Page Lambert: All Things Literary & All Things Natural

Simon & Schuster video with Sy Montgomery Though I’ve never known an octopus, every encounter I’ve had with animals has been a testament to the existence of their emotional lives. And now, here was a writer brave enough to explore their soulfulness. The title of Sy Montgomery’s latest book hooked me, and I was thrilled to be turning its pages.   Every chapter took me either into the nooks and crannies of the aquariums where Athena, Kali, Octavia, and Karma lived, or to the depths of the sea from whence they had come. What surprised me, and Sy Montgomery when researching The Soul of an Octopus , wasn’t how different these creatures were, but rather the level of intimacy she felt with them after they met. Sy’s use of the word “met” implies an underlying premise that guides her through the writing of all her books about animals. We meet them, we don’t merely observe them.   To Sy, animals are somebodies , not somethings .* Even octopuses (yes, the Greek plural).