Reeling in Russia

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Summary: "Fishing Book" that Goes to the Heart of the Russian People
Review: A great deal has been written about what was once the Soviet Union. Some predates the formation of what Ronald Reagan once called "the evil empire" and other parts cover the years since its dissolution. A couple of volumes--John Reed's Ten Days that Shook the World and David Remnick's Lenin's Tomb--even appeared on the list of this century's one-hundred most important pieces of journalism. Maybe the number of books about this part of the world will eventually rival the biographies of Marilyn Monroe in total words. One of the latest entries in this literature, and certainly one of the best, is Fen Montaigne's Reeling in Russia. I have two friends now engaged in commerce in this part of the globe and each loudly proclaims this work the best representation of the lives of the Russian people. Some critics have compared Montaigne, for five years the Moscow correspondent of the Philadelphia Inquirer, to Bruce Chatwin and Paul Theroux. For me, though, the two writers who come to mind are James/Jan Morris and Jonathan Raban. Both of them qualify as "travel writers"; more than that, they uncannily capture the essence and the spirit of the people about whom they write. Montaigne has a literal "hook" around which he constructs his narrative. He fishes his way around the former Soviet Union. With fly rod in hand he travels from place to place, specific types of fish in exotic locales his quarry. Classifying this as a fishing book though is like categorizing Moby Dick as a story about a whale. Montaigne, neither a particularly accomplished fisherman nor an even mildly obsessed one, has a much bigger target. He wants to learn what has happened to the people among whom he lived and worked. And he also desires to find out about the types of Russians who inhabit some of the far stretches of a country he did not previously have the time or freedom to explore. From his very first adventure, near the Solovetsky Islands in northern Russia, Montaigne has his readers hooked. His impassioned and well-crafted prose connects us with types of Russians who seldom make it in front of cameras (or authors for that matter). We learn of their hopes and much more often about their frustrations. We follow him around the world's largest country, soaking up both important facts and fascinating trivia. Along the way, the author paints portraits of memorable individuals and the Russian people as a whole. There are no acceptable excuses to not buy and read this book. If you have no interest in fishing you have nothing to fear. If fishing makes your blood run as cold as that of these swimming creatures, both large and small, you will find else much in Reeling in Russia to keep you fully engaged. If you happen to actually like this sport you will have an extra bonus; you can imagine yourself in the flywaters in which Montaigne wades and learn about a fascinating people in the process.

George A. Singer

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Summary: Reeling in Russia is REAL.
Review: Although I am not a fisherman, I loved Reeling in Russia. The book gives such a realistic picture of Russia and its people, the beauty, the waste of natural resources and the overwhelming waste of human beings. I would advise anyone to real this book. Fen Montaigne's fishing trip which spans a summer and a continent is as exciting as any good book of fiction and cautions us as Americans against loosing repect for the law and order which we have maintained all these years. Without law and order, a country cannot survive.

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Summary: Travels through a drunken Russia
Review: Author managed to convince his wife, Russia and an editor that he was writing a book on fly fishing by going across the Russian steppe from West to East meeting with local fly fishermen and trading tips.
However finding out there was a grand total of about 150 fly fishermen across a nation of 200 million people he started to write about the actual experiences of meeting and finding these people and the conditions they lived in.
A great look at modern life in Russia, continually amazed that everyone operated under fog of an alcoholic haze that permeated everyone.

Rating:
Summary: Reeling in Russia
Review: Enjoyable reading for the adventure and most importantly for his descriptions of the people he encounters, and his understanding of the Russian people generally. Having spent a brief time (3 weeks) in Vladivostok, Russia, I was curious if any of my perceptions would be verified in this book. Indeed they were, and I gained even more insights into the people of this diverse country.I would never have had the courage to make the trip the author made alone, but I would have loved to go with him. Now I have made the trip through his book. I am grateful for the experience. Not being a fisherman, I can't comment on that aspect of the book. I'm just glad he didn't devout too much space to this aspect of the experience. I will give the book to my brother-in-law. (He's the fisherman)

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Summary: www.exile.ru - John Dolan
Review: Here's the concept: a chirpy American journalist, burdened with the ludicrous name "Fen Montaigne," decides to do a fly-fishing tour of Russia from Karelia to Kamchatka. But wait! This isn't just a vacation. No, there's a higher purpose: "I wasn't so much after fish," he says, "as I was after a glimpse of Russia from the bottom up. My fly rod would be my divining stick..." Aside from all this disgusting talk about bottoms, flies, rods and sticks--I mean, it's enough to bring Freud back into fashion!--there's the question: why a fly rod, Fen? Why the fishing schtick? Here's how Fen explains his plan: "Unconstrained by pressures of time and work, and driven by an ill-starred desire to plumb the depths of the Russian psyche, I wanted to lose myself in the Russian countryside."

In other words, this rich guy had some spare time and decided to catch a few fish--and along the way, on those muggy afternoons when the bass ain't bitin', he'll do that Radischev thing: commune with the peasants, and figure out what's wrong with poor Russia. And he gets a book out of it, too. What a concept!

It's a pity earlier travel writers didn't have the wit to come up with similar gimmicks, taking quirky sports-tours of stricken countries. Think of the fine essays they could have made: some cheery Brit's account of his polo trip through Famine Ireland; beach volleyball tours of Pol Pot's Cambodia; clock-golf 'neath the smokestacks of Dachau.

But the aspiring sports apocalypse tourist has to choose the right sport. Fen's choice can only be understood in terms of some very weird footnotes to American literary history. Hemingway fly-fished--but then he liked bullfighting too, and you don't see any of Fen's goretex brotherhood taking up the red cape. Too gory, too Tijuana. Fly-fishing is bloodsport for the effete. Richard Brautigan used it to unite the he-man and hippie lines in Trout Fishing in America. A generation later, some workshop novelist again made fly-fishing the central fetish of a pompous memoir called A River Runs through It. Then came the movie: Brad Pitt and Robert Redford on the same screen, two dumb blonds flicking a piece of lint onto a river. So, by taking his American fly to the rivers of Russia, Fen imports an entire sensibility: sensitive yet manly, with a literary voiceover cadenced by slow, fruitless casts.

One little problem: the poor bastard can't write. In losing himself in the Russian countryside, Fen (definition: "swamp") also lost any sense of what makes for decent prose. Count the cliches in Fen's own account of his project: "ill-starred desire" "plumb the depths", "Russian psyche" and "lose myself." Four major cliches in one sentence. Sometimes Fen is not even capable of writing a cliche correctly, as when he says that "cast[ing] your own fly...provides a kick unlike few others in sport." Uuuuh, Fen? That phrase doesn't make sense. I think you meant "...a kick like few others in sport." Fen's prose problems intensify when he has to narrate complex events: "One of the witnesses was Olga Manet, at the time a young Polish Jew who had been arrested in Minsk on her way to visit her sister in Moscow." So later on she stopped being a Polish Jew? I think Fen means here that Olga Manet was young "at that time" (and old at a later time, as is often the case)--but I still can't guess what Olga's sister in Moscow has to do with her age, arrest, or ethnic identity.

Like all really bad writers, Fen can be counted on to trump his idiotic remarks with something even more fatuous. After going into raptures over the "kick" of decieving a two-pound fish, he slobbers, "Like all good sport, fly-fishing provide[s] the ultimate in pleasure." Like many of the things chirpy Americans say, this is either a lie or proof of psychosis. Sport is "the ultimate in pleasure"? Softball is more fun than heroin? Hacky-sack is better than flattery laid on thick and hot? Soccer beats out fellatio? Perhaps Fen really does find "sport" better than grown-up pleasures. His treatment of sex suggests some serious problems. When bodies are mentioned, he resorts to childish euphemisms: "The dashboard was plastered with stickers of naked women, their enormous bosoms and derrieres beckoning." "Bosoms"? "Derrieres"? And for that matter, " beckoning"?

A sort of cultural vertigo occurs when I try to imagine how people can write like this. Listening to Fen and the fifty million other Fens who have turned North America into one big sactimonious marsh, you ask yourself in horror: are they really that stupid, or are they just pious hypocrites?

Perhaps it's a willed retardation; perhaps they want to be stupid. Fen seems to suggest this when defining the appeal of fly-fishing. He actually asserts that his goal is the annihilation of thought: "When I was on a stream and the fish were biting, I was able--as a writer once observed--to quit dragging around the chains of my mind. All thought ceased."

"All thought ceased"--yes indeed. Which was not good news for Fen's other project: diagnosing the problems with the Russian Soul. Fen casts for the Russian Soul in all the best places: he fly-fishes for herring in Solovki, giving the reader a quick tour of the abandoned Stalinist deathcamp there in between fishing sessions. He fishes for pike in the Volga, among the ruins of aristocratic mansions and failed private farms. He fishes for nearly-extinct giant trout on Lake Baikal, among the drunken remnant of the Buryat. Everywhere he goes in Russia, it's the same formula: a little apocalypse, a little fishing. A little mass death, a little fishing. A little ruined dreams of yet another generation...and then, just for variety: a little fishing.

Sometimes he catches fish, sometimes he doesn't. But everywhere he goes, he comes up with the same stunning insights into the Russian Problem:

1. Russians drink too much. 2. Communism was bad for Russia. 3. Capitalism is good for Russia. 3(a) Or, er, will be once they work out the kinks.

Fen's faith in the power of American-style capitalism to redeem poor Russia is laughable. He really believes all that Reagan crap. (Or does he? That's the recurring question: are they fools or hypocrites?) He uses Reagan's speechwriters' tag phrases, even the Reagan-era cliche "trickle-down": "I found myself wishing that as capitalism rolled over Russia, its sweet benefits trickling down from big cities to little Volga villages, that Johnson or Evinrude would set up a factory and make reliable, cheap engines for the legions of Russian fishermen tortured by shoddy motors." Amen! Visions of outboards roaring up the Volga!

The problem is that Fen has trouble finding any evidence of this trickle-down. In fact, after a decade of capitalism has "rolled over Russia," the Russian countryside is a mess. In southern Russia, Fen fishes the Volga and catches up with an old friend, a real go-getter. By the early nineties this guy had set up his own farm. But when Fen meets him again, it's all gone: the banks boosted interest to 200% and repossessed all his farm equipment. This gives Fen a terrible headache. Why no trickle-down? How can private banks be villains?

This sort of dissonance runs through the book, making it an interesting read in spite of itself. It's morbidly fascinating, and occasionally hilarious, to watch poor Fen struggle to impose his received ideas, the typical baggage of a conservative American journalist, on the mess he finds in Russia.

Fen's simple ideologically-driven categories extend even to body-types. Like most successful Americans, he's slim, and he expects to find slim, successful people and fat failures in his travels. This bodytyping works pretty well in America, where the rich are thin and the poor are fat (and thus doubly damned)--but it begins to fail Fen in Russia, where many of his favorite entrepreneurs are a bit on the chubby side. This is where his training as a mainstream journalist saves him. Mainstream jounalists can't introduce a single person without the obligatory two adjectives. So, having classified all the bad communists as simply "fat," he begins to define his free-market Russian heroes as "burly," "stocky," and "powerful." In other words, "fat but ideologically sound."

In the end, even this squirming won't make the Russia he saw fit Fen's very simple categories; and to his credit, he admits this, confessing at the end of the book that he had no epiphanies in Russia but only reinforced his original prejudices in his time there. There is some honor in this admission, and I'm happy to give it to him: he may not be a very bright man, but in a dull way he probably is a decent one. Probably a nice guy if you got to know him. They always are. That's their nastiest trick.

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Summary: Reeling in Russia left me Reeling
Review: I admit I read this book because it was about fly-fishing and traveling through Russia, a country I have never been to but have always been intrigued by. What I found in this book was a heart-rendering journey through a land ravaged by corruption, hunger and politics, tempered with humor and the determination of a people determined to survive. This is not just a travelogue on fly--fishing, it is a book that takes you through a country that few outsiders will ever see . At times gripping or sad, then funny or heartwarming, sometimes all at the same time! Whether you fly-fish or not, you won't want to put this book down!

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Summary: He would make Hemingway Proud!
Review: I could not put this book down! His descriptions of everyday Russians and their fight for survival was riveting. When he described sights, sounds and smells, I could see, hear and smell each one. I am going to re-read this one many times over. I've never been to Russia, but this book took me there!

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Summary: Unique Personal Journey, But Little More
Review: I do a fair amount of work in Russia, so I was interested in Reeling in Russia to deepen my understanding of this complex country. Essentially a travel diary, this book provides a very personal view of the author's fishing trip through Russia, remarkably made almost exclusively by land and water. Given his fluency in Russian and his laid-back--bordering on reckless--approach to travel planning, Montaigne's book provides a fascinating and truly unique view of Russia in 1996. This approach, however, is also the book's weakness. Montaigne's encounters are wonderful to read in and of themselves, but they rarely add up to more than snapshots of a point in time. Montaigne's journalistic background prevails as he recounts the here and now (actually the then and there in '96) without fleshing things out into a more enduring book. So if you're looking for an analysis or current history of Russia's transition out of the Soviet period, you will probably not be satisfied with this book. Otherwise, I do recommend Reeling in Russia for those seeking a tale of adventures crossing the chaos and desolation of 'early post-Soviet Russia', in meeting some of the human faces of this extraordinary culture, or simply for fans of this diary style of travel writing.

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Summary: Excellent book on modern Russia
Review: In 1996 Montaigne, with fly rod in hand, traveled 7,000 miles overland across Russia. Fly fishing is one of his passions, and through fly fishing Montaigne encountered a fascinating array of post-Communist Russians and was granted a unique look at the turmoil and complexity of that society. And believe me, this was no pre-packaged tour of the Kola or Kamchata Peninsula (although he does visit both places.) This is a trek into the most remote and unwesternized reaches of Russia. Being fluent in Russian and possessing a well developed affection for adventure, Montaigne takes the reader into the real world Russia of today, a unique and exotic place full of surprises. Along the way he fishes for everything from steelhead to salmon, from grayling to taimen. To top it off he accomplishes this with wit and a writing style as finely tuned as Theroux. The great travel writers humanize the exotic. Reeling in Russia puts a face on the disturbing and difficult lives of the vast majority of Russians. The characters here become as knowable as neighbors and their concerns as human as our own.

Obviously, I loved Reeling in Russia. It is real pleasure to recommend it.

Grant McClintock

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Summary: "On the cheap" are the key words describing the author's jou
Review: One thing is clear: "Reeling in Russia is no "Year in Provence". It has no warmth, no charm and little humour. Instead, it is a painstakingly detailed account of a poorly planned journey across Russia. Granted, the author has courage: he dared go alone through a foreign country with bad roads and a poor infrastructure. His command of Russian seems amazing, his research of reference materials on the places he has visited is thorough, and his translations of Russian idioms are witty.

Intent on sharing his adventures, Fen Montaigne must have had trouble deciding what audience to aim at. The title of the book almost scared me away, for it suggests that the intended reader is a fly-fishing enthusiast. However, Mr. Montaigne is not an expert sportsman and hardly a connoisseur of intricacies of getting fish in Russia. As far as fly-fishing is concerned, his book just might be a HOW-NOT-TO guide, for the number of places he fishes far exceeds the actual catch.

Despite some interesting encounters and philosophical detours into the nature of Russia's present crisis, the prevailing feeling I experienced when reading the book was ever-growing irritation with the author. Determined to cross the country without spending a lot of money, he starts his journey at Solovetsky Islands and finishes it three months later in Kamchatka. He diligently transcribes names of all the people he comes across, illustrates his narrative with little-known facts, qoutes other travellers... yet "on the cheap" remain the key words. Aware of the low living standards of the tortured postcommunist country, Fen Montaigne is resolute to take advantage of hospitality of strangers and to pay them only when forced to. Instead of money, he relies on cheap presents and the magic of being the first American in the Siberian wilderness.

It is hard to imagine a Russian traveller traversing the vast territories of America in the hope that kind strangers would provide him with room, board, expertise and transportantion -- all free of charge. Yet, this is exactly what Mr. Montaigne has managed to do in Russia. On the rare occasion when he does encounter a man unwilling to render services for free the author is appalled: "Suddenly, it dawned on me. I would be paying for all this - the driver, the van, the cottage, the cook, the food, the sleazy services of Arthur". Excuse me, and what did the author expect - that poor out-of-work Arthur would pay for it himself out of friendship to a man he had never seen in his life?

The bill "sleazy Arthur" presented for a 5-day program of fishing and sightseeing was $950. "This was my budget for a month! This was a Russian pensioner's income for an entire year!" the author laments. A double standard is obviously in effect here. How many countries does Mr. Montaigne know where you can cover thousands of miles on $950 a month? Comparing the bill to the pensioner's income, the author is also well aware of the $250 a day charged by the only local fishing camp open to foreigners, and on the last stretch of his trip he joins American anglers who had paid "$5,500 apiece to fly-fish for the steelhead used in the study" by the joint Russian-American expedition. Dealing with the locals, however, he prefers to leave them with warm thank-yous and firm handshakes.

Having reached the Buryat Republic, the free-spirited Fen Montaigne meets Alexander Sedenov, uneployed, living on earnings from chopping firewood. Alexander ("Me, hotel. You - come"} opens his home ("a hovel") to the weary traveller and becomes his guide. He also introduces him to a professional hunter Valery who agrees to join them in search of fish and the deputy farm manager who provides transportation. After an interesting three-day fishing expedition, however, "everyone... had his hand out". Obviously, realizing that they were going to be stiffed, the locals started dropping "strong hints about wanting to be paid." As a result, one of them received about $40, and then the other two candidly admitted that if they were not paid for the trip they would think "oh, that greedy American!" Would they be right! Meanwhile the American feels offended because, you see, he has already given one of them "a dozen flies and some other presents" and "did not want to offend him by offering money". As a result, Valery received about $60 and Alexander slightly less. "I didn't mind parting with the money, but I did object to the constant hints that I ought to pay", the author writes. Well, man, if you had at least mentioned paying from the start, they wouldn't have had to hint, would they?

With the wealth of materials that the author had at his disposal, the book had all the chances to become a serious contribution to travel literature. It could have pained a vivid portrait of the great land in distress and of its hard-drinking, but kind and strong people. However, the petty considerations of Mr. Montaigne trying to save here and to freeload there overshadow everything else in the book. Even throughout his touching encounter with the former inmate of the Gulag who now lives as a hermit in the taiga, the reader is left wondering: did the author pay the old man for his stay? And if he did not want to offend his host with money, what did he leave him - a dozen of flies?