Posted on 10/02/2008 2:17:59 PM PDT by Zionist Conspirator
FReepers have helped me out in the past when I asked about the Frugivores (which I had begun to think only I had ever heard of). Now I'm hoping someone can satisfy my curiosity on a topic both fascinating and gross.
Perhaps you remember the old half hour PBS Dick Cavett Show. This is the show where he would spend the time chatting with some intellectual cult figure (eg, Norman Mailer, Richard Gilman, Tennessee Williams, Lillian Hellman, etc.).
Back in the old days of Carson and Letterman (when he was really funny) I used to stay up later than I do now, and this show was a fun way to spend a half hour leading up to the other shows. Anyway, it was on one of these shows that I heard something I have never been able to forget. It intrigued, fascinated, and horrified me all at the same time. It made a lasting impression and emerged from my dark subconscious once again in a dream last night (don't ask!).
I believe the guest on this particular show was the German author Gunter Grass (though I could be wrong). Anyway, during the interview Cavett casually said something on the order of "people have been known to actually vomit while reading the 'eels' passage."
How in the same heck do you forget hearing something like that???
Anyway, this "eels passage" has haunted the dark shadows of my subconscious ever since hearing that remark. On the one hand, I would never want to read it since I wouldn't want to throw up. On the other, I am curious as to just what kind of passage this is. Of course, I doubt that I would ever have the courage to risk reading such a thing.
Anyway, I have looked up Gunter Grass in Wikipedia and did a Yahoo! search on him as well and simply cannot find a reference to an "eels passage." Maybe I have the wrong writer?
Anyway, do any FReepers out there know about this infamous gag-inducing piece of literature? What book is it in? Can it be generally described in such a way that I can read the description without messing up my keyboard?
For years this notion of someone writing a passage so gauche that people who read it actually vomit has sort of stuck in my mind as the defining characteristic of left-wing artsy-fartsy intellectuals.
Read up on the “hagfish” ... which may or may not be a fish ... is certainly not an eel even though sometimes called one ... and is thoroughly disgusting.
An eel once bit my sister. Mind you, eel bites can be very painful.
All your hagfish are belong to us.
Ah-HA!! Now I see everything! An anti-eel agenda is being advanced by the columnist who, instead of merely saying they swarmed in great numbers, used the unfamiliar word "pollulating" to imply they were engaged in some monstrously immoral activity!
This is scandalous!
I've never heard of being bitten by an ordinary pond fish of any kind before, though catfish spines are of course poisonous and a wound from one of them is very painful.
Truth to tell, I've never even thought of fish (other than sharks and piranhas) having teeth at all.
</SARCASM>
It’s worse ... he’s trying to blame the disgusting activities of the slimy hagfish on honest, innocent, unsuspecting eels.
I think almost all fish have teeth ... though in the case of the North American freshwater fish we know and love (sunfish, bass, trout) they tend to be small-to-microscopic. Pike and such have bigger teeth and can deliver a nasty bite.
Hmm. According to what I'm finding this is a New Zealand eel, and it is being farmed in an attempt to conserve it (as well as for food perhaps?). Certainly no "eerie dreadfulness" involved here.
According to wikadedia, it is native to thge Elbe River, hence its name astralis (as in Austria).
So instead of being called the "eels passage" it should really be called the "hagfish passage," right? I shall look into this more deeply.
If what I now suspect proves correct, I shall file a complaint with Acting President Obama and the World Court against numerous persons for the crime of "anti-eel statements." Just see if I won't!
Your earlier post spelled it "australis," as in Australia.
A clear violation of the rules from "The Elements of Style";
Never use a dollar and fifty cent word when there's a good old ten center handy.
Take the “alia” off and add “ria” and the same prefix, “aust” spells both words.
IRRC the horses were killed in the battle of Jutland and were washing up on shore.
I’ll have to try again, as you are rigfht about this eel originating down under. My search engine failed me as I should have followed it up by going to Wikapedia. Sorry about that
Should the title of this thread contain a “Barf alert”?
http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/ae991b/AE991B08.htm
Web site refering to German Eels, called silver eels. Genus: Anguilla anguilla L. This could be the one.
The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle fought in 1916, and I think the book is about World War II. But I can't find it online. I'll have to work up the courage to check it out of a library.
So perhaps the "eels" in the book are "slime eels" (which aren't really eels), but I can't shake the idea that Grass meant regular eels (Anguilla anguilla), else he would probably have described them as "slime eels" and not mentioned them along with other food fish like sardines (besides, are there really such a quantity of hagfish in Europe?). Perhaps dead horses would attract a great variety of fish of many varieties, and in this case it would certainly be possible that regular, inoffensive eels could congregate (or pollulate) within such a delicacy.
Still, as my dream brought back to me last night, that one episode of the Dick Cavett Show seems to have planted deep within me a suspicion of eels which I would dearly love to be able to lay to rest for once and all.
Thanks to all who have responded, and my forgiveness if this thread has been offensive!
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