Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis

Rating:
Summary: Fishing or Politics?
Review: A friend of mine lent me this book to read. I made it about 2/3 of the way through and had to put it down for good. Although the books is well written, engaging, and interesting, Raines can't stay away from launching political barbs. (I think many of us will all agree that Hoover was a poor president, but Raines can't keep from repeatedly driving that point home. It gives one the impression as though Hoover had it out for Raines' own family.) I'm not sure what all that has to do with fly fishing. His inability to keep his politics seperate from any other aspect of his life is quite obvious in the content of the NY Times, which he is now the Editor in Chief. If you're looking for a light read about the adventures of fly fishing, I recommend Harry Middleton or John Gierach.

Rating:
Summary: Fishing or Politics?
Review: A friend of mine lent me this book to read. I made it about 2/3 of the way through and had to put it down for good. Although the books is well written, engaging, and interesting, Raines can't stay away from launching political barbs. (I think many of us will all agree that Hoover was a poor president, but Raines can't keep from repeatedly driving that point home. It gives one the impression as though Hoover had it out for Raines' own family.) I'm not sure what all that has to do with fly fishing. His inability to keep his politics seperate from any other aspect of his life is quite obvious in the content of the NY Times, which he is now the Editor in Chief. If you're looking for a light read about the adventures of fly fishing, I recommend Harry Middleton or John Gierach.

Rating:
Summary: Great way for a flyman to spend a winter evening
Review: Anyone who has learned what the soul of this sport is will truly enjoy this book. Raines describes over and over what it is like to experiance the tranquility and personal gratification flyfishing can offer. I dont give a damn about his political views. When it comes to the true meaning of flyfishing, Howell Raines gets it!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Being a baby-boomer and a novice flyfisher, I identified with the author since I went through some of the same experiences as he did, such as divorce and the loss of close friends. I gave it five stars.

Rating:
Summary: Not A Fishing Book--And Not A Fisherman
Review: Do not waste your time on this book if fishing is your interest. Raines is using an interesting topic as another opportunity to slip a little more of his political liberalism out to the world by casually working in slams of Reagan and others who don't fit the liberal mold. If you want to learn how a self-proclaimed Alabama red-neck saw the light and became a liberal editor for the New York Times, it's your nickel.

Rating:
Summary: Politically Correct (Liberal) Anecdotes with recipies
Review: Howell Raines writes with an engaging enough style and actually has a few amusing anecdotes. His assessment of the Southern Male "Redneck Way" is somewhat insightful if not an accurate discription of all Southern outdoorsmen. And, the advice that "if you want to keep score, take up golf" is perhaps the most useful he gives to any fly fisher, regardless of ability. A few decent fish recipies are also included. So, if you want to read about the typical bias of a liberal journalist who's purpose seems as much to bash Regan, Bush, and Hoover as to pass on anything useful about the sport of fly fishing, read this book. Personally, I prefer not to mix fishing and politics (especially this brand of partisan liberal Democratic politics) with the unbiased and apolotical joy of fly fishing. I get too much of the former almost daily and precious little of the latter. But perhaps I, too would have more time if I adhered to Mr. Raines' marital and work ethic, the seeming solution to his personal midlife crisis. Not mine

Rating:
Summary: Don't Waste Valuable Fishing Time on This One
Review: Howell Raines' book would be better entitled "Fly Fishing While Succumbing to the Mid-Life Crisis." My first clue that I was in for a mediocre experience was on the back cover where it says Howell Raines is the Editorial Page editor for the New York Times. Just as I always suspected, the New York Times' opinions are the product of a do-nothing journalist who fancies himself a liberal. The most intriguing part of the book is finding out how little a do-nothing journalist really does. The title of the book led me to believe I was going to read about how Raines learned about values in life by using the wonderful hours of solitude that fly-fishing affords to think about what really matters. Instead, he used the time to think about how he could ditch his wife of over twenty years so he could run off to a tropical island with a "voluptuous and passionate woman." But just how weak this guy is comes blasting through where he rationalizes away his marriage by pointing out that he asked his son's advice as to whether he should get a divorce or not. He didn't indicate that he spent a lot of time mulling it over when his son said that Mr. and Mrs. Raines might be happier if they divorced. He was too busy booking the next flight to the Bahamas. Of course, Raines doesn't want us thinking that he is not a 90s sensitive guy so he spends a lot of time detailing his close relationship to Dick Blalock who apparently fished a fair amount and drank even more. So don't get me wrong, Raines really can make a commitment under the right circumstances. His wife and kids just never made the cut. O.K., the guy is a shlep but did I learn anything new about fishing? No. Not only did he not have anything new or insightful to say about fly fishing (a sport that I believe is bottomless pit of insights and introspection), he convinced me that even a fly fishing fanatic such as myself would sooner be hooked in the jaw by a Size 4 Wooly Bugger than spend ten minutes on the river listening to Howell Raines'prattle on about his profound views on the human condition (When he starts talking about his "deep in the Wyoming wilderness" experience, on a Dude Ranch, where he had to come out for a day to get his son to the airport, you realize that it wasn't necessary to read the back cover. At that point you know that he is an editorial writer for the New York Times.) You may ask, "Hey lots of middle age men run off after getting the best years of their wives' lives and there's a lot of sanctimonious blowhards out there, so get over it." To this I say, yes I wouldn't waste all this space ripping this guy but he went one step too far. Raines takes all the usual shots at Reagan and Bush and other conservatives about how mean-spirited they are as well ascribing racism to most of us as well. But nowhere is his modern era liberalism more vividly revealed than his attacks on Herbert Hoover. For some reason, Raines chooses Hoover as his whipping boy which is an unfortunate choice for a self-professed "liberal." Raines repeats the outdated myth that Hoover was responsible for the Depression despite the fact that historians are almost unanimous in their agreement that the dye was cast before Hoover took office. Hoover tried numerous public works programs to ease the impact of the Depression but they were defeated by a Democratic Congress that decided to wait until FDR came along and adopted them as his own (right after he got done campaigning against Hoover for his reckless deficit spending!). Irrespective of Hoover's Presidential record, he was the most honored American ever in Europe for his efforts in World War I in providing aid and relief to the war stricken areas. He literally fed thousands and thousands of children out of his own pocket and with the assistance of his business associates (the Germans AND Allies both tried to prevent his goodwill efforts at first). He accepted no compensation for his work. After the war he declined an offer to manage the assets of the Guggenheim family for $500,000 per year. Instead he became Secretary of Commerce. Both as Secretary and as President every dime he was paid was donated to charity. Herbert Hoover did more for his fellow man in any given hour of his life than Howell Raines has done and will do throughout his life, of that I am sure. If Raines were to study the word "liberal" he would realize that Hoover was far more deserving of the appellation than himself. Even more ironic is that I have read both Hoover and Raines on fishing and Hoover even knew more about that. Howell Raines' attempt to use something intended exclusively for pleasure like fly fishing to excuse his own collossal shortcomings is pathetic. People who grasp the qualitative difference between the love of sport and the love of man understand this and will gain nothing from this book. For those who are struggling with this distinction I shudder at thought of people mistaking a fly rod for the key to their soul. It is merely a window, not the door. Howell Raines snuck out the window and dishonored not just his sport but his species.

Rating:
Summary: Fishing Parts Are Good - So Is The Unintended Irony
Review: I believe I came to this book via a reference to it in another book, The Power of Intention, by Wayne Dyer - although I do not remember the context of the reference, nor can I confirm it easily, since Dyer's book contains no index. At any rate, being 44 years old & harboring an as yet unexercised interest in fly fishing, the title of Mr. Raines' book, plus whatever context the Dyer reference provided, was impetus enough for me to purchase & read it. I enjoyed the fly fishing specific passages. I enjoyed the fly fishing as metaphor for life musings. I enjoyed the recipes. Even the errors of fact embraced by the main characters, Raines & Blalock, & the faulty conclusions that necessarily derived from those incorrect premises, are enjoyable from the perspective of irony. These errors of fact may, or, may not, undergird the author's social/political perspective. I say "may not" because I have had more than a few conversations with "left wingers" & "right wingers" alike, in which the introduction of relevant, often "revisionist" facts, had no impact whatsoever on the entrenched perspective.... (An appropriate observation is that, "The left wing & the right wing both belong to the same bird of prey"... whoever said that didn't bother to mention that most of the `feathers' on those wings are incapable of such perspective.)

Raines is a Southerner. A Celtic Southerner, no less (the real deal...). Well, nominally anyway. His Alabama lineage predates what he refers to as the "Civil War". I wasn't born in the South, but I grew up there & I took for granted, at the time, the correctness of the `Civil War' appellation that the public school teachers used - but none of the generational Southerners that I knew used those two words. No, they called it the "War of Northern Aggression". Near the end of the book, when Raines patches up the many years long estrangement between he & his father & brother I wondered how much his toryism had contributed to the family rift.

Blalock, the other main character, Raines' mentor, friend & surrogate father figure, has Cherokee Indian in his lineage. He establishes his bonafides almost as soon as he arrives in print: he says he is "viscerally liberal on any issue"; that "the problem with Republicans is that they would run roughshod over human values in order to protect property values; the good thing about the Democrats is they would run roughshod over property values in order to protect human values"; that he has "never had strong feelings about property"...he was "never acquisitive"..."it's the American Indian attitude - no one owns the land"..."no one has a claim on anything or anybody"...land ownership is "an impossibility - you can use it, you can be in it, but how can you have it?"

So why is the book enjoyable on an ironical level, albeit unintentionally? Both these men scarcely recognize the extent to which they have been subsumed by the very force that most profoundly deformed the course of their progenitors' lives - & by extension their own lives.

The War of Northern Aggression visited horrendous amounts of death, destruction, mayhem & privation on the whole people of the South - not just those in gray uniforms. This was the war in which the invading Northern forces broke with the long standing tenants of just war, of `civilized warfare', by making war on civilian populations - `total war' - (which became the model of reference in subsequent wars the world over...200 million people killed by governments in the 20th century...). Is it any wonder that the "Redneck Way" & the "bloodlust" of the denigrated "meat fisherman" should be personified in a people who were subjected to forced starvation - along with all the theft, rape & murder - just 144 years ago? My own father grew up with extreme privation during the Depression & I know how such dire experiences insinuate themselves into familial & cultural DNA, & are handed down.

Although Blalock's Cherokee ancestors only got a relatively mild taste of the horror that was central government policy toward indigenous people (i.e., the forced death march from the Tennessee reservation to the Oklahoma reservation, aka the "Trail of Tears") - they were dealt with before the `new & improved methods' had been invented & honed during the Northern invasion of the South. In a letter to his wife (July 31, 1862. from his Collected Works), Sherman expressed his purpose: "Extermination, not of soldiers alone, that is the least part of the trouble, but the [Southern] people." In a letter to Grant, after he had been put in charge of the Military District of Missouri (all land west of the Mississippi), July, 1865, he said, "We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children." The postbellum horrors delivered upon the western Indian tribes by Grant, Sherman & Sheridan were even greater than those suffered by the Cherokee, but they were of a part. It is interesting & worth mentioning here that the whole motley crew of battlefield commanders & their respective politicians were in business with the builders of the federally subsidized transcontinental railroad, & that part of Sherman's "final solution" (his words, believe it or not...) against the "inferior race" (his words again), was the massive slaughter of the buffalo - a primary source of food for the Indians. So, when Raines maintains, p.221,that greed killed the buffalo, he was right, but for wrong reasons. And being right for the wrong reasons, this fundamental attribution error, leads to the further error of concluding that the tragedy of the commons is to be rectified by INCREASING the size of the commons (Raines stresses this throughout the book, going so far as to laud Grant for not only "preserving the union", but most especially for his "creating" of Yellowstone National Park...) & securing them with armed guards. It wasn't the "Redneck Way" that decimated the buffalo, nor the fisheries, any more than it was the "Redneck Way" that was responsible for 80% of the Jamestown Pilgrims succumbing to starvation & disease within a few months of their arrival to the New World. The commons either incites free-for-all over-consumption to the point of destruction, or, if access to a return on invested energies is proscribed, as it was during that first communal effort at Jamestown, lassitude to the point of personal extinction. Value is subjective, and its imputation absolutely requires the mechanism of price, which is itself only possible in an environment of private property, freely traded on open markets - the commons are antithesis to this axiom. Property ownership, beginning with self-ownership, supported by strong rule of law (rather than rule of men...), demolishes the `tragedy of the commons' for the straw man that it is. I wonder how consistent Blalock was in his stance on property; did he never own real estate? Could he actually be unaware how the lack of recognition of property rights in land, not to mention their persons, was the necessary prerequisite to his Cherokee ancestors subjugation? How differently were the Cherokees, the other tribes, & the Southerners treated, after all, than the much lamented fisheries & bison herds? Absence of strong property rights relegates people to being mere things, whenever & wherever the powerful construe it in their best interests to do so. As it is above, so it is below: the links connecting humans to all the lesser beasts become broken & disconnected only as much & to the extent the tenants of property rights are abrogated & abandoned - stewardship of other will continue to suffer until respect for that which underlies stewardship of our selves is restored.

Neither Raines nor Blalock appear to be consciously `going along to get along' in their respective choices to affiliate so intimately with centralized political power. But there is a curious resemblence between their attachments & the so-called Stockholm Syndrome, the phenomenon in which a hostage begins to identify with & grow sympathetic to his captor.

One final irony: Alabama, Raines' home turf, is also the home of Auburn University, wherein resides the Ludwig von Mises Institute & LewRockwell.com. These two homes of the Austrian School of Economics are wonderful repositories of unassailable explanation for some of what has been discussed here, & much else besides. Both these resources are available online & they have my highest recommendation.

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Book!
Review: I have read this book several times in the past two years and will likely read it again. It is that kind of book that offers up new nuggets each time one picks it up. Raines' particular midlife crisis is never really identified - in my first reading, it was the loss of his friend, Dick Blalock, as well as the passing into adulthood of his sons. In another reading, it was the breakup of his marriage, or was it the realization that his career didn't turn out as he had expected? Whatever, they are crises that any of us midlifers can be facing, regardless of our particular passion or political views (Even Conservatives Get the Blues!). Fly fishing, whether it was the cause or the cure, is the threads that Raines uses to tie together his passage through this time in his life. You won't learn fly fishing with this book, but you will gain some valuable insight as well as something to think about the next time you get out to the stream.

Rating:
Summary: Great Read
Review: I have read this book twice now and it gets better each time. I grew up in Texas and recognize much of what Raines describes. I found the book both amusing and thoughtful. It wasn't as much about fishing as growing up in a changing South, growing old in a changing world and the role of friendship in that process. I would read a chapter and take a moment to digest it before moving on. You could say I like the book.