[.ca] A River Runs Through It (ISBN 1598870335)

From Amazon.com:
Beginning with the memorable line, "In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing," Maclean paints an evocative portrait of the sons of a small-town Montana minister, two brothers headed in very different directions. Fly-fishing for trout is one thing that unites father and sons, and, in the end, it is the language of the river that provides understanding and acceptance in the most difficult of times. A River Runs Through It is arguably the best piece of fly-fishing literature ever written, and the paperback edition includes two great non-fly fishing stories.

One quote sticks out...:
One passage amoungst many sticks out from this book that is full of wisdom if you take the time to read closely and relate it to the many aspects of your life and the lives of others: He thought back on what had happened like a reporter. He started to answer, shook his head when he found he was wrong, and then started to answer. "All there is to thinking," he said, "is seeing something noticeable which makes you see something you weren't noticing which makes you see something that isn't even visible." This book should be read by anyone seeking an understanding of life. If you've seen the movie, give the book a try. The combination of both will give a feel for a moment in one man's life and a lifetime of reflection. Both are superb!

Ten stars. He makes me jealous of his talent:
I'm a writer, and occasionally I write a sentence or paragraph - or even several pages, now and then - that I think read quite well. But then, when I read the writing of someone like Normal Maclean, I consider throwing in the towel in recognition of the fact that, no matter how long I try, I'll never write that beautifully. Of course, the title story in this rather small book, A River Runs Through It, is known to the majority of literate people in the US, and not just because of the marvelous movie made from the novella. But this book has other stories as well. Maclean used his teenage experience working for logging operations and the US Forestry Service as the foundation for a couple of the other loooong stories included in this collection. And, get this: even the Acknowledgments section is worth a careful read; it reads like another essay, in itself. Normal Maclean, to me, seems to have some of the attributes of E. B. White, specifically the ability to take something concrete and mundane, like fly fishing or packing mules for a 3-day walk into the Montana mountains, and, with the lyricism and beauty and skill of his writing, make it soar into the ethereal world of Universal Truth. Don't believe me? Read it and see for yourself.

i actualy read it:
in this book a river runs thought is about a man who is trying to cope with his brothers death. the back drop of the story is fly-fishing and it is sometimes confused with the real meaning of the story. i think that the real meaning of the story is that life is all about building relationships and keeping them strong.

A book you will read more than once.:
Norman Maclean began writing late in life, passing away not long after penning this extraordinary piece, depriving us of his gift just as he arrived. The book is actually three short stories but the focus is clearly on the novella "A River Runs Through It". On the surface, the title story is his recollections of his father, a Presbyterian minister, and his troubled but talented brother, with whom he fished. Set in the Montana of Maclean's youth, he paints exquisitely vivid and beautiful word pictures of a land and water and family now gone. At the core is the frustration of the often-futile attempt of trying to help another or trying to save a loved one from their self-destruction. There are passages here which are as wonderfully written as anything in English. Not a page passes without discovering a superbly crafted gem. "So it is...that we can seldom help anybody. Either we don't know what part to give or maybe we don't like to give any part of ourselves. Then, more often than not, the part that is needed is not wanted. And even more often, we do not have the part that is needed." "It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us." Throughout the tale, his life, his religion, his family, his fly-fishing are metaphors, each for the other. And the words of each are heard in the waters and stone of the rivers. He is haunted, he tells us, by waters. I am haunted by his words which approach poetry.

A Beautiful account of the American West in a changing time:
A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean is a beautiful recollection of the authors life living in the wilderness of western Montana. Norman's father teaches him and his brother Paul the art of flyfishing. He teaches it as a form of perfection, but Paul cannot extend it into the rest of his life and in the end, nobody could help him. The river brings three extroidinary but different men together. The last sentence "im haunted by waters" is a beautiful yet erie sum of the entire book. A beautiful piece of american literature.