The Fly Trap by Fredrik Sjoberg

[Marc Joan]

This is an odd book. It doesn't closely follow any conventional structure. It seems to start off as one thing, and end up as something quite different, via multiple digressions and meanderings. Often you feel the author is about to make a point -- and then he just doesn't. For those reasons, I am surprised it got published -- BUT I am very glad it did, because I found it by turns charming, amusing and interesting. Sjoberg, a dipterologist pursuing his passion for hoverflies on an idyllic Swedish island, reflects on how and why he came to be there, and in the process delivers to the reader fascinating anecdotes and scraps of information about hoverflies and various personalities in the world of Swedish entomology -- leading, unexpectedly, to dodgy dealings in the world of fine art. I realise I'm not selling the book very well -- but that's kind of my point. It shouldn't work, but somehow it does. I highly recommend it if you feel like a gentle, droll excursion into lives you'd otherwise never know about.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I do tend to like that kind of book. Thanks

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Oooh! An entomologist! I'll have to check that one out. I have a tendency to troll the library, pulling out any book that even vaguely mentions insects. I've read some really weird stuff that way.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

A few years ago, I chanced upon piles of remaindered books in an out of town superstore. It's the sort of place where you can buy a plastic colander for 25p, made in a sweatshop in Taiwan and which dissolves as soon as hot water touches it.

Nonetheless, my eye was taken by an interesting looking novel called The Fly Truffler written by a poet called Gustaf Sobin. I liked the cover design too and bought five copies at 50p each to give to friends. I really enjoyed this tale of lost love, as did four of my friends...but one hated it!

The author's turn of phrase makes some moving observations about the wild world and human relationships. I was particularly struck by this:

Maybe it's not a person we fall in love with so much as a distance, a depth which that particular person happens to embody. Perhaps it's some inconsolable quality in that person, some unappeasable dimension that attracts one all the more forcibly.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Another book with an unusual subject, that I unexpectedly enjoyed, was Blood Knots. Written by Luke Jennings, it was well reviewed so I requested it at my local library.

It's ostensibly about fishing but is also a moving meditation on family, friendship, loyalty and memory. I'm ambivalent about fishing, following a traumatic day out with three uncles when I was eight-years-old to the River Ouse. I was a young naturalist in love with wildlife, but my uncles killed more crows, jays and fish in a few hours than I would have thought possible. I have vivid memories of an eel wriggling on green grass, its head chopped off and spouting red blood...Lord knows, what a psychologist would make of the phallic symbolism involved in that!

I loved the book, but I still won't be going fishing.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

A few years ago, I chanced upon piles of remaindered books in an out of town superstore. It's the sort of place where you can buy a plastic colander for 25p, made in a sweatshop in Taiwan and which dissolves as soon as hot water touches it.

Nonetheless, my eye was taken by an interesting looking novel called The Fly Truffler written by a poet called Gustaf Sobin. I liked the cover design too and bought five copies at 50p each to give to friends. I really enjoyed this tale of lost love, as did four of my friends...but one hated it!

The author's turn of phrase makes some moving observations about the wild world and human relationships. I was particularly struck by this:

Maybe it's not a person we fall in love with so much as a distance, a depth which that particular person happens to embody. Perhaps it's some inconsolable quality in that person, some unappeasable dimension that attracts one all the more forcibly.

I feel he is profoundly right about that.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Robinne probably knows this one inside out: a very great study. Andre Marais The Soul of The White Ant