[Book Review] Lulu Miller, Why Fish Don't Exist - Part II

Cover page,  https://www.amazon.com/Why-Fish-Dont-Exist-Hidden/dp/1501160273

 

However, the plot drastically changes from the rest half of the book. The author reveals David being involved in the death of Jane Stanford, Stanford University's establisher, where David served as the first dean. The thing was, David was suspected as the culprit who poisoned Jane. David and Jane were not in a good relationship clearly, and she was an obstacle he encountered in his promising career. The man was never convicted; however, there seemed to be suspicious circumstances about the death since Jane was found with a lethal dose of strychnine. At first, the newspaper reported the death as poison. Still, a few days later, the judgement changed 180 degrees, the founder's death as a mere accident, owing to a doctor's medical statement who was employed by David. However, to be sure, the incident has never been investigated, whether it is a case or an accident.

 

Considering the circumstances, the writer was confident that David was responsible for the case. This moral defect shocked Lulu as she sincerely looked after David's attitude toward life. Lulu believed by following his trace, she could also find the meaning of life. However, his personality, "not refusing to shoot cannonball to catch a tiny fly," never was a thing she looked for. Moreover, David was an advocate of eugenics. Under the name of eugenics, nonsensical laws such as mandatory sterilization became legalized in the early 1900s in the United States. 

 

Here, Lulu felt massive disappointment about the man. Therefore, once again, her effort to find the meaning of life left her in limbo. The man once regarded as a hope in the writer's chaotic life was not an answer. Lulu had no choice but to go back through the wreckage of the eugenics camp and its victims. From here, the story enters into a third phase. This is where Lulu finds her meaning in life and defines the world in her own way. By listening to the life of Anna and Merry, those who had been forced to be accommodated in the eugenics concentration camp, a time filled with unjustified violence they went through, Lulu casts a question. Lulu asked Anna, "Despite all the nonsensical things you went through, what makes you stay alive?" After silence, Merry answered, "Well, that's because of me." Even though the answer was a joke softening the rigid atmosphere, Lulu starts to think, "That might be true. We are meaningful to each other."

 

Lulu's conclusion about the meaning of life was moving; however, I felt insufficient about the interpretation taking into account the entire efforts she indulged in the life of David. Like earlier Lulu, I was a reader who longed for David's professional determination and his vocation in his area. I have always thought pure curiosity is valuable, though it sometimes sounds random and off-sense. I am deeply touched by scientists, engineers, philosophers, artists, and writers' determination to reveal the truth of nature and express their thoughts about the world. So, the first conclusion she made, that we are meaningful enough with each other, sounded full of warmth, but it was no more or less. It took me some time to digest the last chapter of this book, which directly explains the title of this book, "why fish don't exist."

 

At first, I thought the title of this book was some paradox. However, it turned out to be the classification of fish that we used to know really DOSEN'T EXIST because we can barely find common and exceptionalness traits that fish-categorized species share. The fact is beyond our common sense, but according to cladists, "the majority of swimming fish-like species resemble more with mammal than each other." I repeatedly read this part to figure out how this knowledge could be connected to Lulu's life. 

 

In the end, my final conclusion is that I think cladists' attitude, trying to classify species at a more fundamental level, called "common evolutionary novelty", is Lulu's determination and vocation she finally found in her life. On the book's final page, she says we should use words more carefully. The sentence was also her resolution as a writer, refrain from using a dull blade of language to destroy the dynamic vitality and vivid diversity of living things around us. Finally, she found her own fish, which would make her sew nametags directly to their flesh, even in a hopeless situation like the San Francisco Earthquake.