Status
Available
Publication
Oxford Univ Press (1952), Edition: Revised, 314 pages
Description
The special mystery and beauty of the sea is the setting for Rachel Carson's memorable portrait of the sea birds and sea creatures that inhabit the eastern coasts of North America. In a sequence of riveting adventures along the shore, within the open sea, and down in the twilight depths, Rachel Carson introduces us to the winds and currents of the ocean as revealed in the lives of Scomber, the mackerel and Anguilla, the eel. Life for them a continuous miracle, a series of life-and-death victories played out among strange and often terrifying life forms far below the surface of the sea. Under the Sea Wind is a classic wilderness adventure to which all nature writing is compared. The hero of Under the Sea Wind is soon seen to be life itself, that quicksilver prize granted, for a brief time only, to the clever and the fortunate.… (more)
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User reviews
LibraryThing member NeverStopTrying
The book is divided into three sections: The Edge of the Sea, The Gull's Way, and River and Sea. Each section focused primarily on one animal and followed it through a generation life cycle, including migrations; each section also focused primarily on one of the three great breeding grounds of the
One of the things I was aware of as I read the book is that Carson wrote before we had begun to seriously lose our sea-based populations. She described some exploitive and wasteful fishing techniques but the world she described was still full of lives and unpolluted.
I learned a lot, I valued the read, I would be willing to read the book again. I was not, however, blown away by the writing. I rated the book 3.5 stars.
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northeastern seaboard of the US: Cape Cod, Long Island Sound and the Chesapeake. In all of the sections, Carson told the story of the lives of the food chain in those areas. She personalized her "lead characters" a little but not too much.One of the things I was aware of as I read the book is that Carson wrote before we had begun to seriously lose our sea-based populations. She described some exploitive and wasteful fishing techniques but the world she described was still full of lives and unpolluted.
I learned a lot, I valued the read, I would be willing to read the book again. I was not, however, blown away by the writing. I rated the book 3.5 stars.
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LibraryThing member Paulagraph
Rachel Carson writing before Silent Spring. No intimation yet of environmental disaster. The words “sea wind” are Carson’s shorthand for the encapsulation of all life within a single system. The sea is vast, as is aquatic life. Carson’s prose is lyrical yet precise (as Peter Matthiessen
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comments, setting the standard for all nature writers to follow). Two words come particularly to mind: meal and migration. From diatom, copepod and algae to whale, shore bird and eel, life is moving and eating. Humans, living along the perimeter of such abundance, haul in their nets, sometimes full and sometimes empty (the fish escape). In the larger scheme of things here, humans function as just one more set of mouths, one more life form eating other life forms. They aren’t yet the ones who poison the air & water and deplete the fisheries, or, at least, they aren't yet acknowledged as such despoilers. Show Less
LibraryThing member sterlingelanier
Suberb! Accurate and poetic - one of my favorites
LibraryThing member JBD1
Oh, what a nice little book. Another perfect one for reading on a deck looking out over the ocean, so I was very glad that I saved it up for such an occasion.
LibraryThing member markm2315
Written in 1941, my copy is a 60 cent paperback from the Signet Science Library that was given to me in 1964 by my Aunt Jackie. This copy was from the 6th printing in the year that Rachel Carson died. I don't know why I still have it, but I decided it was probably time to read it. The book's
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subtitle is "a naturalist's picture of ocean life", and the author tells a series of stories each one revolving around a named animal, Silverbar the sanderling, Scomber the mackerel and Anguilla the eel. Each story moves in place and time with the migration and life history of the animal. Description of the encountered plants, animals, weather and geography creates a tapestry of the sea and seashore. No words are wasted and the reader is drawn into a vast natural history that is much larger than this short book. Brilliant. Show Less
LibraryThing member DominiqueMarie
Categories:
20th Century Classic (BacktotheClassics2020)
Three Books by the Same Author (#mmdreading)
Wow! Reading this was like watching Planet Earth, Blue Planet, or pretty much anything narrated by David Attenborough. Carson has a way with words. That's for sure. I appreciate her lyrical style.
20th Century Classic (BacktotheClassics2020)
Three Books by the Same Author (#mmdreading)
Wow! Reading this was like watching Planet Earth, Blue Planet, or pretty much anything narrated by David Attenborough. Carson has a way with words. That's for sure. I appreciate her lyrical style.
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This book covers the Atlantic Coast of North America, mainly by following the lives of a sanderling, a mackerel, and an eel. I admit that as much as I love animals and the ocean, I thought I was going to be bored during the mackerel section. I was so wrong. It turned out to be one of my favorite sections of the book! This is a book I know I'm going to re-visit Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
1941
Physical description
314 p.