Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone
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The primary issue with this book is that it’s pretty boring. There are a lot of words and they’re not saying much. Jellyfish are inherently interesting, so that’s what drives the entire thing, but it could have been half as long and I would still get the gist. It’s also exemplary of why nonfiction sometimes hits a nerve with me. This book read like a slew of facts being thrown at me; I grew weary of them and then walked away not remembering anything specific because the author didn’t guide me to any central thesis. I had to sift through the facts myself to glean what was an important takeaway even though I’m not a goddamn jellyfish scientist (although I am now a submersible expert thanks to TikTok).
The author swung between overly specific and overly general with very little bridge in between. Her message (I guess?) is that globalization and global warming affects animals, so we should take care of the planet. Okay? Duh.
She did open my eyes to practical implications that I’d never really thought about. For example, the construction of the Suez Canal seems great because it created a more direct shipping route between Europe and Asia; however, it connected two bodies of water with different concentrations of salt and therefore different types of aquatic species. Overtime, the Canal made them uniformly saline, causing invasive species and leading to all sorts of unforeseen downstream effects. Sure, that’s something that never occurred to me, but I also don’t know what I’m supposed to draw from that other than an interesting fact. I guess I could tell people this at parties but it’d be a bit of a buzzkill. What should be done? And are the consequences really that bad? How are they bad?
It’s also a pretty cheesy book. I understand the attempt to make a scientific subject less dry and academic, but the ~grow a spine~ metaphors gave me the ick. Her personal life guided the trajectory of the book; she ~gained a backbone~ and took more risks, learning more about jellyfish because they interested her even though it wasn’t the most practical pursuit. So, for instance, when she felt compelled to push back against a major construction project that would disrupt the current marine environment, she says, “It was a moment for me to straighten my spine.” Woof, enough is enough. It reminded me of The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration in the Wonder of Consciousness, another book that succumbed to sappy subjectivity when all I wanted to do was learn more about octopuses, not the author. More jellyfish, less memoir.
In the end, I did learn about jellyfish in a deeper way. They’re used in memory research because their proteins may improve communication between electrical signals in the brain. That’s cool. I also learned that jellyfish don’t have a central brain. They have a very diffuse system, which allows them to be functional in ways that we cannot because different parts of their bodies can start taking control if necessary. It’d be like our pinky finger stepping up to the plate if something happened to our brain. That’s cool. They’re also incredibly efficient swimmers, using much less energy than animals that fly or run, and biologists can study the physics of their swimming to improve our ability to move. That’s cool.
So, my ultimate takeaway is that jellyfish are cool but unfortunately, this book was not. It receives 2 out of 5 flames.
