I forget who suggested I read Elisabeth Tova Bailey’s The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, but whoever you are, remind me please, because it’s so surprisingly delightful.
Non-fiction following Bailey’s year spent in bed with a mystery disease and her close – oh so close – observation of a snail. That’s it – narrow in scope but so wide in interest. Like there are a trillion facts about snails that I didn’t know and that are amazing (like in the true sense of the word) and also a million writers who have also been fascinated by snails.
In the category of ‘eco’ books – I’ tempted to say fiction but it’s non fiction! – this one celebrates the complexity and abundance of the natural world, and reminded me of the often arrogance of human belief in our own centrality. While it has that, the book also offers something of a mediation on the fragility of a human body, the affordances and limitations of disability and the ways we find – and make – connection when we need it most (thus continuing, I suppose, my inadvertent reading theme for the last few months).
You’re thinking, but Erin, I am so easily distracted and a book about snails sounds so boring. Well dear reader, let me remind you that you read to discover something new, or to consider a fresh perspective, or to be grounded in the world, or to delight in the mysteries of experience. And The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating has all of that for you and more.
Literary Vice 