Dark Waters [Paperback]

Russell Chatham (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 205 pages
• Publisher: Clark City Pr (October 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0944439039
• ISBN-13: 978-0944439036
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #908,438 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "It is always the dark water which promises the most.", November 3, 2009

By 

John P. Jones III (Albuquerque, NM, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dark Waters (Paperback)

Russell Chatham is best known for his landscape paintings, but he has also written a few books. Dark Waters is a collection of essays that "clicked." I recently wrote a review of George Will's "Men at Work," which explained the WHY of baseball, why some people find it fascinating, what really is the intellectual component of the game. To coin a phrase, Russell Chatham is no George Will (and I think the former would take solace in that), but he has performed a similar task for me by these essays - he has explained the intellectual component of fishing, and that it is not merely a matter of throwing a line in the water and waiting, bored.

Chatham "range" includes the Yellowstone River, San Francisco bay and far off New Zealand and Iceland. His writing style, and no doubt his fishing style, is lively, and full of wit. The essay, "The World's Greatest Trout Stream" is a fine piece of writing, as is "An Angler's Afternoon." There are numerous black and white pictures that accompany the essays, which give a solid feel to this wonderful avocation, and I think the finest is one of the author's, entitled "Duck Hunting in Marin County." But avocation is too mild a word, as the Chatham says in the introduction, "Fishing... is not a hobby, a diversion, a pastime, a sport, an interest, a challenge, or an escape. Like painting, it is a necessary passion."

Chatham is also a master epicurean, and one of the very finest essays ever written on this topic, in his wonderful earthy style is the first one in the book, entitled "The Great Duck Misunderstanding." It is two guys who actually know how to cook wild duck, the required high temperature at the beginning, and the careful preparation of ingredients. Chatham contrasts the joys of this meal with other spectacular pleasures of the flesh that all too often move men, and since he was in a position to choose only one, he chose the duck, washed down with some Chateauneuf-du-Pape. As he says: "When you consider the great cuisines of the world, notably those of the Orient and France, many of the finer dishes are made with duck. In a sense, duck is to chicken what pork is to veal. It has extraordinary texture and flavor."

In another part of the preface Chatham says that he has not come to terms yet with the suicide of his long-time friend and fishing companion, Richard Brautigan, whose most famous book is "Trout Fishing in America," a counterculture classic. Likewise, the person who gave me this book, an avid fisherman who knew that I did not understand, recently chose the same exit as Brautigan; life's games had run out before the life did, and so he joined Brautigan in the Dark Waters, seeking promises, or at least an end to the anguish that fishing itself could no longer assuage.

Thanks to both of them for the memories, and the inspirations.