The Fly Trap in Around the World in 80 Books

Jan 01, 2017 Kay rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: natural-histry, book-clubs, nonfiction, entomology

What a delightful book. I’d had it on my to-read list for quite some time, but just recently a resurgence of my long-standing interest in entomology led me to finally get a copy. I’m not going to even attempt to write a meaningful review, but I’ll say that one thing I most enjoyed about the book is its impermeability to summarization. Sjöberg seems blithely unconcerned with convention. I warmed to him immediately.

I will, however, indulge myself a bit by extracting some of the bits that particula What a delightful book. I’d had it on my to-read list for quite some time, but just recently a resurgence of my long-standing interest in entomology led me to finally get a copy. I’m not going to even attempt to write a meaningful review, but I’ll say that one thing I most enjoyed about the book is its impermeability to summarization. Sjöberg seems blithely unconcerned with convention. I warmed to him immediately.

I will, however, indulge myself a bit by extracting some of the bits that particularly delighted me.

“…all of us need to flee blindly from time to time so as not to become copies of the world’s expectations.”

“…finally it became obvious that my talents lay with flies. That’s a fate that takes some getting used to.”

“For people like me, limits are an essential part of life.”

"In exercising control over something, however insignificant and apparently meaningless, there is a peaceful euphoria, however ephemeral and fleeting…”

“…that rare happiness that can transform the period between the completion of preparations and actual departure into the most pleasant part of a long journey”

“Tropical rain forest is at its best on television. Of course it sometimes happens that the jungle is both beautiful and enjoyable in real life, up close, but believe me, it is more often a kind of disgusting orgy where everything pierces and bites and your clothes stick to your body like cling film.”

“I saw the ad by chance. Late-seventeenth-century log house in need of renovation. The lot was large and the price so ridiculously low that my imagination, which needed somewhere to live that day, occupied the place from the moment I saw the ad and sank in its jaws just long enough for curiosity to begin morphing into a desire to possess.”

"... all the others who are dead but nevertheless still here.”

“As long as there have been biologists, they have sought out islands to keep profusion from making them crazy.”

" Well, I’ve never been much of a philosopher. Let me just say that limitations cheer me up.”

“I had always imagined that this story would be quick to tell. That isn’t the way it’s turned out.”

One last thing I’d like to note: this is the first of three books that Sjöberg wrote in this vein, the first of a trilogy. The other two have not yet been translated into English, apparently. I read in an interview that Sjöberg has moved on from collecting hoverflies and began instead to collect paintings. That didn’t really surprise me, and I expect it won’t surprise you, either, if you read this quixotic but endearing book.

Read this book for the "Reading Genres" book club "Eurobooks" meeting, for which I decided to concentrate on European entomologists. I read five books, all told, for this meeting, which was undoubtedly overkill, but which I wholeheartedly enjoyed. ...more

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Jan 19, 2019 Katie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ___europe, male-author, non-fiction, memoirs, nature-outdoors, translated, __scandinavia

This book is written by an entomologist who studies hoverflies on an island off the coast of Sweden. He alternates between stories of his own life and studies and giving an account of the life of Rene Malaise, a naturalist who invented a famous bug trap. I loved the parts the author wrote about himself. He has a really entertaining way of describing his life and passion without being sentimental. I wish the whole book was just about him and hoverflies. I found the parts about Malaise quite dull, ...more

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