Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life

This book is currently listed as #1 in Amazon’s ichthyology category, so a potential reader might surmise that there’s actually something to do with that subject is this book, or perhaps at least the taxonomy of fish generally. There is not. Instead this is a biography of taxonomist David Starr Jordan (also first President of Stanford, which is considerably more important to the book’s content in several ways) melded with a personal memoir of the author. It is highly readable and engaging, and offers an interesting discussion of the philosophy of life from a non-religious perspective. However, I feel it is important to note that this book has essentially no information about science, the scientific process, or even Jordan’s place in the history of science.

The only substantial discussion of ichthyology in this is text is in fact directly parroted from an different work Naming Nature, by Carol Kaesuk Yoon. I have read that work, this one contains hardly any original material on the subject and frankly rather abuses the fairly complex taxonomic point that ‘fish’ as referenced in common parlance do not form a monophyletic group using cladistic methods and in doing so completely fails to answer the question possessed by its title (something Yoon’s text, for what it’s worth, at least tries to do). Instead, it chooses to deploy this particular factoid as a rather complex metaphor.

There is much to recommend about this book, as a memoir of a young woman in the United States interlaced with a biography, and the illustrations by Kate Samworth used for the chapter headings are quite lovely (and quite non-creditted on main page, come on Amazon), but if you’re looking for a book that’s even remotely about fish, look elsewhere.

This book tries to do three things, and does one of them well. (1) As a mini-biography of taxonomist David Starr Jordan, it rocks. Among other fascinating findings, who knew that the (exceedingly gritty and persistent) first President of Stanford University may have murdered the wife of Stanford’s founder? (2) As an account of fish and science and life, the book is OK, but it is not deep or original. (3) As a memoir, it belly-flops. On p.34 we are told that the author (at age 7) asked her father “What’s the meaning of life?” And we are told that he told her, “Nothing!… as special as you might feel, you are no different than an ant. A bit bigger, maybe, but not more significant, except, do I see you aerating the soil? Do I see you feeding on timber to accelerate the process of decomposition?” How’s that for realistically describing how a dad speaks to his first-grade daughter? And then at the the end of the book (p.190), after the author has told us about her frequent suicidal ideations and attempts, we are told that her enlightenment came in a flash, when she went swimming with her girlfriend in Bermuda, and the girlfriend removed her bikini shorts and “swam out before me, liberated, frog-kicking just to let me look…through the clarity of a snorkel…to look” (p.190). This, we are told, is when the author knew that she was done. In her own capital letters: “I NEVER WANT A LIFE WITHOUT THIS PERSON.” After describing this remarkable event (which I paraphrase as “I saw her genitals underwater and now I feel fine!”), the author informs us that the best way of ensuring that *we* do not miss the gifts of life is “to admit, with every breath” that we have no idea what we are looking at (p.191). Given what was described on the preceeding pages, the conclusion would have more coherence if it recommended that readers go to Bermuda and find some genitals to look at through a snorkel.

I was pulled in by the story of David Starr Jordan–I thought that was written very well–but about midway through the book I started to have issues with the details on the history of the science (I teach many of the topics), and then there was a good deal of author-interpretation of Darwin’s intended meaning of life. The “author’s story” and review of psychology is getting to be very popular in literature, and I have read enough of it that I knew precisely how this Millennial drama/love story would end.

I never review
I made an effort to review this book
This is truly one of the most profound books of our time, Lulu takes personal stories weaves them in science and contemporary histories, to tell a story of search and discovery, understanding and questioning
Funny at times, frustrating facts of humans history, a-ha moments, smiles, tears, googling, corner flipping, can’t put it down, still thinking about it…kind of book

I love Lulu Miller’s NPR’s Invisibilia and started her debut prepared for a unique, informative, and laugh out loud story of this little known historical figure (taxonomist David Starr Jordan) and how his life story became interwoven with that of the author. I wasn’t expecting it to be so deeply relevant to our current COVID-19 reality, and I consider it a must-read for anyone hoping to make sense of their time in social distancing/quarantine. At its core, Jordan (and Miller) are attempting to create order out of Chaos, and even in the book’s introduction she speaks of how collecting and organizing can provide great solace during times of trauma and uncertainty. There are thousands of small and large lessons to be learned in these pages–many that can be implemented today–and it’s simply a lot of fun to read Lulu’s sentences. Grab this book and dive into the hidden order of life, you won’t be sorry.

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