Eels, again

I learned yesterday that the Algonquin word for eel is pimisi… which is the name of one of the LRT stations nearest to my home. Interesting, I thought. And then I learned that there is a 30-foot-tall chrome eel sculpture by the artist Nadia Myre that sits in the river next to the station. I saw it for the first time early yesterday morning. How did I not know it was there? A reminder to be more curious! It’s a beautiful sculpture—look how it reflects the sky, the trees! Look at those curves! The movement suggested by those curves! I love it.

I don’t often share work in progress (I know this is not the first time I’ve said this!) but I find myself talking about eels with people all the time these days and they keep asking me why eels?

So here’s a part of the eel essay I’m currently working on that tries to answer the question...why eels?

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I admire the eel’s tenacity, but I think what appeals to me the most about them is their mystery: that inscrutability, that secretiveness. There continues to be much that we don’t know about eels—and I find that refreshing. There is comfort in the fact that we don’t know everything; if we still have questions to ask, we have a reason to live. Without questions, without curiosity, what then? We know so much about so much; a little mystery is nice once in a while. For example, no one has ever witnessed an eel spawning in the wild—no scientist, no one in the fishing industry. It has only been recently confirmed that American and European eels begin and end their lives in the Sargasso Sea. While scientists suspected this for many years, it wasn’t documented until 2022. Secretive, moisturized, and unknowable. In their lane. Locked in to the very end. What’s not to love? But it’s not just scientists and naturalists who are curious about and enamoured of eels; artists, too, have long been fascinated by this enigmatic creature.

When I was young, and for reasons that are unclear to me now, I thought I had to choose between Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. I chose Plath and her Creel of eels, all ripples. There was something of the depressive in me when I was a kid. I could be sullen and introspective, even at six, even at five. And so I felt right at home in the poems of Sylvia Plath: I can stay awake all night, if need be— / Cold as an eel, without eyelids.” A creature that hides under rocks and only comes out at night is exactly the kind of animal a weird little kid would be drawn to—it just makes sense!

It wasn’t until Ted Hughes’ Birthday Letters came out that I relented and read one of his books—but only because it promised to be Hughes’ most direct response to Plath’s suicide. I liked Birthday Letters for its seeming honesty, for the emotion laid so bare within its pages—and for the story of a life that it shared. But more than that, I remember being moved by something Hughes said about the experience of writing that book. “How strange that we have to make these public declarations of our secrets. But we do. If only I had done the equivalent 30 years ago, I might have had a more fruitful career — certainly a freer psychological life. Even now the sensation of inner liberation — a huge, sudden possibility of new inner experience. Quite strange.” Quite strange indeed. But relatable. Reading Birthday Letters also had the effect of leading me deeper into Hughes’ other work. And, eventually, to his poem “An Eel”, which acted, at the time I first read it, as a trigger for that memory I had of those eels in that bucket next to the river.

The strange part is his head. Her head. The strangely
      ripened
Domes over the brain, swollen nacelles
For some large containment. Lobed glands
Of some large awareness. Eerie the eel’s head.

I do love how Hughes gets right down to the eel’s uncanny beauty and mystery. The poem provides us with a clinical description of the eel; it’s a physical and metaphysical taxonomy: from its ripened dome to “her patience / Global and furthered with love / By the bending stars as if she / Were earth’s sole initiate.” My main takeaway after first reading this poem (as a young person compelled to write poems of my own) was the realization that Oh, okay, you can write a beautiful poem about slippery, slimy, ugly eels. That’s good to know.

There are other eel poems. Indeed, there are many. Ogden Nash wrote one that goes like this: “I don’t mind eels / except as meals / And the way they feels.” Short and to the point. I get it. To the average North American palate, eels are not very appetizing. And they’re covered in slime. An eel’s slime is more than just a vibe (though it is also a vibe), their slime provides protection (they’re slippery!), aerodynamics (they’re fast!), and it regulates the balance of water in their bodies (osmoregulation!). I’ve never eaten eel, but I can imagine the texture in my mouth—and frankly, I don’t think I’d care for it. I can’t read that Ogden Nash poem without thinking about 8^th century Japanese poet Ōtomo no Yakamochi’s eel poem. Here’s what he had to say about eels:

To Iwamaro
I say this:
If you've slimmed down in summer
There's one thing that works:
Catch and eat eels!

Yakamochi’s poem can be read as a time-traveler’s rebuttal to Nash’s poem. Point. Counterpoint. Or why not vice versa? While we’re in Japan, I am also reminded of Shohei Imamura’s beautiful Unagi (or The Eel), not a poem but a film. Caspi and I watched this film shortly after we got married and moved to Halifax. We watched a lot of films during that time, many of them dark and depressing (I don’t know why?! We were terribly happy back then!) but this one stood out for both of us. Caspi was the one who brought it up recently when I was going on about eels again. Imamura’s film is about, well, a lot happens, but the protagonist Takuro, who has murdered his wife and has served jail time for it, moves to a small town upon his release and opens a barbershop. He brings with him a pet eel that he keeps in a tank and talks to on occasion. His relationship with his pet eel is the only contact he really allows himself. But then one day he saves a young woman from committing suicide, and he suddenly finds it harder to isolate himself, to keep others out. There’s love, there’s drama, there’s forgiveness. There’s connection. And there is redemption. That you find yourself rooting for a man who killed his wife is only one small part of how complicated this film is. Just like eels.

What I love most about all of these works of art is that these artists considered the eel special enough, worthy enough of this kind of consideration. And it is! It brings to mind for me Albrecht Dürer’s 1505 painting of a stag beetle: it was mostly unheard of at that time to devote an entire painting to a lowly insect. Dürer’s concern (and abiding interest) was with nature—and not with what was considered a worthy or unworthy artistic subject by his contemporaries. Here’s Dürer on art and nature: “It is indeed true that art is omnipresent in nature, and the true artist is he who can bring it out.” Dürer was also telling us that to better understand the bigger world, we must look at the smaller world—and look closely. Pay attention, be curious! If I was the kind of guy who had a motto, that would be it. Pay attention, be curious! Don’t litter!

/IR