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Product Review Summary: Steinbeck's Template
A pen picture of Steinbecks close friend Ed Rickett's (Doc in 'Cannery Row' and 'Sweet Thursday') preceeds the absorbing log of their 1940 expedition to the Gulf of California, collecting the abundant marine life that dwells there along with Tony, Sparky, Tiny and Tex.
This is a book that will be appreciated by those who have read all or most of Steinbecks work. The thoughts and philosophies pondered over during the trip permeate all of Steinbecks great works-the way we straight jacket our reasoning by refusing to even consider ideas and discoveries that highlight nothing but flaws in our concrete beliefs, our constant state of denial, of how hope is mankinds survival tool (if we look at our past which is the same story over and over we would logically conclude that an aeon of exactly the same is to come our way,but hope convinces us we'll make Utopia this time! Without it we'd kill ourselves in dispair!)
Steinbeck sees man as part of the macrocosm of life that makes up the whole on Earth and our error in forgetting that we are a species with all the paradoxes that implies.
I've always loved Steinbecks open mind philosophy, that any explanation to something 'Might be so' as our knowledge constantly changes. This avoids the trap of dogma and keeps the mind creative.
A facinating book with Steinbeck at his philosophical peak when the log was made (shortly after 'Grapes of Wrath') The log also contains a precis of what became 'The Pearl' Great stuff for Syeinbeck fans.
Product Review Summary: The Abyss The Log from the "Sea of Cortez" (Penguin Modern Classics)
The Log from the Sea of Cortez
"How deep this thing must be, the giver and the receiver again; the boat designed through millenniums of trial and error by the human consciousness, the boat which has no counterpart in nature unless it be a dry leaf fallen by accident into a stream. And Man receiving back from Boat a warping of his psyche so that the sight of a boat riding in the water clenches a fist of emotion in his chest.... This is not mysticism, but identification: man, building this greatest and most personal of all tools has in turn received a boat-shaped mind, and the boat, a man-shaped soul."
The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck
In 1940, fresh from the success of the publication of "The Grapes of Wrath" but in the throes of marital difficulties, John Steinbeck teamed up with marine biologist and friend Ed Ricketts for a six-week marine exploration of the Sea of Cortez, or Gulf of California. They chartered a 76-foot purse-seiner, hired a crew, stocked tons of provisions, and headed for the waters that separate Baja California from the mainland of Mexico. While the object of the trip was to collect specimens of marine life, it became a sort of Homeric voyage of self-discovery. It also preceded by several decades the ground-breaking environmental journalism of Rachel Carson, raising issues of commercial over- fishing and chemical pollution.
Steinbeck shows an impressive scientific knowledge and has a deft prose style. His non-fiction is worth reading.
Product Review Summary: Buy it and read about Ed Ricketts--the rest is only worth a skim. Not Steinbeck's best Buy this book and read the first part: the part about Ed Ricketts. Then read a chapter or two, from anywhere in the rest of the book. Then you're done. Steinbeck's story of his dear friend Ed is as moving a memoir as I know of. This is Steinbeck at his best--the prose is crisp and compelling, and salted with tangible things of the world. You are taken to Monterrey and to Ed's lab. You feel yourself present as the two buddies drink beer together, surrounded by aquatic specimens. You feel the love that the two men felt for eachother--two eccentric intellectuals living in a town more concerned with squid than Shakespeare. You sense from Steinbeck that Ed was a true brother and that he could see himself in his friend. It is a marvelous, short piece, perhaps 80 pages in all. As for their journey to the Sea of Cortez? A windy story, ruined by machismo speculations on life, evolution, boats, people, and the nature of things. The depictions of Mexicans are just awful, drawn from a real distance, and written from an ignorant and gringo point of view. Take the book for what it is, a creature in two halves, one lovely and true, the other a rambling set of notes better left unpublished and unread.
Product Review Summary: To accompany the Experience Review - John Steinbeck "The Log from the Sea of Cortez"
Our Once-in-a-Lifetime trip driving through Baja would not have been complete without this work. While not the Steinbeck to which most of us are familiar, this work shows us his dedication to our Planet and rare personal insight to his feelings on everything from War to Ecology, a term most of us learned in the 1960's and what he "is" in 1940.
We read this book, each passenger to the driver, while passing miles of small towns, ejitos, military checkpoints and Cities. Under a Palapa sitting in a hammock... a great way to pass the time on the beach; On the Sea of Cortez.
Redundant as Logs are wont to be, and a great resource for those studying tide pools. His stories about meeting the people were our favorite parts of the Log; we relate in a more informed way to the Ways of the people in the areas he traveled, as we traveled.
Product Review Summary: Look for the Hansen Sea Cow... This is a classic book that is the synergy between two very different people. By the time you finish this, you will find you really like them... and wish you could have spent some time with them as well.
The science in the entire book is pretty good too.
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