The Log From The Sea of Cortez

“We had no urge toward adventure.”

In literary terms, the book is framed as something of an adventure. The voyage to the Sea of Cortez is a voyage into the unknown for Steinbeck, but Steinbeck purposefully distances himself from such literary ambitions, disavowing the crew’s “urge toward adventure” (6). The book strives to be a serious scientific enterprise rather than an adventure story, although Steinbeck will still examine Exploration as Both Literal and Intellectual Journey throughout the text.

“This is not mysticism, but identification; man, building this greatest and most personal of all tools, has in turn received a boat-shaped mind, and the boat, a man-shaped soul.”

Though Steinbeck has stated his scientific ambitions for the book, there are times when he cannot help but indulge his writerly talents. The sardine fishing vessel which they charter may just seem like another boat but it—like every boat—is an extension of the human condition. Steinbeck claims to be leaning toward anthropology more than mysticism in his theory, but there is a romantic quality to his statement which undergirds his science with literature.

“Such men are not really biologists. They are the embalmers of the field, the picklers who see only the preserved form of life without any of its principle.”

Though Steinbeck is not much of a scientist, he quickly adopts his co-author’s prejudices. Those scientists who do not go out into the field are castigated as mere embalmers or picklers; they lack the courage or the wherewithal, the book implies, to venture into the field. Thus, the book creatures a moral dimension to fieldwork.