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jennariaSEVEN-TENTHS: LOVE, PIRACY, AND SCIENCE AT SEA by David Fisichella.
Cover copy: In 1995, a mechanical engineer whose career and heart are adrift meets a blind oceanographer who spends much of her life at sea. Sailing the Arabian Sea as Amy's eyes, Davd Fisichella watches her adapt to progressive vision loss while he finds his own bearings, confronts the mysteries of ocean currents, survives an armed pirate attack, and learns what it means to be working for, and dating, the Chief Scientist. Fisichella describes the Woods Hole crew's research in clear, straightforward language, and enlivens his account of their shipboard lives with gritty details, humor, and a refreshing sense of wonder about our oceans.
I picked up this book at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute's gift shop, after taking a look around their Exhibit Center. Despite the interesting subject matter (among other things, WHOI was the group that found the lost Titanic), both exhibits and gift shop tended to be aimed more towards children than adults. This book stood out as an exception.
Unfortunately, it became rapidly clear that the book was sold there because of its subject matter, with maybe a bit of nepotism into the bargain. As a snapshot of what it's like at sea on one of the Woods Hold Oceanographic Institute's research cruises, it's very well done - insofar as the book ever comes alive, it's during those sections. If ever you're interested in writing about oceanography, I'm sure this book would be a goldmine.
Unfortunately, this book isn't just about those snapshots. It fancies it's telling a story. And it has no idea how.
Part of the problem, of course, is that this is a book of non-fiction, and real life doesn't always fit itself into the patterns that story-logic say it should hold to. By story-logic, this book should contain David and Amy's long courtship, wherein he has to prove himself. In actuality, they get married barely a quarter of the way into the book, and their relationship doesn't merit another mention (at least not as a plot thread). The pirates, according to story-logic, should be a looming threat that finally appear as the climax to the book. Reality comes closer this time: on one cruise off the Somali coast, the Powers That Be are so afraid of pirates that they send special security along with the oceanographers. When nothing happens on that cruise, no security is sent on the second - and sure enough, would-be pirates appear. But these are prosaic, modern-day pirates, not at all the romantic Johnny Depp kind, and in any case they're outrun. (And just to seal the anti-climax, the confrontation takes place in 2001, and the oceanographers get safely to the coast only to learn of the World Trade Center disaster.)
There are bits of story in here - the ship-board hazing of those passing the equator for the first time, for example, or David learning how to sail with blind people (which indirectly led to his meeting Amy) - the sort of thing that one can imagine being told over dinner with friends, or in a newspaper column, perhaps. But there's no overarching through-line, not even an amazing scientific discovery to share. David freely admits that he only barely understands Amy's work. As a result, the book comes across as not just episodic, but self-indulgent. Something that was more focused on the research that the Woods Hole people do, using the stories to intersperse Actual Scientific Knowledge, might have been able to get away with it better: at least then we wouldn't have gone in expecting a storyline, rather than a series of events about which I suspect the best that can be said is 'that's the way it actually happened!'
In conclusion: I should have taken warning when the title wasn't even explained until nearly halfway through the book, and then only tossed in as a casual reference (apparently seven tenths of Earth is covered in water). Some kinds of non-fiction can get away without a sense of storytelling. This particular book is sunk without it.
Cover copy: In 1995, a mechanical engineer whose career and heart are adrift meets a blind oceanographer who spends much of her life at sea. Sailing the Arabian Sea as Amy's eyes, Davd Fisichella watches her adapt to progressive vision loss while he finds his own bearings, confronts the mysteries of ocean currents, survives an armed pirate attack, and learns what it means to be working for, and dating, the Chief Scientist. Fisichella describes the Woods Hole crew's research in clear, straightforward language, and enlivens his account of their shipboard lives with gritty details, humor, and a refreshing sense of wonder about our oceans.
I picked up this book at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute's gift shop, after taking a look around their Exhibit Center. Despite the interesting subject matter (among other things, WHOI was the group that found the lost Titanic), both exhibits and gift shop tended to be aimed more towards children than adults. This book stood out as an exception.
Unfortunately, it became rapidly clear that the book was sold there because of its subject matter, with maybe a bit of nepotism into the bargain. As a snapshot of what it's like at sea on one of the Woods Hold Oceanographic Institute's research cruises, it's very well done - insofar as the book ever comes alive, it's during those sections. If ever you're interested in writing about oceanography, I'm sure this book would be a goldmine.
Unfortunately, this book isn't just about those snapshots. It fancies it's telling a story. And it has no idea how.
Part of the problem, of course, is that this is a book of non-fiction, and real life doesn't always fit itself into the patterns that story-logic say it should hold to. By story-logic, this book should contain David and Amy's long courtship, wherein he has to prove himself. In actuality, they get married barely a quarter of the way into the book, and their relationship doesn't merit another mention (at least not as a plot thread). The pirates, according to story-logic, should be a looming threat that finally appear as the climax to the book. Reality comes closer this time: on one cruise off the Somali coast, the Powers That Be are so afraid of pirates that they send special security along with the oceanographers. When nothing happens on that cruise, no security is sent on the second - and sure enough, would-be pirates appear. But these are prosaic, modern-day pirates, not at all the romantic Johnny Depp kind, and in any case they're outrun. (And just to seal the anti-climax, the confrontation takes place in 2001, and the oceanographers get safely to the coast only to learn of the World Trade Center disaster.)
There are bits of story in here - the ship-board hazing of those passing the equator for the first time, for example, or David learning how to sail with blind people (which indirectly led to his meeting Amy) - the sort of thing that one can imagine being told over dinner with friends, or in a newspaper column, perhaps. But there's no overarching through-line, not even an amazing scientific discovery to share. David freely admits that he only barely understands Amy's work. As a result, the book comes across as not just episodic, but self-indulgent. Something that was more focused on the research that the Woods Hole people do, using the stories to intersperse Actual Scientific Knowledge, might have been able to get away with it better: at least then we wouldn't have gone in expecting a storyline, rather than a series of events about which I suspect the best that can be said is 'that's the way it actually happened!'
In conclusion: I should have taken warning when the title wasn't even explained until nearly halfway through the book, and then only tossed in as a casual reference (apparently seven tenths of Earth is covered in water). Some kinds of non-fiction can get away without a sense of storytelling. This particular book is sunk without it.