Can I recommend The Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson? It’s a fictional account of the relationship between Vice-Admiral Robert Fitzroy, Captain of The Beagle, and Darwin, drawing on both of their writings. It’s superb, and often very funny.
For those unaware: Darwin did seminal work on barnacle taxonomy, his frustrations therewith contributing to his eventual hypothesis about natural selection and the origination of species. Taxonomy is an acquired taste.
There is a funny (painful) coda in The Beak of the Finch, which revisited the evolutionary biology of the Galapagos. Let's just say that a barnacle can pinch very delicate organs if one chooses to sit nekkid in the intertidal.
Also they're an absolute nightmare when it comes to boats. Image how much time Darwin spent chipping those bastards off his ship so it could do basic stuff like steer.
I feel like anyone who is immersed in the roughing it part of nature long enough, even if they love it, eventually feels like Darwin at one point when they're feeling shitty and cranky: "Fuckin'...fuckin' BEES. God, I'm SO SICK OF BEES. Fuck you. FUCK YOU, BEES."
Comments
Tbf his hatred of barnacles was justified
To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.
I guess Darwin would say that revery would have to suffice, then.
Make that movie, you cowards.
Just imagine him saying the above in his voice.
Wtf did the barnacle do to him????
Every sailor hated barnacles back then.
It’s the throwaway line in my article on the Butker divorce.