Summary
“The Shell Collector” begins at the kibanda, or beach house, of a blind shell collector who is busy cleaning limpets, which are marine mollusks that cling to rocks. A water taxi arrives, bringing two overweight journalists, both named Jim, from a New York tabloid. They offer the shell collector ten thousand dollars in exchange for his story. They inquire about his childhood experiences hunting caribou, the loss of his eyesight, and recent cures. However, they avoid asking about the death of his son. They also express curiosity about cone shells and the potency of their venom, as well as the number of visitors the shell collector receives.
The journalists stay overnight and find themselves uncomfortable in their sleeping bags due to bites from red ants known as siafu. The next morning, the shell collector heads out to the water, led by his German shepherd, Tumaini. He moves quickly and confidently, while the heavyset New Yorkers lag far behind.
The shell collector hears the nearby town of Lamu's muezzin, the Muslim official who calls the faithful to prayer, and explains that it is Ramadan, the sacred ninth month of the Islamic year celebrated with fasting from dawn until dusk. He wades out onto a reef, more than a kilometer from shore, to collect shells. He handles various types of shells and snails, some of which are poisonous. For instance, he finds nematocysts, which remain poisonous even after death. Meanwhile, the journalists use snorkel masks to observe marine life.
The shell collector, though reclusive, has become somewhat of a local celebrity, partly because of rumors that he cured a Seattle woman of malaria after she was accidentally stung by a cone shell in his kitchen. At this point, the narration shifts to recount the shell collector's life before the arrival of the two New York journalists.
When the protagonist was nine, he hunted sick caribou with his father, leaning out of a helicopter to cull the herds. Shortly after, he developed choroideremia, a progressive degeneration of the tissue behind the retina in males, leading to retinal degeneration. By age twelve, he was blind. His father then took him to an ophthalmologist in Florida, who, instead of examining him, removed the boy’s shoes and socks, walked him out the back of his office, and introduced him to shell creatures on the beach. This introduction to the sea “changed” the boy. He perceived the shells more vividly than anything else; touching them provided all the details he needed. Immediately, “his world became shells.”
In Whitehorse, Canada, a young boy learned Braille and spent the winter reading books about shells. At sixteen, he left home to work as a crew member on sailboats navigating the tropics, captivated by “the geometry of exoskeletons.” He returned to Florida, earned a B.S. in biology, and pursued a Ph.D. in malacology, the study of mollusks. His adventures took him around the equator, visiting places like Fiji, Guam, and the Seychelles, where he discovered various bivalves and other shell species.
After publishing research on these topics and experiencing life with “three Seeing Eye shepherds, and a son named Josh,” the shell collector retired at fifty-eight, choosing a home near the Lamu Archipelago. He spent his days on the beach and exploring the reef, collecting shells and marveling at their “endless variations of design.” He earned a living by sending these collections to a university for study.
At sixty-three, the collector encountered a disoriented American woman on the beach. Nancy was suffering from sunstroke and malaria. He brought her to his kibanda and contacted Dr. Kabiru for assistance. Once she recovered,...
(This entire section contains 1669 words.)
Unlock this Study Guide Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
Nancy shared stories of her life, including her family in Seattle, her travels to Cairo, and meeting a “neo-Buddhist.” They developed a sexual relationship, although they struggled to understand each other.
One day, Nancy was stung by a cone shell that had entered the kibanda, leaving her in a catatonic state with a slow heartbeat. Certain cones possess tusks “like tiny translucent bayonets,” and their sting can cause paralysis. The doctor believed her condition was fatal, but after ten hours, she recovered, feeling “balanced” and euphoric, even asking to be stung again. A week later, the doctor returned with the mwadhini (the Swahili term for muezzin) from the largest mosque in Lamu, along with some of his brothers. The mwadhini requested the collector to administer the same treatment to his dangerously ill daughter, Seema, that had healed Nancy. Despite his reservations, the collector agreed, traveled to the city, and placed the cone in Seema’s hand, closing her fingers around it. To his astonishment, the child quickly recovered, an event that the townspeople regarded as miraculous.
Word of the so-called miraculous cure spread “like a drifting cloud of coral eggs, spawning.” A local newspaper published an article about it, and a radio station aired a brief segment on the story. This news turned the hermit’s kibanda into “a kind of pilgrim’s destination.” People who were sick or mentally ill gathered around his place. Others took his conches, limpets, and Flinder’s vase shells. Some even followed him into the lagoon, many stumbling and injuring themselves. The collector sensed that something truly awful might occur, so he ceased collecting. When journalists arrived, he urged them to highlight the dangers of cones rather than these recent miracles. However, they focused solely on the miraculous stories.
The collector’s thirty-year-old son, Josh, wrote to him, mentioning that news of the miracles had reached the United States. He also shared that he had joined the Peace Corps and accepted an assignment in Uganda, but planned to visit his father first. Upon arriving, Josh tidied up inside the kibanda. He attempted to assist the people gathered outside and invited them to dinner, insisting his father “can afford it.” The collector stopped gathering shells to prevent people from getting hurt by following him into the water. Instead, he began exploring trails with his dog in new inland areas. Despite this, he was wary of thickets and often hurried back. One day, he discovered a cone shell half a kilometer from the sea, an unexplainable occurrence. Gradually, he found cones inland, on tree trunks, and in a mango grove. He started questioning his sanity, wondering if he was mistaking stones for shells or marine mollusks for tree snails. The island became “sinister, viperous, paralyzing.” Back at the kibanda, Josh gave away “everything—the rice, the toilet paper, the Vitamin B capsules.” Josh was enthusiastic, altruistic, but naïve. He loved the idea of doing good, but he ignored his father’s warnings. While Josh engaged with the little boys, his father felt a looming sense of disaster.
After three weeks, Josh informed his father that U.S. scientists believed cone venom might have medicinal benefits for stroke and paralysis patients and that his father's work could help “thousands.” Josh read the collector’s books in Braille and took three mentally ill boys to search for shells. Despite the collector's warnings, they refused to believe the shells were dangerous. Tragically, Josh was stung on the hand and died within an hour. The mwadhini came to comfort the collector, assuring him he would be left alone from now on. The mwadhini likened the collector to a shelled creature: blind, armored, and able to withdraw. A month later, reporters named Jim arrived.
The journalists are eager for the story. They claim Nancy has granted them "exclusive rights to her story." The shell collector envisions how his ordeal will be transformed into sensational tabloid headlines: "a perilous African shell drug, a blind medicine guru with his wolfdog, exposed for the world to see." As dusk falls on the second day, the collector escorts the two Jims to Lamu, where bustling streets are filled with vendors selling food and various goods. While they enjoy kabobs, a teenager approaches and offers them hashish, which they smoke using a water pipe. The teenager remarks, "Tonight Allah determines the course of the world for the next year."
After midnight, the three men return by taxi, stepping out into "chest-deep water." Under the influence of the drug, they attempt to reach the shore. The Jims, captivated by the glowing sea creatures, inquire about the sensation of being stung by a cone shell. The collector begins searching for a cone shell, turning in circles and becoming disoriented, contemplating stinging the Jims with it. He loses his bearings, carelessly allowing his sunglasses to drift away, and discovers he has lost his sandals. Upon finding a cone shell, he carries it towards the kibanda, initially considering harming the Jims but then realizing he doesn't wish to hurt them. He throws the shell back into the sea: "Then, with a clarity...that washed over him like a wave, he knew he’d been bitten." He understands he is lost in the lagoon and in other ways as well, as the venom courses through him: "The stars rolled up over him in their myriad shiverings."
In the morning, Seema, the daughter of the mwadhini he had healed using the cone shell, discovers him. He is a kilometer away from his kibanda, accompanied by his shepherd. Seema helps him into her boat and takes him to his beach house. Over the following weeks, she cares for him, visiting daily, providing chai, and keeping him warm. As he gradually recovers, she engages him in conversations about shells and collecting; she eventually leads him into the shallows, guiding him by the wrist.
The final scene unfolds a year after the collector's sting incident. He is wading on the reef, "feeling for shells with his toes." Nearby, his shepherd sits on a rock, and close to the dog, Seema sits, "her shoulders free of her wraparound," with her hair cascading down. She finds solace in being with someone who cannot see and who "does not care anyway." The collector senses a bullia (a slender, spiraled shell creature) beneath his foot. It moves blindly, "dragging the house of its shell."
