The Longest Silence: A Life in Fishing

McGuane has a gift for language, and a deep love for fishing, and these conspire to produce one of the finest collections of fishing essays produced to date. I was hooked, no pun intended, from the opening Authors notes, in which McGuane writes of the modern weekend fisherman in less than flaterring terms as "lip rippers" and the mindless, and careless way in which fisherman wish to "drain the pool" with no concern or thought for the conservation of, or care for this fish itself; an opinion I share with the author, but have never been abble to express quite as elegantly. From there the book is a series of beautifully written accounts of fishing trips, fisherman, rivers, creeks and the fish themselves. Mcguane is clearly a conservationist at heart, as much in love with protecting his catch as much as fishing for it, as it should be. This book will, or perhaps has become a classic among anglers for it's rich prose and themes, along with McGuanes own style and flair that bring his writing to live, be it fiction or not.

Lovers of fishing and outdoors essays will enjoy this book. While McGuane doesn't have the laid-back humor of Gierach, he has a great eye for detail and his prose immerses you into his scenes. As an example, here's an excerpt I like from a story about fishing in early spring: "This was a wonderful time to find yourself astream. You didn't bump into experts. You didn't bump into anybody. You could own this place in your thoughts as completely as a Hudson Bay trapper. The strangely human killdeer were all over the place, human in that their breeding activities were accompanied by screaming fights and continuous loud bickering. When they came in for a landing, their wings set in a quiet glide while their legs ran frantically in midair. The trees in the slower bends were in a state of pick-up sticks destruction from the activity of beavers. A kingfisher flew over my head with a trout hanging from its bill. I came around a bend without alerting three more geese, floating in a backwater, sound asleep with their heads under their wings. I decided not to wake them. I ended my day right there." Great cure for cabin fever, and very rereadable.

I skipped through several of the chapters because I wanted a read on trout fishing but I was surprised I enjoyed many of the chapters on the Keys and salmon fishing so much. The author is an English professor so the writing style is a challenge to absorb at times. Still an enjoyable read if not a page turner.

Perfect.

If you both like to read and like to fish, this is a book that must be on your shelves, and in your backpack. It is a truly lyrical book about the mysterious, I might almost say mystical, sport of angling. McGuane's literary output over a lifetime has been consistently excellent, with such classics as the early, Florida-centric Ninety-Two in the Shade, and Panama. And then came the later, Montana-centric classics of Nobody's Angel and the Bushwahcked Piano. But The Longest Silence is in a class of its own: a loving, measured and extremely nuanced paean to the great meditative and athletic sport that fishing is. A great pairing for this book is Norman Maclean's A River runs through It. These are guy books, mostly, and perfect for guy book clubs. And they are perfect for readers of The Garden Interior, too, because they have something interesting in common. Fishing is not really about catching a fish, of course, except in a most primitive and simplistic sense; it is about the interior life of the fisherman and what is going on in his heart and mind during the long silences between intermittent bouts of angling action. In just the same way, gardening is about the interior life of the gardener more than it is about a trophy flower or fresh tomatoes on the table. McGuane is on our wavelength, as you will see from the first page of this lyrically beautiful book of thirty-some essays written over thirty years about fishing all over the world. You will be hooked.

Purchased for Dad, nice read apparently.

Great

All good. Took a but to get here, but all good.

Excellent

Really enjoyed reading this extremely well written and informative book.