Amphibious Soul: Finding the Wild in a Tame World

“Though our souls crave communion with wildness, we are a species that has overwhelmingly embraced tameness and ‘comforts’ that anesthetize rather than truly nurture,” contends filmmaker Foster (Underwater Wild), star of the 2020 documentary My Octopus Teacher, in this pensive if unfocused meditation on humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Reflecting on his own efforts to connect with nature, Foster describes diving with great white sharks, filming Nile crocodiles in underwater hideaways, and coming face-to-face with a jaguar. The book falls somewhat awkwardly between a memoir and personal essay collection, meandering through anecdotes organized loosely around such themes as connection, fear, and ancestry. For instance, a chapter on love ambles through accounts of how Foster met his wife at an English film festival, how one of his friends developed a rapport with a black musselcracker fish who would follow him on dives, and how a South African farmer Foster met through his documentary work raised an orphaned springbok antelope. Still, the author’s deep reverence for nature buoys the proceedings, and the evocative descriptions of his expeditions will transport readers (“The air is thick with buzzing insects and birdsong, and the great flowing river is a giant silver serpent fringed with vast beds of papyrus reeds,” he writes of Botswana’s Okavango Delta. This is a potent source of wonder. (May)