The Longest Silence : A Life in Fishing

Rating:
Summary: A Crackerjack Book for Winter Reading.
Review: McGuane's angling essays in The Longest Silence should appeal to both the sporting and non-sporting public. Hot-blooded writing swirls his decades of experiences into a landing net of honest, from-the-heart prose that speak well for appreciating Mother Nature -- the natural world. Once you finish his collection, add to your reading the classic book LIFE WITH NOAH, a posthumous memoir of Richard Smith,an Adirondack mountain fisherman, outdoorsman who was befriended by Noah John Rondeau, a hermit who lived in the Cold River valley from the 1920s until his death in the late 1960s. Both fished for their survival, for the love of the sport and had no greater respect for woodland animals and nature's importance to an individual's inner peace.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best about the silence and joy of fly fishig
Review: Over the past 20 years I have fished great rivers, streams and oceans. True, this isn't about how to be an expert fly fisherman but more about how to appreciate the sport. The author captivates you from the start and gives a very personal touch to a very personal place and time. For those who have never tried or experienced fly fishing a stream in a secluded area or watched nature announce the arrival of salt water fish, this is a must read. Compared to many of the great writers on the subject, and there are many, this writer raises the bar and leaves you wanting more.

Rating:
Summary: McGuane at his Best!
Review: There are many good books on flyfishing, but only a very few that make it to great. This is one of the latter. For this book, McGuane received the coveted Roderick Haig-Brown Award for Literature from the Federation of Fly Fishers. The Longest Silence is the finest book on fly fishing that I have read. The style of a novelist is brought fully to these pages, offering a wonderful sense of place that all successful novelists must have. For this died in the wool trout fisherman, even the title essay, which is on permit fishing, was a wonderful read. I have never seen a permit, have no strong desire to catch one, and probably will never try, but even that essay on a subject so foreign to me, rang as true as any essay can. McGuane's talent is absolutely marvellous!

Rating:
Summary: McGuane at his Best!
Review: There are many good books on flyfishing, but only a very few that make it to great. This is one of the latter. For this book, McGuane received the coveted Roderick Haig-Brown Award for Literature from the Federation of Fly Fishers. The Longest Silence is the finest book on fly fishing that I have read. The style of a novelist is brought fully to these pages, offering a wonderful sense of place that all successful novelists must have. For this died in the wool trout fisherman, even the title essay, which is on permit fishing, was a wonderful read. I have never seen a permit, have no strong desire to catch one, and probably will never try, but even that essay on a subject so foreign to me, rang as true as any essay can. McGuane's talent is absolutely marvellous!

Rating:
Summary: Ick
Review: This book was horrible. Nothing but sex and fish, fish and sex. He never came outright and said it of course but it was there, you could tell. May the Lord smite this author for the shameful words he has written. I long for the good days when me burned books like these in the town square.

Rating:
Summary: The Reel Thing
Review: Thomas McGuane knows much about fish, fishing and fishermen. He also sees that the migratory fish is like a canary in a mineshaft. If it dies, the future of other even human life is threatened. Like the true angler he is more interested in the quality of his experiences in the fishing domain than in catching fish. Like Falkus but unlike most other angling writers, he perceives and conveys to his reader that fishing is not a competitive activity (like for instance golf or bridge), but rather it is an opportunity for man to engage with raw nature and from that engagement to learn humility.

Rating:
Summary: The Reel Thing
Review: Thomas McGuane knows much about fish, fishing and fishermen. He also sees that the migratory fish is like a canary in a mineshaft. If it dies, the future of other even human life is threatened. Like the true angler he is more interested in the quality of his experiences in the fishing domain than in catching fish. Like Falkus but unlike most other angling writers, he perceives and conveys to his reader that fishing is not a competitive activity (like for instance golf or bridge), but rather it is an opportunity for man to engage with raw nature and from that engagement to learn humility.

Rating:
Summary: The examined life (and fly fishing, too).
Review: Well crafted, clean prose. A delight and a high spot in this year's reading.

Rating:
Summary: The examined life (and fly fishing, too).
Review: Well crafted, clean prose. A delight and a high spot in this year's reading.

Rating:
Summary: Read the first half, throw away the second half.
Review: When McGuane writes of his home waters, his prose is crystalline and his thoughts, and our responses, are direct and illuminating. Alas, as the first half of the book ends (with the eponymous essay), McGuane suddenly begins flying us all over the world with his rich, often sodden, often depressing fish-snob buddies. In these later essays, his prose sinks as brand names enter the essays. He begins to collect rivers as trophies (the essays about Russia and Labrador are particularly bathetic). Though McGuane asks for absolution for his fishing faults (including helicopter rides to steelhead pools), I'm not sure that readers (or rivers) should grant it. My advice? One: read the first half of the book to understand the power of local knowledge and the joys of home water. Two: throw away the second half of the book, unless you enjoy reveling in disillusion. Three: join your local conservation groups and work, work, work to save your local waters, rather than flying your carcass off to the ends of the earth to catch (and brag about catching) that last wild fish.