Book Review: The Book of Eels

By: Sundial

I first learned about the European Eel when I read “Eloquence of the Sardine” by Bill Francois, which is probably one of my favorite book about the ocean. Nevertheless, this book introduced me to even greater wonders of the European eel. My fascination with the eel stayed with me, and when I saw this book on the shelf at my library, I had to get it and learned what other amazing things come with this fascinating creature. This book just like The Eloquence of the Sardine is written by a European Author and translated. The author of “The Book of Eels” Patrik Svensson conveys through this book the story of his experience with eels fishing with his dad, the history of the European eel and the many scientists it had stumped, and the philosophy that comes with such a unique creature. 

This book showed the depth of the oceans and their complexity. It puts into perspective the lack of understanding humans have of the ocean if even animals that have been studied since the time of Aristotle are still to this day not understood. If this animal has so many obvious questions that come with it there must be thousands of other amazing things out there which humans have no idea exist. I experienced this realization in my own life while researching in one of my classes. I was examining an animal I had found while collecting samples at the bottom of my local lakes when I came across a spiral-shaped shell that looked to be covered in rocks. After extensive research, I finally found a match showing that the creature in question was a snail-cased caddisfly, which is a fly larve that uses the rocks around it to construct a hard shell that it can use as a house. However, even though I have found it fascinating, there was very limited research on it even thought it is located in local fresh water- much easier to get to than the open ocean.

Another thing I think this book did well was showing human hubris over the ocean. While we think we know the ocean very well, we have no idea about some animals, even animals that people eat and catch fishing on the regular. This idea of the unknown and the humerus of humans is taken by the author and used as a bouncing-off point for philosophical points that he makes throughout the book, even mixing in his own stories of the eel. While philosophy has never been my favorite subject and was the part of the book I didn’t like the most, I was so fascinated with the idea of Eel and the constant hubris of scientist in their quest to learn about the eel that the inputs of philosophy did not bother me at all. Even the psychologist Sigmund Freud researched the eel before giving up and going into psychology Additionally, this is quite a short book and an easy read. 

As a prospective researcher, it made me excited to think about the amount of unknowns that are available to research and continue to prevail. In the world today it is often thought that there is not much else that has not been discovered but the more a person learns about the world the more a person realizes that there is so much more that humans do not know, and so many paths that a researcher could take and make a huge difference in the world. Overall I would recommend this to anyone interested in research of any kind and anyone interested in any type of animal, no matter terrestrial or marine, because it fosters a sense of wonder which gives a new respect for the world we live in. I rated this book 4.5 stars out of 5 stars.