Beyond the Outer Shores: The Untold Odyssey of Ed Ricketts, the Pioneering Ecologist Who Inspired John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell

Beyond the Outer Shores: The Untold Odyssey of Ed Ricketts, the Pioneering Ecologist Who Inspired John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell
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A Fitting Biography of a Pioneer in Ecology

A good start, but some things missing

Beyond the Outer Shores

A pioneering biographial work

Grateful to Eric Tamm

Beyond the Outer Shores: The Untold Odyssey of Ed Ricketts, the Pioneering Ecologist Who Inspired John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell
Eric Enno Tamm
Manufacturer: Thunder's Mouth Press
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Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

In the 1930s, while the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression sent most of America into the doldrums, a lively intellectual and artistic community formed in the West, revolving around three legendary friends: Ed Ricketts, John Steinbeck, and Joseph Campbell. Steinbeck immortalized Monterey’s bohemian spirit in Cannery Row, but the area’s true lifeblood was his best friend and mentor, Ed Ricketts.

Today Ed Ricketts is usually remembered as “Doc”—the beer-drinking philosopher-scientist who presided over Monterey’s population of “whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches” in Cannery Row—but Ricketts was actually a trailblazing ecologist who did seminal work in the emerging field on the Pacific Coast. His ideas were decades before their time, and his two books, Between Pacific Tides and Sea of Cortez (coauthored with Steinbeck), are still considered classics. Now, some sixty years after his untimely death, Ricketts’ ecological approach and ethic seem more relevant than ever.

Customer Reviews:

A Fitting Biography of a Pioneer in Ecology.......2007-07-29

Many years ago I was asked to clean out a storage shed in Yuma, Arizona. I was not paid, but was told I could keep whatever I found that interested me. The shed mostly contained little of interest, but I cleaned it out anyway. However I did retain three items at the time - two World War I helmets (one German and one American) and a hardbound first edition of Steinbeck and Ricketts "The Sea of Cortez." I poured over the latter book eagerly. It was a battered copy, but I read through it until the end, including Ed Ricketts' annotated list of specimens collected on the trip, made at the start of World War II, to the Gulf of California. I later read the account of Ed Ricketts in "Between Pacific Tides'" but wanted more. I have now found that much needed book in Eric Enno Tamm's "Beyond the Outer Shores."

This is a fascinating book (this is why I gave it five stars), if one occasionally flawed by such lapses as "Chief Seattle's speech" or the pontifications or digressions of the author. It chronicles the life of Ed Ricketts and in parallel, those of John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell. All of these people were flawed (as are all human beings), but what a great wealth of ideas they left to us! I cannot judge how much Ed Ricketts influenced the other two, but there was certainly some cross-fertilization going on between the friends. As Steinbeck noted in "The Sea of Cortez," it was hard sometimes to remember just which idea was whose.

In any case, this is by far the most complete account of the life of Ed Ricketts, his family, and of the ideas that he and his associates had while drinking beer and haunting the tide pools of the Pacific and Gulf of California. Most of these ideas, I think, were worthwhile, if not always totally original. I, for one, pretty much agree with their conclusions.

Tamm covers much of the blanks left by Steinbeck's rather short account. From Tamm's account we learn much more about Ed's complicated private life, his difficulties in publication, his methodical collecting and his views on ecology and nature. We thus glimpse the multifaceted personality that was Ed Ricketts. His accidental death was indeed tragic, as he had much work to do and was an important part of a number of other peoples' lives.

Read this book if you want to understand the life of Ed Ricketts and his close association with the complex biota in the intertidal zone!

A good start, but some things missing.......2006-04-13

A couple of years ago, I posted a review of the Ricketts letters collected by Katharine Rodger. In that review, I wished for a more comprehensive biography of Ricketts. I guess this is the book. It is well written, well researched and well documented by references to sources. I think its main benefit is that it separates Ed Ricketts from the characters in John Steinbeck's novels and The Log from the Sea of Cortez. Evidently, Steinbeck was first and foremost a novelist, even when writing "nonfiction."

Tamm helps explain Ricketts's relationship with Toni Jackson and presents some new (to me, anyway) information on his trips to Vancouver Island. There is quite a lot of material here about Joseph Campbell's influence on Ricketts (and vice-versa) that isn't in Steinbeck's various writings on Ricketts. There isn't much new about Ricketts's life before his lab (including notes and correspondence) burned down in 1936.

Tamm has a tendency to use Ricketts's, Steinbeck's, and Joseph Campbell's writing as jumping-off points to his own ethical and environmental perspective and even to preach a little. I largely agree with his views, but I don't think this biography is the place for them.

Tamm emphasizes Ricketts's philosphy, as Steinbeck and others have. Ricketts took this work seriously, but only one of his three large essays was ever published. His "Non-Telological Thinking" appears as the Easter Sunday entry in the narrative half of The Log from the Sea of Cortez, which Ricketts coauthored with Steinbeck.

On Ricketts's philosophy, Tamm writes: "He was pioneering a new mode of thinking that contained all the elements of what would become 'deep ecology' in the 1970s." (p. 239).
"Deep ecology" is a viwpoint that recognizes an inherent value in all species (value beyond their use to humans) and holds to mostly conventional liberal politics (Wikipedia, 11 April 2006). These ideas seem commonplace today, though they rarely go by that hoity-toity title. I doubt they were exceptional in the 1930s and 1940s (e.g., John Muir advocated nature for its own sake decades earlier). If Ricketts's ideas were unique, Tamm should have explained then-prevailing environmentalism to put them into context. Further, I would have liked a discussion of the "deep ecology" view as it progressed into the 1970s. What other authors (especially biologists) were influential in its development? Had they read Ricketts's work? (aside: David Ehrenfeld has a nice essay on inherent value, called The Conservation Dilemna, in his book, The Arrogance of Humanism).

The discussions of Rickett's scientific work would have been better if Tamm had comparared it more thoroughly with other biologists of the time, and discussed its long-term influence in biology. The book doesn't clarify to me whether Ricketts's documentation of the collapsing Monterey sardine fishery was a new approach to population ecology and resource management, or if he used existing analytical techniques. Ricketts is very well known among California marine biologists. Has his work stood up over time, and is it still relevant to modern researchers?

Finally, I was bothered by Tamm's inclusion of the false (but widely believed) "Chief Seattle" speech. The text Tamm quotes on page 242 (quoted from Joseph Campbell's 1990 book, Transformation of Myth Through Time) was actually written by Ted Perry in 1972 for a film script. Campbell's flawed research isn't Tamm's fault, but I wish Tamm had checked the source before propagating this myth still further. Much more on the Chief Seattle story is available at the Snopes Urban Legends Reference Pages and links posted there.

Beyond the Outer Shores.......2005-03-08

This book is a tour through Ed Ricketts life and his many amazing discoveries. Along Ricketts journey to find and catalog new animal species he ispired writer John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell. I learned so much about ecology as well as the life of Steinbeck by reading this book.

A pioneering biographial work .......2004-12-09

Few folks know the name of Ed Ricketts, but he was a pioneering ecologist who inspired notables John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell alike, and has long deserved his own biography. Eric Enno Tamm has solved this gap in detail with Beyond The Outer Shores, a biography of the man who served as the 'renaissance man of Cannery Row', fostering a friendship which led Steinbeck to integrate an ecological perspective into his early works - and to reject the notion of a human-centered universe. Ricketts was no insider in his industry: he was an academic outcast who was at once a beach bum, a philanderer, and an ecologist whose early warnings about over-fishing in California and Alaska fell on deaf ears in the 1930s. A pioneering biographial work covers his long-unsung achievements.

Grateful to Eric Tamm.......2004-08-19

I got to know "Doc" Ricketts when I was about 15. In 10th-grade English, we had read "The Grapes of Wrath" and "Of Mice and Men," and I greatly enjoyed both. My English teacher knew not only of my enthusiasm for Steinbeck, but also my penchant for standing knee-deep in ponds collecting invertebrate animals. She suggested I might like to read "Cannery Row" on my own. I did, and became a convicted Steinbeck fan.

I could not have known then, of course, that one day I'd not only get a doctorate in zoology but also have a daughter who'd earn a degree in marine science. Nor could I have imagined that she and I would make a pilgrimage to Monterey and Cannery Row together, and perform together in a college production of "The Grapes of Wrath."

"Doc" was never far from my mind in the years since 1965. But aside from what little we learned on our brief visit to Monterey, I still knew Ed Ricketts as little more than Doc: a collector, proprietor of a biological supply company, and wanna-be scientist. (Remember Doc's futile effort to write a scientific treatise on an octopus.)

Until now. I read a review of "Beyond the Outer Shores" in "Nature," promptly booted up Amazon.com, and ordered it to give to my daughter this Christmas -- along with Steinbeck and Ricketts' "Sea of Cortez" and Ricketts' "Between Pacific Tides." I couldn't resist dipping into "Outer Shores" the moment it arrived, and once I did, I couldn't stop until I reached the back cover. Now I've ordered another set of this Ricketts-Steinbeck-Tamm trilogy for my own library.

Tamm elevates Ed Ricketts far beyond the Steinbeck caricature. It's an enlightening look at how close the Ricketts-Steinbeck friendship and mutual admiration was, and a surprising revelation of Ricketts' friendship with another admired scholar, Joseph Campbell. But most importantly, it fleshes out my image of Ricketts as a serious scholar, philosophical thinker, and pioneering marine ecologist. I regret only that I didn't have this book a few months earlier, when my wife and I visited Vancouver Island this summer. We did not get to the outer coast, but only the stretch between Nanaimo and Victoria. Having "Beyond the Outer Shores" in hand would have changed my itinerary and made another pilgrimage of it.

On many levels from ecology and conservation to mythology and Tao, I will be proud to give this to my daughter this Christmas. It's so much more than a biography; it's an inspiration, an intellectual feast, and an invitation to so many other domains of human thought and feeling. I really appreciate both the effort and story-telling skill that Eric Tamm put into this terrific intellectual biography.

Mavericks on Cannery Row.(Beyond the Outer Shores: The Untold Odyssey of Ed Ricketts, the Pioneering Ecologist Who Inspired John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell)(Book ... Review): An article from: American Scientist

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A remarkable work of translation.......2006-04-09

The best translations of Basho's work.....Beautiful. A great poet and someone who seems to understand Basho.

All things great in small........2001-11-27

At a time when Milton and Dryden were producing their prolix epics, the Japanese Zen monk Basho was paring poetic language down to its very essence, managing to pack as much philosophy and metaphysics, narrative, evocation of place and custom, human behaviour and emotion in 17 syllable haikus as the Englishmen did in endless cantos. Unfortunately, the non-Japanese reader will never be able to appreciate Basho - his poetic art is such an inseparable union of form and content, that an inability to translate the former means an inability to understand the latter; while any attempt to replicate the 17-syllable structure in a completely alien language and mindset would be grotesque.

So, from the start, Lucien Stryk's admirable attempt to evoke the spirit of Basho is doomed. The reader can do other things with his translations, however. The compression of the haiku actually gives the reader a lot of freedom to construct narratives, moods and feelings from the barest hints: of the peasant monk Basho travelling throughout Japan, visiting temples; eating; meeting friends and passers-by; passing mountains, trees, seas, rivers, waterfalls, gardens; sleeping in fields or on the side of the road; looking at the moon or a butterfly; sights transformed by sounds or smells.

It probably helps if you know something about Japan and Buddhism to appreciate the allusions packed in the poetry, and Stryk's introduction (which also briefly posits Basho's aims and technique, and his position in the tradition of the genre) and notes are of some help. The movement of the poems are remarkably fluid and expansive within such narrow limits, with their hierarchies of nature, fusion of the senses and questioning of reality all cohering to create the oneness with nature that was Basho's ideal.

The overwhelming mood is one of serenity, of passive marvelling at the riches of nature, of plays of light or wind, of unexpected, tiny, revelatory details; but there is also an acknowledgement of human folly, poverty, war ('Summer grasses, all that remains of soldiers' dreams'), decay and death - Basho's deathbed poem is truly desolating.

To be honest, I was much more engaged by the sketches by Taige that accompany the text, effortlessly combining the representation of nature with abstract thought that Basho strove for in his poetry (although other reasons for my dissatisfaction seem to be more precisly located in the reader Ty Hadman's very valuable comment below).

Basho Book on Table.......2001-04-27

Basho book on table-

Cezanne fruit bowl too

It's time to party

STRYK STRIKES OUT!.......2000-08-03

With this book of translations, the importance of the contribution of Takashi Ikemoto's professional knowledge and advice becomes quite evident. The quality of Stryk's translations has obviously suffered without Ikemoto's valuable in-put. The haiku reading public deserves better than another mediocre book of Japanese haiku translations. The book was not published on the merits of the translations, but rather, on the merits of Stryk's past achievements and accomplishments. The book is heavily flawed in nearly every aspect. Lucien Stryk's translations fall far short of the previous accomplishments made in this field by other translators prior to this project and difficult undertaking. There are many technical flaws, actual errors, and omissions in this book of translations. Here are a few examples from his book to back up my accusations:

In my new robe this morning- someone else.

This is the first haiku in the book, so Stryk gets himself into deep trouble from the onset. First of all, someone else is not wearing Basho's robe. Basho has just put on the new silk robe given to him as a gift from his beloved disciple Ransetsu. This should have been footnoted, especially since it ties in with Stryk's main theme. It is the first day of spring (according to the old lunar calendar) which was celebrated as New Year's Day. It is therefore not just any morning as suggested in Stryk's translation, but a special one that haiku poets and the people of Japan have been fond of for many generations. The literal translation of the last line is: Who do I look like? Basho is being both humorous and playful, light-hearted with his disciple. It is a display of affection and Basho is saying that he feels like a new man and does not want nor expect a serious response from his haiku pupil. It is not a question at all; it's a compliment, a way of saying thanks, a way of expressing complete satisfaction and comfort!

Since Stryk decided to name the book On Love And Barley, I feel that he has a responsibility to his readership to emphasize and stress the theme of love whenever appropriate, and like the example given above, he failed to do this. Because of his neglect, there is a conspicuous lack of unity and cohesion in the overall presentation. The order of the haiku as they appear in the book seems arbitrary, as if the haiku were randomly tossed together without much fore-thought. Many of the haiku are taken out of context (haiku that were originally part of a renga or haibun). These should have been footnoted, but weren't. It seems in every possible area where Stryk could have gone wrong, he did go wrong!

Another example from the book:

Parting, straw-clutching support.

All Lucien Stryk says about this haiku in his footnote is that this haiku is another parting poem meant for Basho's friends. This book, unlike many books of Japanese haiku translations, does not include the Japanese (Romanized) versions. But the above haiku is very well known, so I took the time and looked it up. The Japanese word mugi does not mean straw. Guess what, it means barley! The word barley should definitely have been used, especially in view of the fact that the word is part of the title that Stryk assigned to the book, and he didn't use it! Shame on him! The cat/love/barley haiku previously quoted is the ONLY haiku in the book with the word barley in it. This haiku should have included the word too. It is my opinion that the love/barley theme is stronger in this haiku than it is in the cat/barley haiku if it is adequately translated and properly footnoted. The Japanese phrase chikara ni tsukamu (the second line) means more accurately than clutching, clutching convulsively or with great intensity. Basho was departing on what was to be his last journey, from the outskirts of Edo (Tokyo) on the way to his birthplace (near Ueno outside of Kyoto) three months prior to his death. Stryk's translation is ambiguous. To many readers it appears that Basho is doing the clutching and that is simply not true! He was departing from his friends on a dirt path next to a field of barley and out of an involuntary and spontaneous nervous reaction due to the intense grief of parting, his friends (not Basho) were intensely grasping the barley stalks by the pathway as they were saying their final farewells to him. Basho noticed this subtle anxiety of theirs, was deeply moved, and out of mutual love and affection for his friends and disciples, wrote the above haiku for them in their honor, thus immortalizing the tender and deeply felt emotions of their strong and close friendship. Another example:

Orchid - breathing incense into butterfly's wings.

A woman of high society by the name of Miss Butterfly (as in Madame Butterfly) owned a teahouse and requested that Basho compose a haiku for her on his return from Ise shrine. It was the custom in those days for the upper class women to perfume their clothing in the smoke of sandalwood or with other aromatics. The haiku is obviously in praise of her beauty, (not just her physical beauty, but her grace and beauty in natural surroundings or perhaps the tea-house) and once again Lucien Stryk failed to footnote this haiku that so appro-priately ties in with the book's main theme. A better translation might read something like this:

perfuming her wings in the orchid's fragrance oh beautiful butterfly!

There are many more examples that I can give where Stryk made serious omissions and errors, but in 1,000 words I cannot give any more examples. I do suggest that readers interested in good Basho haiku translations look elsewhere. At $7.96, this book is no bargain.

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