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A review by foxo_cube
The Gospel of the Eels by Patrik Svensson
informative
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.0
A very pensive book that's half memoir and half... collection, I suppose, of historical and scientific anecdote.
The book starts with an overview of eels, and progresses more or less chronologically, both throughout the author's childhood up to his father's death, and through the development of scientific knowledge of the eel and its prospects in the world today. It's not an in-depth icthyological text, but contains a lot of interesting information alongside its more human, emotional facets.
It reads a little flowery at times, but I tend to like that sort of thing, honestly. The chapters about eels tend to have some sort of message or life philosophy at their conclusion, and the author will often relate said message to the memoir chapters. I think that works well as a way of making the book flow as a whole.
The book caught my attention initially because I thought the cover art was pretty, and the strangeness of the poetical musings about eels that I saw when I flicked through seemed both intriguing and kind of funny to me in concept, but it does mostly manage to avoid being too silly. It certainly does its job at conveying Svensson's fascination with eels, and makes it pretty infectious, too.
The book starts with an overview of eels, and progresses more or less chronologically, both throughout the author's childhood up to his father's death, and through the development of scientific knowledge of the eel and its prospects in the world today. It's not an in-depth icthyological text, but contains a lot of interesting information alongside its more human, emotional facets.
It reads a little flowery at times, but I tend to like that sort of thing, honestly. The chapters about eels tend to have some sort of message or life philosophy at their conclusion, and the author will often relate said message to the memoir chapters. I think that works well as a way of making the book flow as a whole.
The book caught my attention initially because I thought the cover art was pretty, and the strangeness of the poetical musings about eels that I saw when I flicked through seemed both intriguing and kind of funny to me in concept, but it does mostly manage to avoid being too silly. It certainly does its job at conveying Svensson's fascination with eels, and makes it pretty infectious, too.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Grief and Death of parent