Review of the book "Log from the sea of Cortez" by John Steinbeck

There is a particular kind of splendor in books written by learned men who grant themselves the luxury of not flaunting it. The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck is one such rarity: a work that unites narrative sobriety with disarming intellectual density, and that manages to be, at once, scientific logbook, ecological reflection, philosophical meditation, and adventure tale.

Published in 1951, but born from a journey undertaken in 1940 along the Gulf of California (then still known as the "Sea of Cortez"), the book recounts the expedition made by the author together with marine biologist Ed Ricketts — a figure of pivotal importance not only for American ecology but also for the very evolution of Steinbeck's prose, to whose memory the author pays a tender and fraternal tribute in the preface. This is not merely a scientific field journal: it is a profound portrait of a masculine friendship, forged through toil and silence, nourished by shared bottles of beer and reflections on life, knowledge, and death.

A Dry and Erudite Style, Never Gratuitous

Steinbeck's style in this book is a miracle of balance: dry, never redundant, yet infused with a learnedness that feels no need to advertise itself. The prose proceeds in light, often rugged strokes, like the logbook of a seasoned sailor, but then suddenly opens into philosophical vistas that reveal the depth of the author’s gaze. The teachings of the Presocratics, of Taoism, of epistemological relativism: all find their place between a catalogued crab and a reef surveyed at sunset.

A Worldview Embodied in the Journey

Steinbeck’s learned digressions — at times tinged with almost Zen undertones — are never external to the experience but arise from a physical, bodily encounter with the natural world. The sea here is not merely a biological container but a living entity, to be listened to, deciphered. The journey through the Sea of Cortez becomes, in this sense, a kind of secular pilgrimage, in which the collecting of marine species goes hand in hand with a reflection on the interconnectedness of living beings, on the deep unity of the biosphere. The author foreshadows, without declaring it, an ecological sensibility that seems to anticipate modern environmentalism by decades; incidentally, during this journey, he shoots sharks and eats meals based on dolphin meat—actions that might clash somewhat with his frequently displayed ecological sensitivity. Then again, it was a century ago, and Jacques Cousteau had yet to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes with The Silent World, where, among other things, he blows up coral reefs with dynamite and ends the lives of whale calves by running them over with the Calypso’s propeller.

John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts: Male Friendship and Human Warmth

One of the book’s most captivating dimensions is its affective one: beneath the scientific report and stylistic austerity, Steinbeck allows a rare tenderness to emerge — the kind that binds two men capable of sharing silence and thought. There is an implicit warmth in these pages, one that requires no declaration: it radiates from small gestures, from terse dialogues, from silent complicity. It is the warmth of a buddy’s trip from another era, stripped of rhetoric or posing, where friendship is something built, not spoken.

An Intact Biological Paradise

The Sea of Cortez that rises from these pages is a biological Eden, a still-untouched laboratory of life, portrayed by the author with almost pantheistic reverence (though sorrowful depictions of coastal stretches overrun with garbage are not lacking). Steinbeck and Ricketts explore it with devotion, recording the marvels they encounter with the equal fervor of naturalist and writer. The contemporary reader — forced to reckon with ecological crisis — senses with melancholy just how possible such a gaze once was, and how little remains today of a world that, nearly a century ago, must have appeared to Steinbeck as a paradise.

Conclusion

The Log from the Sea of Cortez is one of those books that defies classification: it is at once an essay, a travelogue, a philosophical treatise, and a memoir. It is a work that demands attentiveness and repays it many times over: with a worldview, an ethic of knowledge, an aesthetic of restraint. In times of loud and bloated narratives, reading Steinbeck is like meeting a man who speaks in a low voice — and for that very reason, one listens more intently.

A life lesson, told in a style that is as dry as sand and as deep as the ocean, with a biting sense of humor that runs throughout the book.