2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It has to be my favorite, November 17, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: Norman Maclean Reading: A River Runs Through It (Excerpts) Young Men and Fire (Work in Progress) (Audio Cassette)
When I first saw the movie, I thought to myself, is there a book. Well there is one, it is the most accurate desription of the way a fly-fisherman thinks, feels,is. Like the way a rod feels in your hands, what to do if you hooka big brown trout. I know because that is my life. This book surpases even "My Name is Asher Lev".
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unpretentious but great modern classic, December 28, 2005
This review is from: Norman Maclean Reading: A River Runs Through It (Excerpts) Young Men and Fire (Work in Progress) (Audio Cassette)
Please note that I limit my remarks to the main excerpted novel.
I've often heard that this is a superbly crafted novel, and it announces this from the very opening sentence, almost the way Gravity's Rainbow did with the infamous line, "A screaming comes across the sky." But unlike the prolix Pynchon, McLean is an author of deliberate economy and calculated brevity, which he knows how to put to good use. As a result, McLean knows how to tell a good story, and this tale certainly ranks as one of the greatest of the many works inspired by the venerated hobby of fly-fishing.
Speaking for myself, I'm willing to compromise on certain things. For example, I'm willing to sacrifice craftsmanship for creativity, and an author who shows great originality or even brilliance but is a little rough around the edges formally or stylistically, is probably even rarer. You can see this in certain composers, too. For example, Beethoven's transitions are sometimes a little rough, unlike Mendelsohn's or Schubert's, who, like McLean, show superior craftsmanship here. But there's no doubt that Beethoven was the greater composer of the three (although all three are certainly great composers). Also, Schubert had a truly artesian gift for coming up with melodies that even his mentor, Beethoven, lacked. And yet Beethoven is still the greater composer because of his other many strengths.
But before I wander too far into the muddy Elysian fields of comparative aesthetics, McLean's book has become a classic of northwestern writing, and many think it belongs in the Pantheon of great American literature, an elevated position the pragmatic and unpretentious Scottsman in McLean might have regarded with a somewhat jaundiced eye. But as a friend of mine once remarked, unlike Barth's later books, whose literary merit rarely exceeds their pretentions, McLean's book transcends the fly-fishing genre, exceeding its modest aspirations to become a truly great novel in its own right. Overall it's a finely crafted, unpretentious, but great little modern classic.
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