The Martian: a Botanist or Sailor?

If you didn't get the joke about being a sailor, it's because he has a foul mouth.
Badum tss.
Okay, it wasn't funny and it wasn't planned at all. You definitely haven't crushed my dream of being a comedian at all.

The Martian (click here for a summary) is something like an interesting read. Many more adjectives would describe it in a more multi-faceted sense, but interesting seems broad enough and the least biased.

I'm about 14% of the way through it right now, and here are some of my observations.

First observation: He has the mouth of a sailor. Each entry in his diary seems to cover the whole spectrum of words enough times that if they were pennies, he would have enough to build himself a rocket ship, fly back to Earth, and sue every person who has ever done him wrong (he could probably afford to lose 99% of those cases and still keep a Jaguar). It seems like every other word is a curse word. However, I fully understand his circumstance. I guess that everyone handles being stuck on Mars alone, with resources only lasting 1.5 years when 4 years of resources are needed, and fearing seemingly inevitable death differently.

Seems like Watney likes dealing with stress by taking long walks across a hostile horizon and cussing a lot.
Who wouldn't?

Second observation: Mark Watney sincerely loves his family. And I love him for that.
Andy Weir does a fantastic job of balancing too many problems in one book. Many authors going for the omg-he's-going-to-die-but-he-doesn't idea would make Mark have some familial problems, but when Weir makes clear that Watney loves his family, it helps us understand why he's fighting so hard in an environment working against him. It softens this story perfectly, and hopefully will impact readers to think about their own relationships. Who empowers you? Who will help you through dire situations, even when they aren't there? I am sure that Weir wrote this way on purpose, and I admire it. Kudos to him.
Sweet quotes that he doesn't cuss in:

• "I'd give anything just to let them know I'm alive" (Weir 16).
• Even in this life-or-death place, he still makes jokes. "I'll just have to survive to make up for it" (Weir 16) when thinking about how much his family is worrying.
• Mark Watney is really cute when he talks about his family.

Third observation: The jargon. But even though it doesn't make sense, it adds umph to the story. Words like:

• unused hydranize
• liberating hydrogen from hydranize
• rocket-assisted fighter fuel
• iridium catalyst
• water reclaimer
• static discharge

Make some sense. Sound pretty cool.

For now, I'll give The Martian 3.75 stars out of 5. Hopefully, it'll increase as I read further into it.

(The Goldfinch is currently rotting away in my Kindle bookshelf. I don't think I'll touch it again: not because of its confusingness, but for fear of an allergic reaction to mold.)