Customer Reviews

The Gentlemen's Society of Angling

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2 star:		(1)
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While this book has much about fly fishing, and a fascinating chapter on the crafting of bamboo fishing rods, it's really about the friendships between a group of men. It's a fine read, gentle and lyrical, and will take you to another time and place.

This novella weaves a narrator's present passion for angling with the history of a group of passionate anglers from a generation past. The plot is excellent: a westerner from Colorado visits Pennsylvania for a fly fishing vacation, and he and his fishing buddy discover the remains of an old cabin along a favorite stream, and within the cabin they find a worn, yet legible, fishing journal authored by a group of long gone fly fishers -- The Gentlemen's Society of Angling.

The book then travels back in time to their collective story through journal entries and historical narrative. There are so many fine stories: a man buys some land and builds a fishing cabin and is joined in the endeavor by the very same men who sold him the property; a man meets a master and becomes an apprentice rod builder; summer camp kids are taught to fish for trout. Jay Hill's warm, lyrical prose effectively and beautifully ties these threads together, and the finished tale of fly fishing, fly rod construction, and friendship is to literature what a masterfully tied Royal Coachman is to a fly fisher -- a work of Art with a capital A.

I wanted to enjoy this book, but the lack of good editing and the lack of continuity between mini-stories hurt the pleasure of reading the few good sections.

At one point, we were being told a story, about a story, of a story, of a story about a legend. The larger problem is that the author switches narrators, place, and time without any change in style. So the language and structure used by an Indian's mother is the same as a Pittsburgh banker.

Clearly the author is often writing about things outside his experience.