Fredrik Sjöberg collects hoverflies on the Swedish island of Runmarö – or at least he did. When last heard of, towards the end of this beguiling book, his hoverfly collection is on display in the Nordic pavilion at the 2009 Venice Biennale, just along from a series of characteristic works by the pornographer ‘Tom of Finland’.

‘When flies are exhibited on the wall in Venice,’ notes Sjöberg, ‘the end is nigh, very nigh.’ He takes a dim view of the art world in its present state, just as he takes a dim view of the quasi-religious stridency that has overtaken the former science of

Literary Review

Sep 2016

Categories

Nigel Andrew

Music Hall Ladies’ Detective Agency

A Mine of Information

The Bodies in the Wall

Bestseller Ho!

Fake It Till You Make It

Cards on the Table

Canada Burning

In the Beginning Was the Cosmic Bell

Never Lost for Words

They Come Over Here, Take Our Nuts

Graven in Stone

Plastic Purgatory

Wetter is Better

Bee’s-Eye View

A Pocket Full of Arsenic

Conifer Creep

She Should Have Gone to Cambridge

Roots of the City

What Will Survive of Us?

To Bee or Not to Bee

Down by the Rock Pool

A Ventriloquist’s Love Song

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Gyrfalcon

In the Yew Tree’s Shade

Meet Fido, Our New Nematode