A Modern Master

By Stephen Bodio

Live Water
Thomas McGuane
Meadow Run Press, $50 cloth, ISBN 1-886967-02-4
Paintings and Drawings by John Swan

Every so often a book comes along that is so good that all you can do is say a quiet "thank you." This book, without a doubt, will make my top 10 list of books for 1996; not just my top 10 fly-fishing books, either. One of my all-time top 10 modern sporting books has been McGuane's Outside Chance, which first came out in 1980. And now he's gone and written a better one. I'm admiring, and green with envy.

Live Water is a collection of essays, on fly-fishing only, some of which have been published before. On the face of it, this would make for a lesser book than most "written-in-one-piece" books, and maybe because of its more restrictive emphasis, than Outside Chance, which also covers bird and big-game hunting, rodeo, horses, even motorcycles. I went in expecting to revisit a series of graceful essays, packaged conveniently in a typical fine Meadow Run boxed edition, with nice art and paper.

And all that is there.

But, well, first I read the intro, which I figured would be new. Before I finished that, McGuane had me convinced that I would read the essays with an intensity that I don't--can't --bring to every fishing book. He told a few good tales in it, including one of a steelhead angler who asked him for a fish for his parents (McGuane was releasing his fish) but then told him to go ahead and let it go because it wasn't a native!

But the item in the intro that promised to illuminate the whole collection was this:

Early on, I decided that fishing would be my way of looking at the world.

When a serious novelist says that about any sport, it's time to listen.

First, I decided to look at two essays. I chose the first, Izaak Walton's "The Compleat Angler," because I had skimmed it in a store, and almost bought another edition of the book because of it, and the second, "Foundationless Options," because I hadn't seen it.

The Compleat Angler essay is unusual for McGuane in that it is almost literary-scholarly, though that term hardly does it justice. He makes some sharp observations:

Two things from Walton seem contemporary: the flies and the recipes: the first, hooks wrapped in bits of silk and songbird wings, are a kind of poetic intuition for breaking down the watery walls. The recipes seem the product of avid reflection as to what a predator ought to do with his prey in a manner complimentary to the destiny of each.

His summing-up is perfect:

The subject of "The Compleat Angler" is, really, everyday miracles, friends, a dry, warm house, remembered verse, hope.

He sent me back to the old book for the first time in years.

"Foundationless Options" is also an odd one. In it, McGuane does what I have always hoped a favorite writer would do for his tackle (or guns): he describes every rod he uses, and why. He has sensible ideas that jibe with mine ("A rod better have a great reason for being over nine feet or under eight.").

He expands on this, also sensibly:

. . . a trout fisherman can do it all with a nine-foot for a six-line . . . A nine-foot for an eight-weight will cover most of the rest . . . I have seen tarpon over one hundred twenty-five pounds landed on eight-weights.

But then he says:

I know, nobody's listening. But I'm giving you very good advice. Is it because I have about twenty rods?

And then he describes them all! And includes his reasons:

I have an eight-foot Garrison for a size-six line. I keep this and still use it because it is so full of fishing memories. . . . I have a six-foot three-inch Bob Summers' "Midge" because it reminds me of my original fly shop. . . . I have a seven- and-a -half-foot Payne, two-piece, for a five because I always wanted a Payne and even named the hero of one of my novels after this maker.

And so on. Once he even sounds desperate:

A nine-foot two-piece Payne light salmon for an eight-line . . . . It's beautiful with a detachable fighting butt, ferrule plugs, case, and canvas overcase. It weighs the same as a thirteen-weight billfish rod. What will I do with it? I've got to come up with something.

Ah, to have such problems.

So now I know the book is worth buying. I go on to essays I think I've read before. The first one I try is "Fly Fishing the Evil Empire." It opens with a fine series of scenes set in Helsinki. I don't remember them.

He goes on to Russia, where he begins to discuss taimen. Well, Russia is a personal obsession of mine. I don't remember taimen, either; you'd think that I'd remember a fish like this:

The Russians, he explained with ill-concealed disgust, waited until the taimen made his first jump, and then let him have it with a twelve-gauge. It was the only way to land them . . .

I spent the rest of the day reading in delight, dredging up more fishing, more natural history, more conservation, more odd sociology (from tiny dirty pictures in Patagonia to the fact that more accidental fires in Russia are started by exploding television sets than by any other cause), more sheer color and invention than I remembered, even though I had enjoyed the pieces before. Was I suffering from Alzheimer's, alcohol-induced memory loss, fishing essay burnout?

Finally, I called the author and confirmed the following. Virtually all the essays that had appeared in magazines had been trimmed down to arbitrary length by editors uninterested in anything other than straight fishing. What this says about most magazines (FR&R being an exception with more good invention and digression in it than many more pretentiously "literary" ones I could name) is another thing. Why are editors denying us the essayist's sacred prerogative of digression and detail?

Enough! All this, with good fishing, fine description (a great horned owl "with her yellow eyes, looks like the wife of Satan"), a handsome package, and illustrations by John Swan. Essays you'll want to read aloud, and again.

My only--tiny--complaint is that the copy-editing could use a little work. Modern times. . . . RWOL

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