We came to Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures for the octopus. But while the readers of the Wairarapa Library Service’s Evening Book Club were charmed the cephalopod narrator driving the buzz around our September title, many of us wanted more from him—but what, exactly?
Marcellus McSquiddles—that the octopus’s name—turns out to be a mashup of two time-honored dramatic devices. On one hand, he’s an eight-armed Greek chorus, rendering pithy judgement on the human tragedy unfolding before us (it’s his description of humans that gives the book its title.) On the other, he’s a classic deus ex machina, a godlike power that swoops in to resolve an otherwise impossible plot point. Neither role allows his enjoyably droll voice more than the occasional brief chapter.
Remarkably Bright Creatures actually centers on Tova, a Swedish American woman who cleans the aquarium. She’s also a recognizable type, the elderly curmudgeon hiding a broken heart. Some of us loved her like a salty old aunt; some found her stoicism maddeningly inert.
She stubbornly accepts her lonely lot in life, and doesn’t pursue the mystery of her son’s death until a literal nudge from Marcellus. This is grief, her believers said, she’s all bottled up! Her detractors weren’t buying. They wanted more emotion, more struggle—from her and Marcellus both.
The split recalled August’s debate over Ruth Shaw’s painful memoir, except this time we were begging more grief, human and otherwise, from a book we all found enjoyably breezy, even beach-y. Maybe our demands of Marcellus and Tova mirrored our ever-shifting demands for the stories we read.
Sometimes the world feels richer if writer and reader alike push beyond their familiar experience—to imagine, say, what an octopus might actually say about grief? Sometimes, feeling bottled up on some Tuesday night, we just want some benevolent, all-knowing creature to slide in and save us all.
NEXT UP: For 5th October we’re reading The Candy House by Jennifer Egan. For November and beyond, sign up for our newsletter at wlseveningbookclub.substack.com or email dan@wls.org.nz. We meet on Zoom, with readers joining from across the Wairarapa, and all are welcome. Come join the conversation!
