On David James Duncan’s The River Why:

Duncan does a nice job of wording his thoughts in this book. I was forced to read this for an unwanted fishing class and the fishing thing gets annoying after awhile. If this had less fishing and more soul searching, I might have liked it more. I apologize to the sick cult that likes this book.

Anyone interested in an Official Creek Running North Unwanted Fishing Class? Getting people to read The River Why is one of my minor goals in life.

1. 
   de Selby 2007 08 16 at 10:40:00 pm

   I haven’t read Duncan’s book. In my younger days, though, I found The Curtis Creek Manifesto an invaluable aid in helping me digest the experience of Northern New Mexico.

   I’m old now, and my sight falls differently on the world.

2. 
   bdaggerlee 2007 08 17 at 10:31:17 am

   Was this dude sentenced to “unwanted” Fishing Class, like being sentenced to Traffic School?

   For fishing under the influence, or something?

   Cause I really hate it when I’m sentenced to read books.  I feel like it should just be time served.

3. 
   Violet Socks 2007 08 17 at 1:27:58 pm

   Is that review from Henry Raddick?

4. 
   kathy a 2007 08 17 at 2:32:19 pm

   what bdl said.  the review is a prize-winner, though.  all that forced-fish-reading was not totally lost to the greater good of the easily-amused portion of humanity.

5. 
   Rob G 2007 08 18 at 5:13:57 am

   What’s this? More self-actualization achieved via the gratuitous maiming of countless innocent fish? Get with it, people! Sign on to the Fish Empathy Project now!

   It’s time to get newspapers to “either dump their fishing columns or relegate them to the crime and obituary sections where they belong”.

6. 
   JP Stormcrow 2007 08 19 at 10:22:30 am

   Sounds like an interesting read. And here I thought Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America would be the first and last tangentially about fishing in the Northwest “novel” I would read. (ignoring A River Runs Through It as being too explicitly about the fishing.)

   I wish that I could get hold of the entire review from Fly Fisherman magazine which is excerpted on the back of my copy of Trout Fishing:

   Reading Trout Fishing in America won’t help you catch more fish, but it does have something to do with trout fishing.

7. 
   embee 2007 08 19 at 12:33:27 pm

   One of my favorite books, many years ago—I lost track of it, and now must go find and reread it.  Thanks for the reminder!

8. 
   rrp 2007 08 19 at 8:40:45 pm

   The cult accepts his grudgin apology.

   Seriously, the world would be a better place if more people read The River Why