The life of an octopus can be exciting. Living in the sea, adapting to your surroundings. Hunting for your meals while avoiding being eaten yourself. And always something new to see and explore. Unfortunately, that’s not Marcellus’s life. He was “rescued” from the sea when he was only a few months old and has been stuck in his tiny little tank in the Sowell Bay Aquarium ever since. Well, not ever since; there are his nighttime wanderings. And now, after all this time, he’s made a friend, Tova, the woman who cleans the aquarium at night. Marcellus doesn’t have much time left, but what he does have he wants to use to make Tova’s life better. But she’ll have to do some of the work herself; he is an octopus, after all. But he has every faith in her because he’s come to see that humans really are Remarkably Bright Creatures in this Shelby Van Pelt novel.
[Warning: My review of Remarkably Bright Creatures contains some spoilers!]
Two lonely souls become unlikely friends
If you asked Tova, she’d never say she was lonely. Does she turn the TV on to drown out the silence? Does she sometimes do her crosswords on the beach to escape the empty house? Did she take on a nighttime job she doesn’t need just to have something to do? Yes to all of these, but that’s not the same as being lonely. She has her knit-wits after all, her circle of friends who get together to (not)knit and socialize every couple of weeks, and that’s all she needs.
But then a strange thing happens: Tova makes a friend! This friend is a little different, though. He’s secretive and can be crabby. He likes exploring forbidden places and isn’t above petty larceny. Oh, and he’s an octopus- did I forget to mention that? Specifically, he’s a Giant Pacific Octopus at the aquarium that Tova cleans each night. They were always aware of each other, but they didn’t become friends until the night that Tova caught Marcellus (that’s the octopus) wandering the aquarium and saved him from death by phone cord strangulation. After that, the two began to communicate, and Tova was sure that Marcellus understood her (Marcellus wasn’t so sure that Tova understood him, but they usually got where they needed to be eventually).
Marcellus isn’t the only new friend that Tova makes either. You see, she hurts her ankle and has to take some time off work. But she can’t stop herself from checking up on the new hire to make sure he’s doing a good job. The new hire is also new to town. His name is Cameron, and he’s come to find the father he never knew. His search isn’t going too well; the guy is avoiding him like the plague (big surprise), but Cameron is fitting into Sowell Bay surprisingly well. Even if his best friends are a 60-something grocery store owner and a 70-year-old cleaning lady. It’s the first time Cameron has felt like he belongs and it’s a nice feeling.
The octopus saves the day
Near the beginning of the story, Tova’s brother passes away. They weren’t close, hadn’t been for years, and his passing doesn’t cause her any undue stress. Until she starts thinking about her own eventual end. Lars was the last of her family. Her husband died a few years ago, and their only son barely made it to 18. The official story is that he committed suicide by drowning himself, but Tova has never accepted that story. Regardless, she is alone and unwilling to be a burden to her friends (despite them begging her to let them help), so she decides to sell the home she’s lived in her entire life and move to a senior community. When the summer ends, she’s leaving Sowell Bay.
Marcellus is also a senior citizen in octopus terms. He knows he’s down to his final weeks. But he also knows some secrets about his friends. He knows that if they knew what he knows, they’d be happier, but how can an octopus “tell” a human anything? It won’t be easy, and he doesn’t have long, but it helps that humans are remarkably bright creatures.
A surprisingly charming book
So I saw the movie based on Remarkably Bright Creatures on my Netflix feed, but I didn’t think it looked that interesting. I mean, an old lady cleans the aquarium and talks to the octopus? Not that exciting. But then it started pleasing critics and viewers alike and…I still didn’t watch it. But then it got award nominations, and the book got dropped in my pile for review because of all the interest. I still haven’t watched the movie, but I did go ahead and read the novel it’s based on. And wow! I loved it. It had me yelling at the characters and crying my eyes out all at once. Remarkably Bright Creatures is one of those novels that peels back the layers we hide behind to show us the deeper stories happening right in front of us.
Yes, this story is fiction, but I guarantee there are people out there going through the same things that Tova, Ethan, Cameron, and Marcellus (the octopus is a person; he’s earned it) are right now. But because we hide these things out of pride, or shame, or fear, or any other number of reasons, we don’t know they’re happening. What Van Pelt does is take these hidden stories out of the shadows and put them on display for us. She makes us feel for these people. She turns our hearts inside out alongside them. And then she puts us all back together again. Not the way we imagined we’d be, but the way we are now. And it’s good. You might not be happy with everything that ends up happening in this story, but you will feel good about where it ends up. Oh, and you will need an entire box of tissues by the end. You have been warned. I’m still not sure if I’m gonna watch the movie, though. I’m not sure it can compare, although I would like to see Marcellus running around the aquarium!
Rating: 9/10
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt is available now!
Learn more about the book at the official website for the title.
You might also like…
