Meaning:
Alludes to the position of being able to freely observe a situation without
being oneself noticed.
Background:
This is an American phrase that originated there in the 1920s. The first
citation of it that I can find is from The Oakland Tribune, February 1921:
"I'd just love to be a fly on the wall when the Right Man comes along."
It is now most often used in relation to `fly on the wall documentaries',
which are films of real life situations supposedly made without affecting the
behaviour of the participants. It is de rigeur for participants in such films
to comment along the lines of `We just got used to the camera crew and after
a while we just ignored them'. Well, maybe. I must say that if I had half a
dozen strangers trooping around my house I think I would know that they were
there.
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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Some books, or at least parts of them, are written in a similar way: the author,
typically an investigative journalist, initially asks to just ``tag along'' for a
professional experience, and comes back from the trip to author a bestseller.
Michael Pollan and Landon Cook came to mind.
At some points, however, the fly does come off the wall and get its feet dirty,
so to speak. So we read Pollan maning the pit for Ed Little's authentic southern
barbecue and Cook hauling chanterelles out of the bowels of the Pacific
Northwest mountain ranges. As long as the writing's good, we don't care.
At the last minute a thought hit me. I lived in the west and, especially in the
early years, felt like a fly on the wall.
