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Log from the Sea of Cortez Pb (Mandarin Clasic)

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John Steinbeck had a high interest in marine biology, one that helped forge an extraordinary friendship with Ed Ricketts in the 1930s. Ricketts, the model for Doc in CANNERY ROW, was a professional biologist living in Monterey. He proposed an exploration of the Gulf of California and in the spring of 1940 he and Steinbeck set sail on a rented boat with a colorful crew that should have suggested a sea novel along the lines of CANNERY ROW and TORTILLA FLAT. The original result from this trip was the book THE SEA OF CORTEZ, which included the "log" fashioned by Steinbeck and an extensive inventory of the scientific information collected. It was published in the fall of 1941 and promptly forgotten when Pearl Harbor was struck. A decade later, the scientific catalogue was removed and Steinbeck added another section, a moving and often hilarious appreciation of his friend Ed Ricketts. The title became THE LOG FROM THE SEA OF CORTEZ and that's what we have here.

This is a great book for the beach, where I read it. It is filled with the imagery of a warm coastal area. It is several things, really: a book filled with the wonder and scientific knowledge of marine life, a how-to (and sometimes how-not-to) guide for collecting specimens, a travelogue that captures the wilderness communities of Baja California in its time, and an often hilarious account of staying amused at sea with the likes of a crew with names like Tony, Tex, Sparky and Tiny. Steinbeck also takes the occasion to explore his own philosophy as inspired by their studies. Especially interesting is his Easter Day entry, in which he defines and explores at length what he calls "teleological" and "non-teleological" thinking. He gives us much to think about, and does so in clear, fluent prose. If you pay close attention, you will see him forming the idea for what years later became THE PEARL.

One caution: read the critical introduction AFTER enjoying the text. Like most introductions, it contains some spoilers and it also makes references that are better understood once one is familiar with the material it limns.

This is the book that really "turned me around" on Steinbeck. I had been forced to read RED PONY & THE PEARL in High School & while I acknowledged Steinbeck's ability I found his subjects unbearably depressing. LOG FROM THE SEA OF CORTEZ showed me another, funnier, more thoughtful, and more engaging Steibeck that then lead me to CANNERY ROW etc. This is the so-called Narrative Portion of a much longer guidebook co-authored by Steinbeck & Ed Ricketts that was simply called SEA OF CORTEZ and includes both illustrations and keys to the marine intertidal of Baja. The longer version is alas now long out of print & a real collectors item. LOG it turns out is a mixture of an actual travel log as Ricketts, Steinbeck & the crew of the Western Flyer wander in and out of the coves on the eastern side of the Baja peninsula, and also some philosophical essays by Ricketts that I gather actually pre-date th Cortez trip. I have frequently assigned the Easter Sunday chapter to my students as an marvellous discourse on science & scientists, but in fact the whole book is just that -we get a real sense of the joys & follys of field ecology & a wonderful look at an amazing piece of country before it was "discovered" and at least in part spoiled. The book is like a wonderful conversation with two very very smart & funny people & one comes away having learned a great deal & wishing one could have gone along on the original trip.

I read this book while preparing to follow the footsteps of Steinbeck and Ricketts to the Sea of Cortez (the Gulf of California).

I was living, at the time, in 'Steinbeck Country,' Monterey, California--where Ed 'Doc' Ricketts kept his lab (referred to in "Cannery Row.").

In this book, "The Log From the Sea of Cortez," Steinbeck sheds his fiction-writer persona, and regales his readers with the story of his trip, which Ricketts initiated for scientific purposes.

The thing that interested me the most, aside from the descriptive passages about the area in question, was the juxtaposition of Ed Rickett's pragmatism and Steinbeck's unabashed idealism and populism. Steinbeck comes across as a flaming socialist--not too surprising, considering "The Grapes of Wrath" and some of his other works.

The friendship of these two men, despite the radical differences in their philosophies, is intriguing.

If you are a fan of Steinbeck's fiction, this book will give you more insight into his character and philosophy than any of his other books save, perhaps, "Travels With Charlie," which came much later.

Like many people of my age (45) I read 'Grapes of Wrath' and 'Cannery Row' as schoolbooks. Steinbeck was 'just' another modern author, one of many in the curriculum, although I enjoyed the writing more than that of some other authors. Thirty years later, I am sitting in Crete, in my favourite town, reading a worn Penguin paperback of 'The Log from the Sea of Cortez'. I bought it for pennies in a charity shop just before leaving for Greece, more out of curiousity than anything else. It is a cliche, but I was captivated. Steinbeck's use of English and his powers to describe a scene and circumstances, with tight narrative, are an object-lesson for would be writers. Since reading about the expedition, I have returned, belatedly, to one of the best authors of the twentieth century. Beware, it is fashionable to reduce Steinbeck to a social commentator whose later work was poorly conceived. Don't believe the hype. This book will take you to a place that no longer exists outside its pages, and it is a glorious description of two friends doing something just because they could. That's all folks!

One of my good friends from high school introduced me to this book after we were both middle-aged. He set the challenge that we should complete this journey together. I look forward to it.

John Steinbeck, the great fiction writer, is just as intriguing as a nonfiction writer. In fact, there is more scope here than in any of the novels.

Steinbeck was fascinated by his friend, Ed Ricketts, Baja California, The Sea of Cortez (located in Baja), the marine life there, and the people along the way. You can read this book for any of those dimensions and be well rewarded. In fact, it is interesting to learn more about Steinbeck, the man, through his reminiscences of this trip.

Although I enjoyed all of these dimensions,to me the element that is most appealing is the story of two friends simply traveling and learning. It is very much a tale of the voyage that we all make through life, by way of analogy. In a way, it reminds me of a literal Pilgrim's Progress, except that this actually occurred. Fact, in this case, is more interesting than fiction.

If you liked Steinbeck's novels, read this. If you like travel stories, read this. If you like stories of scientific research, read this. If you like adventure, read this. Even if you don't fall into one of those categories, read this. Enjoy!

As someone who has been reading and admiring Steinbeck since childhood, this was by far my favorite of all his books. The book is full of adventure, amazing insight, and quite a bit more of humor than one would expect from a non-fiction story pertaining largely to biology.

Steinbeck is joined by biologist Ed Ricketts as they sail the Sea of Cortez and examine the various conditions and sea life within. Upon each discovery or finding, Steinbeck offers a detailed description of their encounter, and further makes a correlation to life on the land as it is experienced by humankind. Just to cite one example, Steinbeck notes how animals that prey on others and have stronger instincts are seen as "survivors" and admired, whereas human beings who step on others to get to the top are seen as evil or heartless.

I would highly recommend this book to anybody that enjoys well-written non-fiction that reads just as if it were fiction. If you enjoy this book you should definitely read Travels With Charley by Steinbeck next.

John Steinbeck was not merely a lusty untrained amateur when it came to marine biology - he studied the subject at Stanford although left without graduating. Nevertheless, the Log from the Sea of Cortez, the narrative portion of the account from his 1940 journey round the Gulf of California with his scientist friend Ed Ricketts, is written in the tone of the intellegent novice to the subject.

The prose is light-footed and brisk, covering the minutiae of collecting - minature sea life is chronicled with detailed affection, then frequently the observations of creatures are used as a basis for expanding into a panoramic commentary on sociology, ethics, religion, psychology, teleology - you name it. Watching two crayfish meet, Steinbeck observes that they fight. He then speculates that they will only lose this genetic impulse if some future mutation is undergone by the species. He wonders if this might be the case with humans, explaining why war is an inevitable component of our psychic. How much of this is verifiable scientifically is questionable, but this doesn't stop Steinbeck's account from being an entertaining travelogue. Potted tales of his fellow crew wittily intersperse the log from the collecting fields, such as the tale of one member trying to decapitate a turtle that crawls around headless on the deck, post execution.

What really enriches this account, however, is Steinbeck's obvious enthusiasm for biology, human company, sea life and, more broadly, life at sea in general. At one point, having returned to the ocean after a spell in the mountains, he confesses 'One who was born by the ocean or has associated with it cannot ever be quite content away from it for very long'. There is certainly something of the keenness of the short trousered schoolboy, ecsctatically rummaging around the rockpools that spills over to the reader.

Yet, for all its happy moments, the Sea of Cortez sits in historical contex against a rather more sombre, tragic background. The beginnings of war starting in Europe are far removed from Steinbeck and co.'s potterings in the Gulf of California, but the occasional allusion to war in the account reminds us that this was an uneasy time for American life. And Steinbeck's lifelong friend and colleague on this trip, the eccentric and charismatic scientist Ed Ricketts, who held the controversial theory at the time that all life in the Pacific Ocean was connected teleologically - 'It is advisable to look from the tidepool to the stars and then back to the tidepool again' was killed in a car accident at a railway crossing some years later. The appendix includes a poignant account by Steinbeck of his friend, one of the best personal obituaries I have read. So I heartily recommend that readers don't terminate their reading at the end of the log section of the story.

This book represents the log of a voyage Steinbeck took with Ed Ricketts collecting biological specimens from the Sea of Cortez during the spring of 1940. The goal of the trip was to document the variety of sea creatures that lived in the tidal pools of the region, as well as to bring back specimens for identification and further study. In total, the voyage lasted about 4 weeks, during which time Ricketts, Steinbeck, and the rest of the crew documented hundreds of species, thousands of specimens, and discovered several new creatures that had not been known before.

The book begins with a lengthy preface introducing readers to Ed "Doc" Ricketts. Ricketts, of course, was the mythical Doc featured in the Steinbeck classics "Cannery Row" and "Sweet Thursday". In this biography of Ricketts, Steinbeck provides some of the details of Rickett's life, and describes his chief character traits as Steinbeck perceived them.

By today's standards, their approach and attitudes towards the animals they were catching seem rather appalling. In the tidal pools, it seemed they grabbed everything that moved, as well as everything that didn't move but merely showed some signs of life. In this manner, they collected rare as well as common species. The ship's crew enjoyed the sport of catching a sea turtle, shooting a shark through its fin, and harpooning giant rays. Modern readers can at least take comfort in the thought that society has advanced to the point that such behavior is no longer found acceptable on a biological expedition. Even Steinbeck, however, was shocked by the methods used on a Japanese shrimp trawler that they encountered dredging in Mexican waters. The Japanese, with full permission from the Mexican government, were literally dredging the ocean floor, bringing up every last living thing, from sea fans to sharks in their nets. Whatever wasn't shrimp they threw back, where injured or dead, it was reduced to seagull food. Steinbeck noted the short-sightedness of this approach, how it left nothing behind for future generations, no shrimp, but also no other fish.

In the Steinbeck Museum in Salinas, CA, there is an exhibit with photographs of the expedition. In the center of one of the photographs is Carol Steinbeck, John's first wife, who was a crew member on this voyage, but who John managed to expunge completely from this written record. Nevertheless, he leaves us with a clue to her existence at the end of chapter 24, where he writes of a strong prejudice when there is a woman along on a voyage of scientific exploration, "the wife of one of the members of the party. She is never called by her name or referred to as an equal....She is nearly always a stringy blonde with leathery skin who is included in all photographs to give them `interest.'" Clearly, this account of the voyage is carefully crafted not to tell exactly what happened and to whom, but to represent the events as John chose to tell them. Most of the prose explores Steinbeck's and Rickett's concept of non-teleological thinking, where they take an idea and push its consequences beyond reasonable limits. Still, Steinbeck does provide a narrative account of the various collection stops they made, and what kinds of creatures predominated at each stop (this description was based on Rickett's notes). At the end of the book are a glossary of biological terms used and an index.

I read this book while sailing in Sea of Cortez and on land at La Paz. Not only did I love it as a travel story, but Steinbeck's gems of philosophy were even better. Highly recommend it.

This is a fascinating book for a number a reasons and is a success because, it manages to work on a number of different levels. As a travelogue it paints a fascinating portrait of the people and places on the shores of the Sea of Cortez. Steinbeck has always been able to capture this part of human existence in his fiction and nonfiction works. Steinbeck manages to capture the flavor of this scientific expedition, and the wonder of nature, particularly in this unique ecosystem. Steinbeck manages to fuse these somewhat separate thread to describe his philosophy of life and existence. In this respect it provides a useful supplement for understanding his masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath. Finally, an appendix has a eulogy for his friend Ed Ricketts, who led this voyage to the Sea of Cortez and who was the insiration for the character Doc in Cannery Row and its sequal. This eulogy is both a wonderful tribute to Ricketts, but also a celebration of life.

I would not recommend this book as an introduction to Steinbeck. If you have never read Steinbeck your time will be better spent reading the Grapes of Wrath. I think it works best for those of us who have read other Steinbeck works and/or those who wish to have better understanding of the peoples and ecology of the Sea of Cortez.