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Summary: Hard work, religion, and fly-fishing
Review: This is a collection of three stories (two novellas and a short story) about life in Montana at the beginning of the 20th century. The title story is a wonderful narrative full of the beauties of nature (particularly the river). In the story, Maclean's father is a preacher, and he educates his sons in the two most important matters of life--religion and fly-fishing. Fishing itself takes on a metaphysical, almost religious nature in the book, and acts for the father and his two sons (Norman and Paul) as a sort of spiritual common-ground that religion cannot provide for these three very different individuals.
The other two stories are about logging and the Forest Service, and likewise provide an interesting look into the still-rough-and-tough Montana frontier of the early twentieth century. These stories focus less on the metaphysical character of the land and more on the rugged nature of both the inhabitants and the terrain itself. Both of these stories are pretty good, but neither of them comes close to matching A River Runs Through It in terms of pure, narrative emotion.
Nature readers or fans of Western literature will love this book (which, incidentally, is better than the movie, though the movie does have some beautiful scenery which enriches the story even more). Just reading it will make you want to get out on a river!
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Summary: Stories of the west and the people who lived there.
Review: This book is the single best nature book I have ever read. While doing the fieldwork for my thesis in Aquatic Ecology along the Salmon River Idaho over 20 years ago, my major Professor suggested I pick this book up. I read it in a few hours that night in a cheap motel and then couldn't forget it during the next week as I spent long days in the River doing my Research. I've read it dozens of times since, and every time I can feel the water running over my waders and hear the wind filtering through pine trees.The title story tells of the relationship of an extended family and how they interact in a setting of western wilderness and fishing. The passages on fly-fishing and rivers are evocative and haunting, but Maclean clearly uses the setting to tell the story of his lost brother and how the family couldn't save him in spite of common interests and love. The accounts of Maclean's future brother-in-law and his drunken escapades in the wilderness are priceless. The other stories in this book are also worthwhile and are, unfortunately, skipped over since the movie version. To anyone who has ever worked in the West outdoors, these stories are achingly nostalgic. They remind those of us old enough to remember the west before long-haired climbers and eco-freaks polluted and locked up these lands just how wonderful it was to be young and strong and free in a land of beauty and hardness. I dare you to read this collection of stories and then find a better similar work.
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Summary: Transcends the genre
Review: I've often heard that this is a superbly crafted novel, and it announces this from the very opening sentence, almost the way Gravity's Rainbow did with the infamous line, "A screaming comes across the sky." But unlike Pynchon, McLean is an author of deliberate economy and calculated brevity, which he knows how to put to good effect. As a result, McLean knows how to tell a good yarn, and this story ranks as one of the greatest of the many fine works inspired by fly-fishing. As for myself, I'm often willing to sacrifice craftsmanship for creativity, and an author who shows great originality or even brilliance but is perhaps a little rough around the edges formally or stylistically, is something I appreciate too. You can see this in certain composers. For example, Beethoven's transitions are sometimes a little rough, unlike Mendelsohn's or Schubert's, who, like McLean, often show great craftsmanship in the little as well as the big things. But most scholars would still consider Beethoven the greater of the three, although they're all certainly great composers, and Schubert had a truly spontaneous gift for coming up with melodies that even his great mentor, Beethoven, lacked, who often had to work very hard on his melodic material. But before I wander too far into the muddy Elysian fields of comparative aesthetics, McLean's book has rightly become a classic of northwestern writing, and many think it belongs in the Pantheon of great American literature, an elevated position the pragmatic and unpretentious Scottsman in McLean might have regarded with a somewhat jaundiced eye. But as a friend of mine perceptively remarked, unlike Barth's later books, whose literary merit rarely exceeds their pretentions, McLean's book transcends the fly-fishing genre, exceeding its modest aspirations to become a truly great work of American literature in its own right.
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Summary: Review on A River Runs Through It
Review: This book is a great story on the lives of Norman and Paul Maclean. Norman and Paul grow up in a small town in Western Montana where they were raised by their father who was the town Presbyterian minister. They are taught the great art of fly-fishing and become great fishermen. Throughout their lives they deal with the struggles of life and the overcome the hardships that are presented before them.
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Summary: Warning: This book isn't really about fishing.
Review: A River Runs Through It is quite simply the single greatest book I have ever read. Maclean's language is as terse and economical as any in Hemingway, but Maclean imparts the type of true feeling and emotion into his simple words that Hemingway himself was incapable of producing. A River Runs Through It is not a story about fishing, but rather a tale of family. The family just happens to share a love of fishing, and Maclean's love of waters has more to do with its close association with his family than with the actual fishing that takes place there. It is the family's tragic loss of Paul, the true master fly-fisherman of the clan, that ties Maclean to waters and inspires the closing lines of the novella. A River Runs Through It delves into interpersonal relationships in a manner which grips the reader and makes him/her reflect on his/her own family. Although I am myself an avid fisherman, I am a more avid reader and I can say that for my part, the fishing element of the story is unimportant except for its association with Maclean's family. Maclean's prose is beautiful to point that his description of a common object or occurence could bring the reader to tears. A River Runs Through It is quite simply the most beautiful thing I have ever read. Period.
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Summary: GREAT PIECE
Review: WHAT A GREAT COLLECTION OF STORIES. THIS IS A MUST HAVE BOOK.
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Summary: GREAT PIECE
Review: THIS BOOK MAKES ONE WISH THEY COULD LEAVE REALITY AND SPEND THAT TIME CHASING A DREAM.
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Summary: The greatest
Review: I've read this book every year since 1981 and I get something new from it with every reading. I consider this book to be the greatest work ever produced by an American author. The heart-felt emotion, the love of the land, the love of family are expressed here like no where else in literature. The first 98 percent of the book sets up the last two pages that are pure poetry (don't skip ahead - you won't even understand the last two pages unless you read the rest first). What a shame that this student and teacher of our language waited until retirement before he started to publish. I absolutely love this book and love this man for giving it to us. It's not just the best book of its type, it's the best book of any type.
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Summary: Hauntingly Beautiful Sparse Prose
Review: I am haunted by this book. In its scant pages, essentially a long thematic short story, more mood than plot, it says everything that need be said about that one special person you loved but never really understood. And it says it with humor, kindness, humanity and a sorrow that transcends both time and place.
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Summary: Flows like a MT river
Review: Parents of an alum made me promise to read this. MacLean has a writing style that flows like the rivers he fished. His stories are very "real." The characters are quirky and rough-edged, just like we are. I definitely recommend this book.
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