Tova catches on to Marcellus shirking his captivity in the tank and that’s how their friendship develops. She talks to him. He coils along her arm with his suckers. Marcellus comes to care about this woman and I think they especially develop a kinship because of their loneliness. Marcellus is literally held captive and in a sense — that of her grief and the not knowing what happened to Erik — Tova is held captive, too.
In California, we meet Cameron, a 30 year old who can’t seem to get his life together. He can’t maintain a job, he’s sleeping on his buddy’s couch after his girlfriend dumps him (for losing said job and “needing to grow up”), and often times, he also has a curmudgeonly attitude. But that attitude stems from somewhere as deep as our seas: abandonment. His mother, addled by drug addiction, left him with his Aunt Jeanne. He never knew his dad. Cameron decides now is the time to go on a quest to find his dad, and optimistically, if a smidge nefariously, to collect thousands of dollars out of him to pay back his Aunt and get his life on track. It turns out that he thinks his father is the real estate developer, Simon, in Sowell Bay, of all places.
Obviously, when you’re reading a book and two apparent disparate story threads are concurring, you’re wondering how they’ll merge. Cameron’s journey to Sowell Bay and the characters we already know there is the beginning, but phew, it stretches further than a sand bar and more poignantly than I would have expected.
There’s also Ethan, the Scotsman who owns the local Shop-Way grocery store, who absolutely adores and dotes upon Tova, but Marcellus has an easier time winning her over than he does. While incredibly magnanimous to everyone in the town, including outsiders like Cameron who come in with a camper he was able to buy on the cheap, he’s also the town gossip. So, while he lets Cameron literally camp out on his driveway and help him get a job at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, he’s also a gossipmonger. That’s how word starts percolating throughout the town of Cameron’s quest and how Cameron learns of Tova’s own history with Erik. The merging is right there on the cusp!
So, the table is set: Cameron and Tova are both at the Sowell Bay Aquarium. Tova sprained her ankle trying to help Marcellus, and is technically out of commission for six weeks, opening up a slot for Cameron to acquire a job there and necessary money. Still, Tova can’t resist going to the aquarium anyway and helping Cameron. Marcellus is watching all of this and then becomes an active participant in trying to get the dull humans to see what his keen eyes have already ascertained. You see, Marcellus has keen eyes for genetics in humans and studies their fingerprints on the glass of his aquarium (at least until Tova cleans it). It doesn’t take him long to deduce that Cameron and Tova share genetics.
I have to say, it did not even occur to me the way Van Pelt would merge Cameron and Tova’s stories as a familial connection. I actually was speculating whether Ethan would turn out to be Cameron’s dad. Instead, Cameron’s dad is Erik. Daphne, his mom, was the last one to see Erik alive. He did die in a boating accident and she kept quiet about it. It is heavily insinuated the accident drove her to drug addiction. Indeed, it almost drove her to take her life in Puget Sound. Avery, the local owner of a paddleboard shop and Cameron’s new girlfriend, actually talked Daphne down from jumping. That particular thread of knowledge doesn’t reach Cameron or Tova by the book’s end, however.
The big overarching outcome of Marcellus and Tova’s friendship is to save each other. Tova frees him from captivity before his death so he can see the sea again. Marcellus, owing to his ability to escape his tank, is able to leave abundant clues and evidence for Tova about who Cameron is to her. But it’s through their friendship from the beginning that each softens in their curmudgeonly, stoic dispositions. Sneaky in her own right, Van Pelt, had me thinking by the book title (I read books blind otherwise) it would be in reference to how octopuses are indeed “remarkably bright creatures.” Which is true, and why I love octopuses so much, and still applicable to this book! But the real lesson, and what Marcellus came to learn in his time with Tova and Cameron, is that humans are also “remarkably bright creatures.” That’s beautiful and lovely. A sentiment poisonous to misanthropes everywhere.
Tova, as she allows herself to feel emotions she’s held back and try to get on with living, has a sweet moment where she goes out of her comfort zone with Ethan in one of my favorite scenes in the book. She goes to his house for a not-date-date and is flabbergasted at the fact he does not have a dish towel or rag to do the dishes. She must do the dishes, of course. She finds an old T-shirt underneath the sink and uses it to clean the dishes, as well as to mop up red wine on the counter, effectively staining the shirt. Turns out, it was a “rare specimen.” It was a Grateful Dead concert T-shirt, one of their last before lead guitarist, Jerry Garcia, died in 1995. (She’s further flabbergasted Ethan would keep such a “rare specimen” under the sink, but alas.) So, Tova, who stubbornly initially refused a acquire a cell phone and still doesn’t have email, enlists the help of one of the Knit-Wits to buy the same shirt off of the internet for $2,000. That’s not all. She also doesn’t like driving on the highway. She does to ensure she can pick up the shirt in a timelier fashion than the four-to-six weeks shipping would take. That was Tova coming out behind her rock! That was a big moment for her!
Another moment I loved, which I don’t believe Tova had self-awareness about, was when she goes to her late husband’s gravesite to let him know she’s selling her childhood and adult home (she plans to go live in a fancy nursing home, owing to the fact that she has nobody to care for her). She’s dumbfounded two women nearby are talking to a gravestone, as if the person can hear them. It’s just bones and rotting flesh, she reflects (again, paraphrasing). Yet, she’s been talking to Marcellus, as if he can understand! Granted, arguably, Marcellus does understand better than a rotting corpse. But I thought that was rather sweet ignorance on Tova’s part. (Don’t let Marcellus know I esteemed ignorance!)
Cameron also relinquishes his curmudgeonly attitude. He was ready to ghost the aquarium job, Tova, and Avery after being disappointed to learn Simon wasn’t his father (he was Daphne’s best friend) and he feels like a big failure and a loser. He especially feels like a loser that Ethan wouldn’t even consider him for the newly opened manager position at Safe-Way. However, instead of running away like he always does, although he initially did, he decides to turn back and return to Washington to make things right. That’s when he learns about Tova and Erik and rekindles his relationship with Avery. I thought coming into the book and realizing Marcellus was going to die, his death would shake me the most. To be sure, I was sad because Marcellus is a loveable character, and I’d love to hear more of his observations about us humans. But it was when Cameron comes back and talks to Tova in the house she’s selling, when they both finally realize they’re grandmother and grandson, where I let the tears accumulate. I love a well-earned happy ending! Cameron was sick of miscommunications and readers always hate miscommunications derailing a happy ending.
Van Pelt, rightly so, gives us a sweet, happy ending. Not just with the cessation of miscommunications. Tova and Cameron are happily playing Scrabble together and Ethan lives with Tova now in her condo. Tova decided she couldn’t leave Sowell Bay when the Sowell Bay Aquarium brings in a new rescued octopus to take Marcellus’ place. Marcellus dies knowing Tova will watch over the new octopus. He dies with freedom back in the sea.
Life is short and absurd and beautiful. All life, including the giant Pacific octopus. Including humans and all their quirkiness an octopus like Marcellus may observe, as if an alien from another planet arriving here to study us. Life is filled with remarkably bright creatures. We just have to come out behind our rock and see.
Addendum: In her Acknowledgements, Van Pelt shouts out Sy Montgomery’s book, The Soul of an Octopus. I also highly recommend it, if you loved Marcellus and octopuses generally. I did a review of it here. Additionally, if you haven’t yet seen My Octopus Teacher on Netflix, I highly recommend that lovely documentary as well. Here is my review of it.
Milam's Musings 