杏吧原创

Studying Swedish overflies was a passion for Sj枚berg (Image: Jens Rydell/Naturbild/Corbis)

The Fly Trap, Fredrik Sj枚berg鈥檚 leisurely, meandering reflections on life and entomology, explores the indistinct boundary between science and literature

鈥淟IMITATIONS cheer me up,鈥� writes Fredrik Sj枚berg. By that standard, he should be positively radiant. He finds travel neither pleasant nor instructive, preferring to spend his days on a small island off the Swedish coast near Stockholm, where he is one of just 300 permanent residents.

There, the great passion of his life 鈥� and the ostensible subject of The Fly Trap 鈥� is collecting and studying hoverflies. No flashy butterflies or beetles here, not even an ambitious attempt at the hoverflies of the world: just the 202 species on his island that he has come to know like old friends.

Of course, as Sj枚berg himself admits, 鈥渢he hoverflies are only props鈥� Here and there, my story is about something else. Exactly what, I don鈥檛 know.鈥� The reader doesn鈥檛 either, not at first.

Sj枚berg, a translator and literary critic as well as a hoverfly expert, thrives in the indistinct boundary between science and literature. 鈥淚 used to say that I was a writer,鈥� he tells us, 鈥渂ut all the women on the island felt so sorry for my wife that I started insisting I was a biologist instead.鈥�

The book unfolds like a leisurely after-dinner conversation, as Sj枚berg meanders through the pleasures of collecting hoverflies on a summer鈥檚 day, the eccentricities of entomologists and the surprising intimacy of conversations between strangers on a ferry (the end of a crossing sets a time limit, focusing the mind).

Along the way, he indulges a fascination for the life of Swedish entomologist Ren茅 Malaise. Best known today as the inventor of an insect trap 鈥� hence the book鈥檚 title 鈥� he was, in many ways, the anti-Sj枚berg, someone who never acknowledged limits. As a young man in the 1920s and 30s, he collected insects and acquired a reputation as an intrepid adventurer and a bit of a ladies鈥� man: Sj枚berg tracks his love life by noting which women he named insects after.

But the real message of the book, published in Swedish a decade ago and now translated into English, is the quiet pleasure to be found in reading the fine print of knowledge. 鈥淎 world full of highly personal mastery without petty rivalries would be a nice place to live,鈥� he writes. In this subtle book, Sj枚berg provides a convincing example.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淚n praise of hoverflies鈥�