Life is a Relationship: A Review of the Book That Unlocked Nature's Secret Internet
- Shrikant Soman
- Nov 20
- 3 min read
Book Review - Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
Life is a Relationship: A Review of the Book That Unlocked Nature's Secret Internet
As someone who has always been fascinated by the hidden machinery of the natural world, picking up Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures felt less like reading a book and more like embarking on a vital expedition. I came to the book with a deep interest in the micro-level living world, and what I found was a profound, paradigm-shifting account of how fungi—this vast, silent kingdom—doesn't just influence our lives, but fundamentally is our life.
"We are all lichens."
What immediately captivated me, beyond the sheer scale of the subject matter, was Sheldrake’s genius for storytelling. The book is written not as a dry scientific treatise, but as a series of utterly engrossing narratives. The author possesses a rare ability to translate complex biological processes, like fungal networks communicating across continents or spores surviving in the most extreme environments, into compelling, almost mythical tales. He makes the mundane, like the mycelial mat under our feet, feel like an infinitely intricate neural network waiting to be deciphered. This narrative flair kept me engaged, making the educational experience feel personal and exciting, like a whispered secret about the nature of reality.
"Life is a relationship, not a possession."
The core reason I loved this book is how forcefully it enlarges our worldview. Before reading it, I understood the concept of ecology intellectually, but Sheldrake's work forces a meaningful, visceral change in perspective. Before diving in, I thought I knew the basics of fungi. Yet, the revelation that the largest organism on Earth is a single fungal colony—the massive Armillaria ostoyae in Oregon—was a fact I simply did not know, and it completely shattered my previous, limited perspective on life's architecture.
"Fungi are metabolic wizards. They can eat anything."
The book challenges the notion of individual autonomy, showing how all life, from plants to humans, is stitched together by fungal threads. Suddenly, my life felt less like an independent existence and more like a participant in a vast, subterranean, biochemical collaboration.
"A mycelial network is a map of a fungus’s recent history and is a helpful reminder that all life-forms are in fact processes not things. Nature is an event that never stops."
One quote that deeply resonated with me was Sheldrake’s description of the mycelial networks as 'nature’s internet,' constantly trading, sharing, and reacting. He writes, “Life is a relationship, not a possession.” This simple, elegant sentence serves as the book's thesis, transforming the way I view every organism—including myself—not as an independent unit, but as a node in an immense, ancient web. The book is a powerful argument against a purely anthropocentric view, revealing that we are not the masters of our environment, but rather integrated components within a much larger, fungal-driven system.
"Animals put food in their bodies, whereas fungi put their bodies in the food."
The benefits of knowing this world, as the book illuminates, are enormous. Fungi hold solutions to pressing global issues—from being nature’s original recyclers, breaking down pollutants, to their potential in developing new medicines and sustainable food sources. I also found his discussion on their chemical power incredibly impactful.
"Fungi make worlds. They also unmake them."
As Sheldrake notes, “Fungi are metabolic wizards. They can eat anything.” This immediately highlights the practical benefits of studying this kingdom, suggesting solutions for everything from plastic waste to global resource scarcity. The book doesn't just ask us to look at fungi; it demands we look at ourselves differently. By highlighting the interconnectedness, the book suggests a path toward more meaningful changes in our own world view—one that prioritizes cooperation, decomposition, and symbiotic relationships over relentless, isolated competition.
"Without this fungal web my tree would not exist. Without similar fungal webs no plant would exist anywhere. All life on land, including my own, depended on these networks."
Entangled Life is ultimately a powerful invitation to humility. It makes the world feel infinitely stranger and richer than I ever imagined. By placing the mycelial network at the center of the story of life, Merlin Sheldrake delivers a book that is not just essential reading for biologists, but for anyone seeking a more profound, interconnected understanding of their place on Earth. It’s a book that truly gets under your skin, in the best possible way.
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#Mycelium#Biology
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