There's something Melvillian to Svensson's hunt for the small yellow eel; through history, mythology, zoology, gastronomy, philosophy, paleontology, oceanology, biology, ecology, literature and his own memories of eel-fishing with his father, he tries to if not uncover, then at least map out the mysteries surrounding the common eel; a fish everyone has always known about, but nobody really understands. Maybe his writing occasionally gets a little too fond of itself, but the sheer totality of the project is so personal and so appealing.