Customer Reviews

Batfishing in the Rainforest: Strange Tales of Travel and Fishing

5 star:		(5)
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Batfishing in the Rainforest is one of the funniest, most insightful and heart touching collections of essays I've ever read. After reading Mr. White's newest novel (The Mangrove Coast) I have now gone on a search for every book he's written, and Batfishing in the Rainforest is unlike anything he -- or anyone else -- has done. Mr. White wrote most of these essays while he was a fishing guide, he says, at a lovely old marina on Sanibel Island, the famous vacation spot in Florida. From that little marina, he ranged far afield, traveling around the world to write quirky stories for Outside Magazine. The first story in the collection, a tale about his hilarious dog, Gator, is absolutely unforgetable and well worth the price of admission. The stories which follow, although occasionally uneven, are always uniquely written, often funny and always intelligent. Mr. White is one of those writer we all love to "discover'. DAH

Batfishing in the Rainforest is a collection of Randy Wayne White's essays - some of them poignant ("the Legend", White's tale of his dog is fabulous), many of them gut-bustingly funny (his experiences at a health spa and advice on "How to be a Competent Southern Waterperson are priceless), a few had me shaking my head (how can a person be suprised they got mugged in Lima? and how come I never meet fun travel companions in third world countries?) All of them are a pleasure to read.

White never takes himself (or others) too seriously, and typically has a light and humorous take on things. The stories are brief - many originally written for Outdoor Magazine. I found the book thoroughly enjoyable and I strongly recommend it.

For those of you who are familiar with White's "Doc Ford" novels, you can see where many of his characters, plots and the "research" for his tales come from. For those readers who have not yet discovered this marvelous writer, I encourage you to begin here and then sample his hand at fiction.

Randy Wayne White has more hits than misses in this book of essays. He has an authentic American take on the world, with a Floridian's amusement and acceptance of foul weather, tough dogs, tougher kids, and bugs of all kinds. This book is a keeper, and we are lucky it has been reprinted. His mysteries are real good, too, but somehow I wish that he would take his gift more seriously. By that, I think he could be a major American literary force, if he didn't have to pay for braces, college tuition, and fishing gear. However, being sun dried, and wind weathered, he should last long enough to get back into that true and raw, and heart felt need to be a voice from the salt flats that reaches people in a Pulitzer kind of way.

When Tim Cahill took a sabatical at Outside Magazine R.W.W. filled in for him, or at least he tried to. This book is a collection of his writing for Outside, and it's a rather mixed bag. I'd categorize the articles into 3 classes - the slightly Reagan-esque, where Jane Fonda is still Hanoi Jane, where Navy SEALs are the most precious fruit of the human race, and where he is incredulous to the fact that Peruvians tried to mugg him in some dark corner of Lima. Rather annoying all in all to my liberal sensitivities. Then there is a second group of essays, the redneck-out-of-the-water pieces. White goes to a beauty farm or takes a yuppie cruise. Well, it's kind of funny, but it's been done before. Last then there are the pieces he has written about his life on the Florida Gulf Coast, and those are really, really great. White lists Steinbeck as one of his influences, and the way he writes about the people at his marina, the friends who use his kids for fly-fishing practice and his truely weird dog Gator are just plain wonderful, They indeed do remind me of "Cannery Row" and the other books about Monterey and Salinas. I have re-read these pieces again and again. It is kind of interesting to see how similar the mood of his real-life writing is to the Doc Ford mysteries. If you like everything about those, you'll love this book. If you dislike some aspects of the mysteries, well, you will still find bits and pieces in here that you'll like. But have a look at Tim Cahill's writing, too.

This is usually not my sort of book, but after reading the first story, I was hooked. This story, "The Legend," about the author's hilarious Chesapeake Bay retriever, is worth the price of the book by itself, especially if you're a dog lover or animal lover, because it's the best story about a dog, or any animal, that I've ever read.

But there is plenty more where that came from in this entertaining collection of essays. Although not what I was looking for initially, this book was a delightful surprise, and after reading this, Mr. White has another fan. I now intend to buy and read all of his other books, and I'm recommending him to my other friends as well.

I read this book when I was about 16 years old and then I read it again. Fifteen years later, I would not be a writer or a hunter or a hunting instructor if I had not read 'Batfishing in the Rainforest' at that age. I have still never gone fishing for tarpon, but reading that book led me to seek out and appreciate whatever odd fish might be wherever I happen to find myself. Even if its just bluegill and bullheads in a pond, the point is to have the right attitude and a sense of adventure about what you're doing. I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone with a strong interest in the outdoors.

Published in 1991 by Lyons & Burford (now Lyons Press, part of Globe Pequot Press), this was Randy's first non-fiction effort in book form. A longtime contributor to Outside magazine (which also launched the writing career of Jon Krakauer), he penned many of these stories originally for his "Out There" column.

In the tradition of great travel writing, we learn as much about the people--and, often in the case of RWW, the animals--he meets than we do about the places they live. Critics would make a valid point if they accused the author of machismo (think Robert Young Pelton's The World's Most Dangerous Places) but putting oneself in harm's way to get a good story is nothing new. Some selections are better than others but on average this is very enjoyable travel writing, and requires less investment than Theroux or certainly Chatwin.

Rather than risk ruining the plot of these short stories, I will list the titles and leave it at that. I have starred my favorites in each of the three sections.


ON THE LAND

The Legend *
Sweat Shop
The Boys of Autumn
Crocodiles at Home
New Mexico Connection
The Swamp Ape
They Shall Inherit
Hanoi Jane Goes to Shooting School


ON THE WATER

How to Be a Competent Southern Waterperson
The Big Book *
Coming to America
Lessons in White-Water Style
Navy SEALs
The Great Equalizer
The Outward Bound Mutiny
The Best Tarpon Fisherman in Singapore


ON THE ROAD

Curse of the Artifact Hunters
Guatemala, Guatemala,
The Strange Mammals of Ningaloo
The Sickness of Peru
To Say the Tiger's Name
Jumping with the Polar Bears *
Batfishing in the Rain Forest

An absolute MUST READ for anyone with a sense of adventure. Makes me want to jump in my plane and head back into the Caribbean...or Bluefields...or Montego Bay...or Medelin.........oops! Can't go back there.

Rick Magers
[...]

Some dated material, but hindsight gives special interest to some of these travels. Great writing is always a pleasure.