Tackling life

THIS is the first book I have bought off amazon.com, so it is special in more ways than one. The other reason it stands out is because when I first reviewed it about six years ago (has it been that long!) I went into such raptures over it that the only copy I had was promptly borrowed and I could not get myself another. Three months ago I saw a pretty fair movie of the book and resolved to get myself another copy. So I hied myself off to amazon.com and was almost knocked down by what if would cost to have the book shipped to me from the United States. But I was determined by now to have the book and so I paid up to have it sent to me by the cheapest form of shipping available. Months passed and there was no sign of the book. It finally turned up the day before yesterday and so all those who missed out on the rapture with which I greeted A River Runs Through It (Chicago University Press) can now experience it for themselves.

Few books published today improve with re-reading, something you can never say about a great biryani. Perhaps more books need to be written with the care and love and experience it takes to make a great biryani, the best of which are cooked slowly over a low fire. This is a rather extended metaphor, but you will see the truth of it when I say that what makes A River Runs Through It exceptional is the time it took to come to flower in Norman Maclean's head. The book was written when he was past 70, and is obviously based on his experience as a young man; the time it took for that experience to emerge on the page has given this narrative the punch, depth and grace that quick fire novels could never hope to possess. The book or more accurately the title novella of a collection of stores, is exactly 104 pages long and stands up well to the greatest contemporary novellas including Faulkner's The Bear, Hemingway's The Old Man And The Sea and Conrad's Heart Of Darkness. It concerns itself with the story of two brothers, sons of a Presbyterian minister, who grow up by the Big Blackfoot River in western Montana, learning about life and the intricacies of fly-fishing.

The novel is told by the older brother, the steadier of the two, but his brother, Paul, is the better fisherman, an artist of the light fly rod. He is also an alcoholic and gambler, and appears destined for a sticky end. As the novella progresses we see the brothers grow into adulthood, the older brother taking employment with the forest service, the younger working with the local newspaper in between gambling, drinking and womanising. Inevitably, he runs afoul of some pretty dangerous types and tragedy ensues.

What takes this novel to a higher plane is the author's extraordinary felicity of description when it comes to fly- fishing and the lessons it can teach you about life. There is not much I can do to tell you about it, except quote a few passages and see if they appeal to you as much as they do to me:

"Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand when I was young are dead, but I still reach out to them.

"Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I should not. Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words, and some of the words are theirs.

"I am haunted by waters."

There is not much else you can say after writing like that, can you now?

DAVID DAVIDAR

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