Why Fish Don't Exist

Picture the person you love the most. Picture them sitting on the couch, eating cereal, ranting about something totally charming, like how it bothers them when people sign their emails with a single initial instead of taking those four extra keystrokes to just finish the job —

Chaos will get them.

Chaos will crack them from the outside — with a falling branch, a speeding car, a bullet — or unravel them from the inside, with the mutiny of their very own cells. Chaos will rot your plants and kill your dog and rust your bike. It will decay your most precious memories, topple your favorite cities, wreck any sanctuary you can ever build.

It's not if, it's when. Chaos is the only sure thing in this world. The master that rules us all. My scientist father taught me early that there is no escaping the Second Law of Thermodynamics: entropy is only growing; it can never be diminished, no matter what we do.

A smart human accepts this truth.

A smart human does not try to fight it. But one spring day in 1906, a tall American man with a walrus mustache dared to challenge our master.

His name was David Starr Jordan, and in many ways, it was his day job to fight Chaos. He was a taxonomist, the kind of scientist charged with bringing order to the Chaos of the earth by uncovering the shape of the great tree of life — that branching map said to reveal how all plants and animals are interconnected. His specialty was fish, and he spent his days sailing the globe in search of new species. New clues that he hoped would reveal more about nature's hidden blueprint.

Incredible book. #GiveUpTheFish

Miller's “Why Fish Don't Exist” (WFDE) at first glance is about how one should (or even can) overcome difficult times. What motivates us to push through? Why push through at all, when everything seems to be falling apart? The book is about hope—sure—but it has a unique take on nihilism that I haven't come across before. Ultimately I'm not sure YET if the words here will be life changing (it may well be), they certainly motivated me to reflect more deeply on the hard times. The book takes a stab at answering “what is the meaning of life?” In my opinion, it answers that pretty well. It sort of reframes the question. Instead of focusing on life's meaning, think about the possibility of all that awaits you.

In the author's words, this book is “a prescription for hope....the promise that there are good things in store...to wonder about the reality waiting behind our assumptions.”

I gave the book 4/5 because the way it gets here is somewhat roundabout—and you certainly need to be with the author on the journey (i.e you shouldn't know the full story of David Starr Jordan). DSJ is not the most well known figure, but I do think I had to somewhat suspend disbelief that (given how extensively and commendably Miller researched him, even as much as going to hold a fish in the archives that he discovered), she didn't uncover his horrible beliefs earlier. I was skeptical of Miller's deep desire to reconcile her father's world view with that of Jordan's (or Darwin's). It felt like a quest for absolute capital T Truth, that seemed perhaps naive at times. But the ending ultimately reflects on this in a mature and self aware way, that mostly makes up for it.

My favorite moments were Anna/Mary, and Miller's vignette of her sister finding a home for herself in Boston. I also enjoyed Miller's own ending (or new beginning depending on how you see it)—I think anyone who has felt heartbreak could relate.

Not a bad book. But really not sure what her point was.

The biography part is the most interesting (would have given that 4 stars)... But i really failed to see how it relates to her own story. And her own life??? I'm just confused.

The prose are beautiful and I really enjoyed reading it. It just feels like she wanted to write a biography and a selfhelp book and didn't have enough material for either to be a full book and thus she awkwardly stuck the two parts together ... I was anticipating for the ending bring everything full circle and make some kind of profound point, but that resolution never came and it was very unsatisfying.

I just think it's (2) miss opportunities as her technical writing skill is fantastic and writing two separate books would result in two very good books except for one kinda confused book.

Based on the hype and a glowing recommendation from a dear friend, I had high hopes for this book. Instead it fell flat for me. It seems that I was supposed to be very moved by the author's personal struggles, but they weren't talked about in enough depth, or often enough, or with too little emotion. These struggles just weren't interesting and frankly didn't feel like they belonged in what was clearly a book about David Starr Jordan. Overall, the book was flat and a little dull.

3.75

Interesting approach to the species, and an outlook in general.

This should probably come with content warnings because I honestly had no idea who the fish guy was when I started reading... but also the fact that I didn't know made it all the more of an eye opener.

Holy shit.

The second half of the book was definitely in the category of “why the fuck wasn't I taught this in school?!”

Solid!!! I got the message but didn't stick with my but I loved the writing and storytelling.

Bit slow in the middle, but very good. Finishes quite early due to all the notes at the end (ebook).

What a wild book. I enjoyed the half-nonfiction, half-memoir writing style employed in this book. I am impressed by all the things I learned in such a compact book, read over the course of two days.

I don't know how to review this book. I actually finished it a few days ago, and was determined to write a review for it, but procrastinated because I'm not really sure what to say about it. It's a journey, and the journey is best left discovered. It's part memoir, dealing with author Lulu Miller's ending of a bad relationship and her existential crisis that follows. It's part biography of Stanford founding President/champion of eugenics David Starr Jordan, who catalogs hundreds of species of fish. Miller becomes fascinated with Jordan and starts learning more about him in an attempt to learn who she wants to be. It's part zoology, examining the nature and etymology of “fish”. It's part sexual identity discovery, as Miller grapples with coming to terms with hers. But the real magic of this book is how it is more than the sum of its parts; each of these aspects come together to crescendo in a very thought-provoking and moving ending. I basically highlighted most of the last chapter, as poignant sentence after poignant sentence washed over me. Once you understand why fish don't exist, you learn why Miller sat down to write this in the first place. This book is short, and you should read it.

My oldest sister had no problem letting go of the fish. She let the whole category slide right out of her hand. When I asked her why it was so easy for her, she said, “Because it's a fact of life. Humans get things wrong.” She said people have been wrong about her, time and time again, for whole life. She's been misdiagnosed by doctors, misunderstood by classmates, by neighbors, by our parents, by me. “Growing up,” she told me, “is learning to stop believing people's words about you.”

And then I consider the fish. The fact that fish don't exist. I picture a silvery fish dissolving in my hand. If fish don't exist, what else don't we know about our world? What other truths are waiting behind the lines we draw over nature? Could clouds be animate? Who knows. On Neptune, it rains diamonds; it really does. Scientists figured that out just a few years ago. The longer we examine our world, the stranger it proves to be.

I sat on this review a long while before typing this out. I'm not sure whatever I say about it here will do it justice. I guess, in short form, if the idea of discovering why we feel the need to categorize things (plants, fish, people) can be harmful appeals to you and you don't mind taking a long journey of discovery to get there, this book is for you.

The description here on Goodreads doesn't really do this book justice; yes, David Starr Jordan's taxonomic quest to label all fish is the reason for the book existing, but it's far from the point of the book. The author's quest to rebuild her life through this obsession with David Starr Jordan is a main point of the story, but even that is just the framework for the larger theme of labelling being harmful and accepting fundamental changes without falling to pieces. Either you accept that fish don't exist and reorder your life around this fundamental change, or you categorically reject it and find yourself lost without a compass.

The buildup this book provides is important, and you can't skip parts to go on to the “better ones”, because you need the buildup for the payoff to matter and have meaning. Your perceptions and beliefs about what you've read are constantly being flipped on their heads as you go on this wild ride from David Starr Jordan being this quirky biologist to being a racist eugenicist who maybe killed his wife. I had a lot of whiplash moments when things abruptly changed on me, and I really enjoyed the feeling of “well I guess this book can go anywhere now”.

After a lot of thought, this ended up making my favorites shelf for this year. I had no idea I was in for the ride I went on.

There's a brilliant comic I remember seeing some years ago: two panels, the first showing a face torn by anguish and despair, the caption “Nothing matters”; the second panel, a beatific face radiating serenity, with the same caption. Miller begins with a childhood memory of her father — exhilaratedly a panel 2 person — filling her in on that secret. Sadly, the disclosure had the opposite effect to what her father intended: Miller ended up solidly in panel one. This fascinating book is her attempt to navigate the conundrum for herself.

I'd heard a lot about the book, but nothing could really prepare me for its twists and tangents. More melodramatic than I had expected, also much more engaging. Also sweet, educational, perhaps even enlightening to some. (I also suspect that there are people who will not get it at all.) Self-awareness and self-delusion: how do we balance their conflicting yet equally vital rôles in our lives? I've long juggled my answer; Miller is juggling hers, and gives us insights into that big question.

My favorite line, from an early chapter: Miller quotes her father as saying “While other people don't matter, either, treat them like they do.” Yep, that's my mantra too.