At one point I decided to read Cloud Atlas and looked up its author, David Mitchell. In that search, this book appeared. I first thought it was his newest novel, only to realize he was recommending it instead. I picked it up because as I’ve been developing a fascination with octopuses and I like these kinds of accidental connections. Plus, I think the cover is gorgeous!
Mentioned in
-
Communication is not what sets humans apart
This is a passage from Ray Nayler’s book The Mountain in the Sea. I keep coming across this idea that language enables us to talk about what is not immediately present, and that we are the only species capable of …
-
More than human world
I read this term in Ways of Being by James Bridle. It was coined by American ecologist and philosopher David Abram, and refers to a way of thinking that seeks to override our human tendency to separate ourselves …
-
Recollection, with all the feelings that accompanied it
While reading The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler, I began to wonder about the difference between knowledge that feels like mine and knowledge that simply exists out there. Nayler wrote the following when a …
-
The “we-ness” of being an octopus
I’m reading The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler, and there’s a section where he writes about Tibetan Maintenance Drones, the degree of independence built into them, and what it feels like to command them. You …
-
Thinking with the hand
I am watching this YouTube video of William Kentridge working in his studio. In this part of the video he has a set-up for projecting frames from a footage on a desk and animating a paper-cut horse on top of it, …