reviews

At the Grave of the Unknown Fisherman

By Scott Richmond

At the Grave of the Unknown Fisherman, by John Gierach. Published by Simon & Schuster. 184 pages in a 9 x 5.5 format; black-and-white drawings at chapter heads. $22.00 list price for hardbound edition. Available in many fly shops, some trade book stores, and online (google title and author).

om McGuane--no slouch of a writer himself--says this of John Gierach's At the Grave of the Unknown Fisherman: "The last time I saw John Gierach, he outfished me, and I'd really like to say something bad about his new book. Unfortunately, I have been taken in all over again by his amiable and humane storytelling, his deep and genuine knowledge of angling, as well as his success in finding meaning in what appears to be idleness approaching criminal negligence."

McGuane's statement pretty much summarizes my own opinion of Gierach's latest book, except that I've never fished with Gierach and have no motive for vengeance.

Not all anglers bear such good will--not because Gierach's outfished them but because he's lived the life they fantasize about. It would appear from his books that Gierach spends most of his time fly fishing, then sitting around writing books and essays that are snapped up by an admiring public. There's no mention of mowing the lawn, taking the kids to the dentist, command appearances at the spouse's social function, or the idiotic things that Management did today.

But before you blithely dump the job, the house, the marriage, and the kids so you can fish more and write about it, you have to recognize how hard it is to do what Gierach seems to do so effortlessly. You see, everyone wants to tell the story of his or her last fishing trip; the trick is get anyone to listen. And that's the genius of Gierach: he gets you to listen.

How does he do that? Simple! He doesn't tell us about his fishing trip. He tells us about our fishing trip.

Gierach understands angling and anglers so well that he finds and then concisely--and often humorously--describes the universal truths. Time and again you encounter some glittering nugget in his writings, and think, "Right! I've always believed that!" But until you read it in Gierach's book, you didn't realize you'd always believed it.

There's also a subjective element in Gierach's style that makes it our fishing trip: he uses the words "we" and "you" more often than "I." He's also funny and doesn't take himself too seriously. These are all rare qualities in a fishing writer.

It's these qualities that make Gierach such an "amiable and humane" storyteller, with a "deep and genuine knowledge of angling" and an "ability to find meaning", as McGuane credits him.

The Latest Gierach

At the Grave of the Unknown Fisherman takes a slightly different tack than Gierach's previous work. This time he takes us through a single fishing season, from the raw beginnings of early spring to an iffy New Year's Eve float.

However, this is not just a regurgitation of his fishing journal. Sometimes a current fishing trip is disposed of in a few sentences which then serve as a launching pad into a long discussion of some aspect of fly fishing. The details and experiences accumulate, and while you could read the chapters out of sequence and still make sense of it all, the book takes on more meaning when read from first page to last.

In the progress of the season, Gierach reveals a few more personal details than in previous books. For example, his fans will recall how Gierach lived across the street from a trout stream in a simple house (imagined to be a quaint log cabin) heated by a wood stove. It may have seemed idyllic and even enviable to his readers.

However, in this new book we find that the trout stream's gotten crowded, the fishing's gone to hell, and a landowner has put up "No Trespassing" signs on the best parts. Further, his house was at one time the cheapest dwelling in the county (read: run-down hovel, not quaint log cabin) and is inexorably falling into rot and ruin because Gierach is into fly fishing, not house maintenance. He's delivered from this situation by a Deus ex Texaco; you'll have to read the book to find out how it happens

From cutthroat to birch thickets, carp to fishing journals, Gierach explores the lakes, streams, and ethos of Western fly fishing. And it's a pleasurable and insightful journey, as always.

I asked a friend what he thought about At the Grave of the Unknown Fisherman. He loved it, but felt he as I did: that Gierach, who is now in his late fifties, is maturing as a person and as an author. That's not to imply that he was immature, but there's a certain depth and perspective that comes (one hopes!) with age. The gold separates from the dross and the really important things of life--the people, events, places and, above all, ideas and emotions--take on deeper meanings and significance.

So how does At the Grave of the Unknown Fisherman stack up against Gierach's previous thirteen fishing books? Pretty well, in my opinion. You'd think this guy would run out of things to write about, but he has such an inquiring and contemplative mind that he can always come up with something different to say and a satisfying way to say it.

 
See also Westfly's exclusive interview with John Gierach.

Bottom Line: Another enjoyable collection of Gierach's essays. Reviewer Rating: 5

Scott Richmond is Westfly's creator and Executive Director. He is the author of eight books on Oregon fly fishing, including Fishing Oregon's Deschutes River (second edition).

Uploaded 05/28/2003.

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