The Book of Eels

 By Patrik Svensson

Ecco     2019

245 pages     Nature

What! I read a book about eels? Who would imagine that could happen? And what’s more—I read it for our book group.

Even more—I loved it!

As I began to read the book, I researched the author, Patrik Svensson, who is a journalist based in Malmo, Sweden. That amazed and surprised me, because I had just finished reading and reviewing Alexander McCall Smith’s Detective Varg book, The Man with the Silver Saab. Detective Varg is based in Malmo, Sweden. What a remarkable coincidence, even though McCall Smith’s book didn’t mention eels.

When reading The Book of Eels, you ponder three topics: the science of eels; the history of the study of eels; and Svensson’s childhood memories of fishing for eels with his father.

Here are things that I learned that I never had known before about eels, because, frankly,  I had never thought about eels—not once in my life. Nor had I ever seen an eel or eaten eel—although apparently my friend Jan has. Although I did eat a tarantula when I was in Cambodia, but that’s another story.

1)      European and American eels are born in the Sargasso Sea, which in case you didn’t know, is a portion of the Atlantic Ocean. Svensson says, “The Sargasso Sea is like a dream: you can rarely pinpoint the moment you enter or exit; all you know is that you’ve been there.” For my part, I didn’t know there was such a place as the Sargasso Sea.

2)      There are four stages in the life of the eel. They are: willow leaf (tiny little things) when they leave the Sargasso Sea and head a thousand miles or more to European or American waters. Next stage is the glass eel. This is what they are when they arrive in fresh water rivers and streams. They are yellow eels for the majority of their lives, which can be 30-50 years. Glass eels are aged eels who return to the Sargasso Sea of their birth to procreate before they die.

3)      Scientists through the ages have pondered the existence of eels and the mysteries surrounding them. Svensson says, “Science has come up against many mysteries, but few have proven as intractable and difficult to solve as the eel. . .Somewhere in the darkness and mud, the eel has managed to hide away from human knowledge.” Among the many unsolved mysteries has been the lack of understanding about how they procreate.

4)      Many famous scientists have studied eels, including Aristotle, Freud, and Rachel Carson.

5)      Eel fishermen and women are a breed apart as well. Svensson remembers with great love and respect fishing with his father as well as attending eel festivals and visiting eel fishing sites. This is the memoir part of the book, and Svensson dos a great job of binding together the science and the history into the memoir as well as engaging the reader in a lot of metaphysical musings.

Here is something that amused me as I was reading The Book of Eels. When I would mention to someone that I was reading about eels, nearly everyone would ask me if I had seen the recent documentary about an octopus, My Octopus Teacher, which won the 2021 Oscar for best documentary. It can be viewed on Netflix. I can understand the connection; both the movie and the book are about elusive animals and about the mystery surrounding them.

The book was a New York Times notable book for 2020. Here is the review. The reviewer called it “strange and nerdy”

Since I read the book, I have come across several interviews with Svensson and several You Tube videos about eels. I think its quite remarkable that this book has developed such a following and expansion of the study of eels. I am so grateful to the member of our book group who introduced me to this wonder of a book.