The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World

by Patrik Svensson

But if that was his heritage, what was mine? Maybe—and herein lies the minute, barely perceptible shift that takes place between generations—a never-spoken but ever-present encouragement: No, all doors are not open to you, and time is shorter than you think, but, of course, you’re always free to try.

From this we can learn that time is unreliable company and that no matter how slowly the seconds tick by, life is over in the blink of an eye: we are born with a home and a heritage and we do everything we can to free ourselves from this fate, and maybe we even succeed, but soon enough, we realize we have no choice but to travel back to where we came from, and if we can’t get there, we’re never really finished, and there we are, in the light of our sudden epiphany, feeling like we’ve lived our whole lives at the bottom of a dark well, with no idea who we really are, and then suddenly, one day, it’s too late.