The title,
“Remarkable Creatures” refers both to the two women whom this tale is about and
to the fossils that they collect, which many call monsters. Elizabeth Philpot, a spinster of middle income, moves
to Lyme Regis with her two single sisters to have a place more affordable than London. The reason Lyme Regis is selected is
because of the beach cliffs which regularly disgorge the fossils that Elizabeth studies and collects. Upon moving
there, she makes the acquaintance of Mary Anning, child of the working class,
who hunts fossils to sell to the tourists. Mary has the eye for finding them,
as did her father who taught her. At this point, she knows very little about
the creatures she hunts. Paleontology is a fairly new science this point in
history; it’s still considered a part of geology. And Mary is poor and
illiterate.
The woman and the
girl find commonality in hunting the fossils. Elizabeth teaches Mary to read so that Mary can
learn more from books. Most of the fossils found are ammonites and the like,
but occasionally a dinosaur is unearthed- to the villagers, a monster, a
crocodile. Through the years Mary finds several of these and her name becomes
known in the geology world. She is not only a good hunter but has the knack of
cleaning and preserving the specimens so they will last once exposed. But her
abilities remove her from the marriage market of the small town. Marriage is to
pass both Elizabeth and Mary by, but they form a friendship that will last many
years and endure despite bad times and estrangements. This is the backbone of
the story: the friendship between two women that does not constrain either of
them but allows them to grow. These women are extraordinary for their time;
during their lives, women were not even allowed onto the premises of the
Geological Society much less allowed to be a member.
The novel
avoids dates and seems to telescope time; years collapse into mere paragraphs. It
sometimes moves in dreamlike fashion from one event to another. The two women’s
voices alternate chapters in the first person, and I found the book
compulsively readable. The women are both real, historic people, as are the men
who impact their lives-Professor Buckland, Rev Conybear, James Birch, and
Monsieur Cuvier, all fossil collectors. The people, the conditions endured
while fossil hunting, and the era are brought vividly to life by Chevalier.
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