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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.
Product Review Summary: The Log from the Sea of Cortez The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck is the story of a group of men on a journey through the Gulf of California with the plan to study the marine organisms that lived there, but they ended up studying a lot more. As the book was written by a writer and not a scientist the scientific side is seen through a different angle. Amongst all of the stops to collect specimens are thrown Steinbeck's tangents about the ideas of the world, the way that people behave, and philosophical ideas.
Throughout the journey of the Western Flyer the company made many stops along the coast of the Baja peninsula and along mainland Mexico. At each one of these stops Steinbeck tells of the collecting and the names of the different organisms along with the environments that they lived in. Steinbeck does a careful job of describing the animals and plants and using their scientific names in order to make the book useful for scientific purposes.
The journey also contains many stops in the towns and cities that border the Gulf. At each one of these stops Steinbeck gives a detailed account of their experience and a description of the people and their culture. One feels like he is actually traveling through Mexico and meeting the people while reading the book.
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