Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World
hardcover, 256 pages
Published May 26, 2020 by Ecco.
Remarkably little is known about the European eel, Anguilla anguilla. So little, in fact, that scientists and philosophers have, for centuries, been obsessed with what has become known as the “eel question”: Where do eels come from? What are they? Are they fish or some other kind of creature altogether? Even today, in an age of advanced science, no one has ever seen eels mating or giving birth, and we still don’t understand what drives them, after living for decades in freshwater, to swim great distances back to the ocean at the end of their lives. They remain a mystery.
Drawing on a breadth of research about eels in literature, history, and modern marine biology, as well as his own experience fishing for eels with his father, Patrik Svensson writes a book about this unusual animal.
In The Book of Eels, we meet renowned historical thinkers, from Aristotle to Sigmund …
Remarkably little is known about the European eel, Anguilla anguilla. So little, in fact, that scientists and philosophers have, for centuries, been obsessed with what has become known as the “eel question”: Where do eels come from? What are they? Are they fish or some other kind of creature altogether? Even today, in an age of advanced science, no one has ever seen eels mating or giving birth, and we still don’t understand what drives them, after living for decades in freshwater, to swim great distances back to the ocean at the end of their lives. They remain a mystery.
Drawing on a breadth of research about eels in literature, history, and modern marine biology, as well as his own experience fishing for eels with his father, Patrik Svensson writes a book about this unusual animal.
In The Book of Eels, we meet renowned historical thinkers, from Aristotle to Sigmund Freud to Rachel Carson, for whom the eel was a singular obsession. And we meet the scientists who spearheaded the search for the eel’s point of origin, including Danish marine biologist Johannes Schmidt, who led research efforts in the early twentieth century, catching thousands upon thousands of eels, in the hopes of proving their birthing grounds in the Sargasso Sea.
Blending memoir and nature writing, Svensson’s journey to understand the eel becomes an exploration of the human condition that delves into overarching issues about our roots and destiny, both as humans and as animals, and, ultimately, how to handle the biggest question of all: death.
Got a bit tedious in the end, I wanted a fact book on eels. This was like that for the first half but ended up trying to be too philosophical
[TW: cruelty to animals, beyond simply plain fishing.]
First things first: eels truly are fascinating, not just in themselves but as an indicator of what a wondrous world we live in and how many mysteries remain. This book does a wonderful job covering the eel’s biology and the convoluted history of how humans have learned it, step by painstaking step. There’s much more: an informative and respectful deep dive into the life and work of Rachel Carson, and ditto but slightly less so on Sigmund Freud; personal memoir focusing on Svensson’s relationship with his father; musings on ecology; a baffling tangent on religion that I had to skip. Worthy subjects all, but the jumping-around between threads, in linear book form, did not work for me.
For a shorter, more focused intro to the fascination of eels, I emphatically recommend this Radiolab episode.
