Quinn is reading A River Runs Through It for the first time in several years. The experience has prompted him to write a series of posts about several topics, some of which are actually related to the book. And yes he wrote this slightly presumptuous italicized intro himself, so technically he is talking about himself in third person ala Karl Malone. If you haven’t read the book and you plan to, beware the spoilers.
I got a gift card for Christmas to one of the big box bookstores. I spent more than a month thinking how I might spend it, during which time I read several novels that were inordinately long and intricately plotted. This didn’t seem to help me decide how I might spend my book money. Eventually I found myself on ye olde internet perusing the big box bookstore website for cheap copies of some old favorites and some rare books that I couldn’t find anywhere else. This is how I came to own Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It for a second time.
I’m not sure where my initial copy went. It was the paperback version with honey-colored cover, the title in a red font. I read it several times, but this was years ago. I’ve moved since then at least once and somehow that copy disappeared to the place where lost books go—by which I mean that I probably lent it out to someone and forgot about it.
My new copy is the 25th anniversary edition. It contains a foreword by Annie Proulx and it was published in 2001. A little math (or a check of the copyright page or even a read of Proulx’s great foreword) reveals that Maclean’s famous story was published in 1976, which just happens to be the year I was born. This was news to me. For some reason I never even thought about the original publishing date of the book. Probably because my first exposure to the title came in the form of the 1992 movie, when I was 16 years old.
I’ve got the rumblings of another post about the movie, the book, and a half dozen other topics swimming around in my head, so I’ll say no more about the film for now. But I first read the book in college, sometime around 1995, I suppose. I found that I liked the book, that it was different than I expected, and that I was strangely proud to tell fellow fly fisherman to “read the book” whenever the subject of the movie came up (this is something I still do, though with less pride—I’ve learned that this suggestion has the power to annoy).
If you know the movie or the book or even if you just read a lot of text about fly fishing that has been written in the last 20 years, you know that Maclean was eminently quotable. The first line (“In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.”) has probably been used in at least a six or seven published essays and books over the years. And there are other lines from the movie or perhaps unearthed from the book that are trotted out on occasion to great effect.
I have no problem with this. In fact, I would go so far as to say I enjoy it. I love that opening line, what a way to start a book, right? This time around reading the book, however, I found myself discovering dozens of new lines, turns of phrase, or even whole paragraphs that smacked me in the guts. Lines I didn’t remember from previous readings in part, I think, because I hadn’t really experienced enough life to appreciate them.
In the foreword, Proulx writes about Maclean’s penchant for describing the nuts and bolts how things work, whether it be logging or marriage or
fly fishing. I found myself noticing such descriptions more than ever. While his description of the fly cast is almost a primer in line physics, he is equally adept at describing the more mystical aspects of the sport:
One great thing about fly fishing is that after a while nothing exists of the world but thoughts about fly fishing. It is also interesting that thoughts about fishing are often carried on in a dialogue form where Hope and Fear—or many times two Fears—try to outweigh each other.
This passage has Norman standing in a river watching a large trout rise, and noticing that he may well hook the fish, but the geography of his current position makes landing the thing something less likely. I find the tug-of-war between hope and fear happens immediately when I hook a truly good fish or even—like Maclean—when I see a very large trout. Although, in the latter case, my fear is usually that I will spook the fish rather than catch it. Fear of not landing it is a distant dream at that point, a bridge I will cross if I am lucky enough to come to it.
Of course, the book is about more than just fly fishing (I would argue it’s not about fly fishing at all). Maclean waxes both poetic and wise on a number of subjects. Including what time of day is best for thinking.
Sunrise is the time to feel that you will be able to find out how to help somebody close to you who you think needs help even if he doesn’t think so. At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.
And that clarity never real comes, at least not in the way Norman would like. Eventually he decides, I think, that searching for clarity and perfection are a lost cause. Of course he describes that realization through the metaphor of fishing. Writing a passage that makes me want to give up writing altogether because my own efforts fail so miserably in comparison.
Something within fishermen tries to make fishing into a world perfect and apart—I don’t know what it is or where, because sometimes it is in my arms and sometimes in my throat and sometimes nowhere in particular except somewhere deep. Many of us probably would be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect.
And yet for two moments near the end of Paul’s life, Norman experiences perfection. First when he out fishes his brother with the Bunyan Bug, and then when Paul catches that last great fish. In the first instance, he tells of a grammar instructor warning him against using the term “more perfect” because it defies logic, how can something become more than perfect? Yet by the time that last trip with Paul takes place Norman has lived long enough to know that grammar and reality are not joined at the hip. “However I may have violated grammar, I was feeling more perfect with every Rainbow.”
And I think that is how I felt about this book once I read it again after all this time. Somehow over the years it had become more perfect. In part because I found it resonating with my own life and my own struggles more this time around. And partly because I could better appreciate Maclean’s incredible talent for words.
Tags: Culture, Books, Art, Fish Stories
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Good post. Aren’t books just great like that? I love revisiting stories that i haven’t read for many years, with a head full of memories of the earlier reading, and seeing them from a new perspective.
It’s on my winter read list every year and I must be on the 4th copy since it came out. Time to start tracking that loaner list a little more carefully. Nice post Q.
Thanks, Guys. I have another post in mind that is related. We’ll see if I can organize my thoughts well enough to write it this week.
Nice piece. Agree this is a read-again at least every other winter.
What struck me most when I first read it is how funny it is. It is hilarious – also profane. Almost reminded me of Henry Miller. I put off reading it for a long time because of “the movie” – that was a mistake. It’s a classic for good reason.
Is it about fly fishing? I’d say no. Being an older brother – it spoke to me as an exploration of whether or not you are, should be or really even can be your brother’s keeper. Or maybe more like the futility of that effort. Sad, profane and funny all rolled up into one.
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