The Life of the fly; with which are interspersed some chapters of autobiography by Jean-Henri Fabre

The Life of the fly; with which are interspersed some chapters of autobiography Reviews

• 
  JoAnn Hallum

  I adored this book, which is weird because the subject of maggots does not appeal to me. Now in the end I admit they are fascinating creatures of amazing abilities. The entire lifecycle of a fly is basically miraculous. But this book also included bits of Fabre’s autobiography which was equally fascinating, from him deciding on a whim to tutor someone in Algebra, a subject he knew nothing about, to how to eat poisonous mushrooms, I never knew what he was going to mention next. I wish it wasn’t out of print, but luckily my library has a 1916 edition that I will cry over returning. If you can find it and muscle through hundreds of pages of maggot behavior (and you can! I believe in you!) this book is FASCINATING.
• 
  Rossdavidh

  This is the second book of J.H.Fabre's which I have read, both translated superbly by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, but it was written very late in Fabre's life. He was, by this point, at last receiving deserved recognition for the excellence of both his observation of the insect world (complimented by no less than Charles Darwin), and also his writing. He is, more or less, writing about the life cycle of flies, but there is also quite a lot of personal biography here (many of the chapters appeared separately in a variety of places). In one section, he reveals his first encounter with the science of chemistry:
  
  "The professor begins the experiment. He takes a sort of large, long glass bulb, bent abruptly in the region of the neck. This, he informs us, is a retort. He pours into it, from a screw of paper, some black stuff that looks like powdered charcoal. This is manganese dioxide, the master tells us. It contains in abundance, in a condensed state and retained by combination with the metal, the gas [oxygen] which we propose to obtain. An oily-looking liquid, sulphuric acid, an excessively powerful agent, will set it at liberty. Thus filled, the retort is placed on a lighted stove. A glass tube brings it into communication with a bell-jar full of water on the shelf of the pneumatic trough. Those are all the preparations. What will be the result? We must wait for the action of heat.
  
  My fellow-pupils gather eagerly round the apparatus, cannot come close enough to it. Some of them play the part of the fly on the wheel and glory in contributing to the success of the experiment. They straighten the retort, which is leaning to one side; they blow with their mouths on the coals in the stove. I do not care for these familiarities with the unknown. The good-natured master raises no objection; but I have never been able to endure the thronging of a crowd of gapers, who are very busy with their elbows and force their way to the front row to see whatever is happening...
  
  [he wanders off, looking about the chemistry lab at the peculiar apparatus he finds there]
  
  Suddenly, bang! And there is running and stamping and shouting and cries of pain! What has happened? I rush up from the back of the room. The retort has burst, squirting its boiling vitriol in every direction. The wall opposite is all stained with it. Most of my fellow-pupils have been more or less struck. One poor youth has had the splashes full in his face, right into his eyes. He is yelling like a madman. With the help of a friend who has come off better than the others, i drag him outside by main force, take him to the sink, which fortunately is close at hand, and hold his face under the tap. The horrible pain begins to be allayed, so much so that the sufferer recovers his senses and is able to continue the washing-process for himself."
  
  Thereafter, Fabre was not to learn much more chemistry at his school (the professor was, we are led to believe, not enthusiastic about more lessons on the topic). So, how does Fabre end up learning any? By teaching it. He is sent to teach classes at a college, and as there is no chemistry teacher for his students, he becomes one, learning each lesson shortly before teaching it. He also mentions having a greater emphasis on safety during experiments, owing to his previous experience.
  
  Then, he loops back to why the subject of chemistry relates at all to the matter at hand, which was something related to maggots, as I recall. This is the way the book proceeds; we are alternately treated to a chapter in the Life of the Fly, and a chapter in the Life of Fabre. It is, he fully admits, an indulgence of the aged, to put their life experience down so that others may recall it when they are gone. And, so I have, over a century after his death. To read this book is to learn something, perhaps, about the life of the fly (a humble but important part of the natural cycle of birth and death, because somebody has to clean up all the corpses which nature produces). More, though, it is to spend several evenings with a delightfully chatty old man, willing to tell you about his childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. He brings alive the world of a 19th century French village, as seen by the peculiarly curious young boy, not born to an academic environment, who nonetheless came to the forefront of it with his masterful ability to observe (and investigate, and especially record) how the humblest of animals around him went through life.
• 
  Gina Johnson

  Lots and lots of maggot talk. It was actually a super interesting book and I learned sooo much!! I am letting my daughter skip the autobiographical chapters since I’m having her read this as we study insects. There are probably 4 or 5 chapters that have very little to do with insects.
• 
  Katya Epstein

  I just finished this half an hour ago, and I still so in awe that I can only babble incoherent gibberish. I'll have to write a proper review later. For now I will say only that this book is stunningly exquisite, and should be required reading for anybody interested in entomology. Almost every page has a line that I wanted to memorize and quote to my friends. His nerdy delight in his topic and his patient and retiring character shine with charm from every page. Better even than Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle. I must get my own copy.