The Book of Eels

March 15, 2020
An account of the mysterious life of eels that also serves as a meditation on consciousness, faith, time, light and darkness, and life and death. In addition to an intriguing natural history, Swedish journalist Svensson includes a highly personal account of his relationship with his father. The author alternates eel-focused chapters with those about his father, a man obsessed with fishing for this elusive creature. "I can't recall us ever talking about anything other than eels and how to best catch them, down there by the stream," he writes. "I can't remember us speaking at all....Because we were in...a place whose nature was best enjoyed in silence." Throughout, Svensson, whose beat is not biology but art and culture, fills his account with people: Aristotle, who thought eels emerged live from mud, "like a slithering, enigmatic miracle"; Freud, who as a teenage biologist spent months in Trieste, Italy, peering through a microscope searching vainly for eel testes; Johannes Schmidt, who for two decades tracked thousands of eels, looking for their breeding grounds. After recounting the details of the eel life cycle, the author turns to the eel in literature--e.g., in the Bible, Rachel Carson's Under the Sea Wind, and G�nter Grass' The Tin Drum--and history. He notes that the Puritans would likely not have survived without eels, and he explores Sweden's "eel coast" (what it once was and how it has changed), how eel fishing became embroiled in the Northern Irish conflict, and the importance of eel fishing to the Basque separatist movement. The apparent return to life of a dead eel leads Svensson to a consideration of faith and the inherent message of miracles. He warns that if we are to save this fascinating creature from extinction, we must continue to study it. His book is a highly readable place to begin learning. Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.

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Starred review from May 1, 2020

Eels have been mysterious creatures throughout time, provoking even the greatest minds. Aristotle was wrong about them and Sigmund Freud was baffled by them. Rachel Carson anthropomorphized them to make them more relatable to her readers. In this debut, Swedish journalist Svensson traces our understanding of eels, specifically the European eel. (The American and Japanese eel get few but valuable pages.) There is surprisingly little known about this fish; a 20-year study to pinpoint their origin was interrupted by World War I. Scientific discoveries are few and far between, but the well-paced writing here motivates readers to learn more about these secretive animals that are in danger of becoming extinct. While exploring this historical path, Svensson quietly weaves in his own experience with eels, focusing on his father and how we interpret our own histories as humans, collectively and individually. The work poses questions about philosophy, the metaphysical, and the spiritual, as well as scientific issues, in a way that will stir readers. VERDICT This beautifully crafted book challenges us not only to understand eels but our own selves. Highly recommended.--Elissa Cooper, Helen Plum Memorial Lib., Lombard, IL

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 11, 2020
Svensson, a Swedish journalist, melds the personal and scientific in this captivating look at the European eel. He describes the fish’s intricate life cycle, as only recently uncovered by science: hatched as a tiny leaf-shaped larva in the Sargasso Sea, they grow into a fragile, transparent “glass eel” and are carried across the Gulf Stream to Europe, where they grow “serpentine and muscular” in streams and rivers, before an unknown instinct triggers them to travel back across the Atlantic to the Sargasso, where they reproduce and die. The puzzles surrounding the species—Svensson observes that their reproduction process is still mysterious—have long fascinated students of zoology, from Aristotle to Freud; the latter was obsessed as a teenager with finding the male’s sex organ, and failing to do so (Svensson speculates) may have led to him taking up psychoanalysis instead. Svensson alternates these scientific and historical passages with moving reminiscences of being taught to fish for eels by his father in a stream near their home, and with reflections on eels as a human food source and on current efforts to conserve them. Nature-loving readers will be enthralled by Svensson’s fascinating zoological odyssey.