Some of the Words…
I often read passages and sections from Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It. What so often jumps out at me about great narrative writing is how even the sparsest language can convey sweeping ideas and emotions. Many who have read (or seen) River Runs are familiar with the opening and closing lines. The close is one of the greatest assemblies of five words that I have ever heard (at least for someone whose life is inextricably linked to water). But there are also other slivers of the text that carry the weight of a mind full of questions. One of my favorites:
“A river, though, has so many things to say that it is hard to know what it says to each of us.”
I have so many rivers in my head, flowing through my past, that I often feel overwhelmed by the thought of what each says to me. So many are tied to times and experiences that have defined my life. Others are part of memories that I fear I may never have the chance to live again. And a few remind me of days that I know are gone, of moments, friends, and words that have passed into silence forever. Rivers do say many things to each of us, that is sure. Some of the words pass by without consideration, but a few can shape our lives in ways we only later come to know. I suppose that Norman felt much of the same looking back at those days of his youth, and the loss that haunted him for so long.
Hi Jason,you are so right about “River.”A good movie,a GREAT book!The opening line,”In my family,there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing” hooks you and pulls you in all the way to the last few paragraphs,which is one of my favorite passages in all of literature(and i’ll admit,makes me misty-eyed everytime I read it).To the casual observer,it’s a fly-fishing book,but it’s greatness lies in it’s true scope;part memoir,a requiem for a lost brother and the story of an American family.No one who’s ever stood in a river and truly contemplated it can deny that the river itself is a living thing.Like R.Haig-Brown said”Perhaps I fish only to be nearer to rivers.If so, I’m glad I thought of it.”
Bob—I cannot read River without feeling something that goes far beyond the story or the characters. And even with all of Norman’s words that go so deep, there is still that feeling that he somehow wants to say more. It’s like a yearning that strains under the words, but cannot be expressed. Being on a river seems to at least ease some of that feeling, but it never goes away. I think Haig-Brown also knew that yearning…
I find Maclean’s novella to be a reaching out for the transcendent.
Another quote: “Even so, in a typical week of our childhood Paul and I probably received as many hours of instruction in fly fishing as we did in all other spiritual matters.”
Is fly fishing a spiritual matter? Is that just a clever turn of phrase? Or does it mean we give ourselves to things of this world with religion-like fervor? Or is fly fishing or writing a book or producing a film a spiritual matter? Is going to school or the office or the factory or raising the children a spiritual matter? What is not a spiritual matter? Or to put it another way, is there one cubic inch in the universe that does not belong to God? Does not even a river tell us something about the God who made it?
Dan—I think that the final few sentences sum up that deep desire of reaching out, especially the way he phrases, “Eventually all things merge into one…” So many powerful ideas of human/spiritual experience encapsulated in that closing.
The idea of the spiritual link to fly fishing (noting the use of “all other” which connects directly to the spiritual), certainly comes through the book in various places, including the strongly transcendent shadow cast scene. The description Norman uses there is well above what is included in the film. I think he makes some very interesting word choices—“a halo of himself,” “candlelight flickering” and “images…disappearing into the rising vapors”—which are not just “flowery prose.”
So many essays could be written about “River,” I think…
Thanks, Jason, for provoking our thoughts.
Dan—My pleasure, and my thanks to you and Bob for engaging here with some deeper discourse…