From its first magnificent sentence, "In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing", to the last, "I am haunted by water...
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Dec 15, 2011
Gavin
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My younger brother and I had a conversation growing up that went something like this:
Him: “I can’t wait to get out of here. I’m never coming back when I leave. What about you?”
Here I would always put on the most innocent of grins and reply: “Oh, I’ll never leave South Dakota, brother. It needs me here, like I need it.”
At that we would both start laughing because he knew I had just done a poor impression of Norman talking to his own brother, Paul, the myster More...
Him: “I can’t wait to get out of here. I’m never coming back when I leave. What about you?”
Here I would always put on the most innocent of grins and reply: “Oh, I’ll never leave South Dakota, brother. It needs me here, like I need it.”
At that we would both start laughing because he knew I had just done a poor impression of Norman talking to his own brother, Paul, the myster More...
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Aug 16, 2010
Dan
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Growing up, while the rest of my family hated the movie, I have always been inexplicably attracted to its ideas. Whenever it was on the TV, I had to sneak down to the basement to watch it. The film is one of the few out there that can speak to my innermost soul.
I finally read the book a few years ago, and found a profundity that the film barely touched. It is difficult to put into words the reason why this is one of the most significant books in my life. The plot seems common enough More...
I finally read the book a few years ago, and found a profundity that the film barely touched. It is difficult to put into words the reason why this is one of the most significant books in my life. The plot seems common enough More...
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Dec 16, 2009
Jean
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this is one of those books my mother has been telling me to read for what feels like my whole life. the opening sentence, about jesus' disciples being fly fisherman and john, the favorite, being a dry-fly fisherman, was quoted and referred to on the screen porch in the afternoon, at the dinner table in the evening, and in the morning on the way to church. naturally, i have fought reading it tooth and nail.
but mama was right. it is unbelievable. the title story is beautiful and More...
but mama was right. it is unbelievable. the title story is beautiful and More...
Dec 17, 2009
Timothy
rated it: 
There is a rawness to the stories that Norman Maclean tells in this collection. He lived the stories 30 or 40 years before he wrote them into this book. His writing is poetry, harsh and spare. It reminds me a little bit of Hemingway but with a more refined sense of place. Hemingway seemed to be searching for something or trying to find himself in the places he traveled. Maclean knew who he was and where he was. And where he was is the Montana that many people in other parts of this country think
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Feb 19, 2012
Kinga
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This book features one novella and a couple of short stories and they are mostly about fly-fishing, logging (before the invention of a chainsaw), and the early days of United States Forest Service. It goes into fine details of casting line (which apparently is "an art that is performed on a four-count rhythm between ten and two o'clock"), finding a good sawing partner and ideal sawing rhythm, and the methods of extinguishing wildfires in the early twentieth century; generally the sort
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Jan 26, 2012
Christopher
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Every word of this story fits precisely with the one before and after it. The result is a seamless whole that carries the reader through time and place into the soul of the River itself. The book IS a River. And I am haunted by its waters.
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Jun 29, 2010
Bucko
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"You like to tell true stories, don't you?" he asked, and I answered, " Yes, I like to tell stories that are true."
Then he asked, "After you have finished your true stories sometime, why don't you make up a story and the people to go with it."
"Only then will you understand what happened and why."
Many people think that this book is a memoir, but it is not. Norman Maclean did have a brother named Paul, and that brother was murdered i More...
Then he asked, "After you have finished your true stories sometime, why don't you make up a story and the people to go with it."
"Only then will you understand what happened and why."
Many people think that this book is a memoir, but it is not. Norman Maclean did have a brother named Paul, and that brother was murdered i More...
Sep 24, 2007
Leftbanker
rated it:
I really, really fucking hate to fish, but. Can you end a sentence with "but?" Did I write that correctly with the quotation marks? Do you see what I'm doing here? I'm using humor to avoid talking about my real feelings.
When I first read this book I was on a cross-country flight. I was just finishing it when we began our descent. I was tearing up, and not because I was glad to see the sprawl of Los Angeles again. That last part when he is out fishing alone and everyone More...
When I first read this book I was on a cross-country flight. I was just finishing it when we began our descent. I was tearing up, and not because I was glad to see the sprawl of Los Angeles again. That last part when he is out fishing alone and everyone More...
Jul 07, 2011
Sean
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This book is so good I have trouble telling people about it. This might be because it is so easy to start off with, "Well, it's this book about fly fishing..." The truth is the book IS about fly fishing: but more than that it is about life, family, love, brotherhood, and growing up. It is the first novel the University of Chicago Press published, and if you read it, you'll understand why. The lyricism of the words, the eloquence of the imagery, and the poignancy of the story combin
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Apr 30, 2008
Stephanie
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It's easy to allow yourself to get bored with this one. But push through it; you won't regret it. This is a story about two brothers who grow up fly fishing, and they're taught by their minister father how physical grace and spiritual grace can become the same thing through fishing. It's a beautiful story. It got me to thinking about what in my life helps me gain physical and spiritual grace at the same time. What's the one thing you do that is spiritual to you, but maybe not to anyone else. The
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Nov 12, 2011
Diannemason
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This was a fantastic read, especially the title story. Norman Maclean spins the sad saga of his family with a respect and richness rarely found in modern literature. His ability to capture the Montana of his youth is nothing short of amazing as he winds the rivers and mountains around his family to a point that they're all inseperable characters of the story.
While the second story, Your Pal Jim, is lacking in most of the qualities that make 'A River Runs Through It' so great, it's short a More...
While the second story, Your Pal Jim, is lacking in most of the qualities that make 'A River Runs Through It' so great, it's short a More...
Feb 18, 2008
Brian
rated it: 
The story is different from the movie, if I remember the movie right. Well, okay, the movie I think, for once, is longer than the story. Meaning the movie makers embellished the movie a bit.
I could be wrong.
The book - at least the title story - is a wonderful portrait of the family members knowing and loving each other and being inable to communicate. Framed in river metaphors, fishing metaphors, and succinct, beautiful descriptions of fly fishing, fish and rivers in Montana.
I could be wrong.
The book - at least the title story - is a wonderful portrait of the family members knowing and loving each other and being inable to communicate. Framed in river metaphors, fishing metaphors, and succinct, beautiful descriptions of fly fishing, fish and rivers in Montana.
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Feb 20, 2012
David
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I fell in love with the film based on this book when it came out in 1992. It was only then i realised that the film was based on Norman Maclean's book. I was in America for the whole summer of 1995 staying with my Uncle who then lived in Montana. I asked him about the book and yes, he had it, and gave it to me. It's a treasured possession. I even visited the location of one of the fishing scenes from the film. It was in the Gallatin Canyon on the Gallatin River south of Bozeman, a truly stunning
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Aug 24, 2011
James
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This is one of my favorite of all books, best known for the novella that opens the book and provides its title. It may be a book that could only have been written by someone in his seventies, as Maclean was when he began it. On the surface, it's a story about Maclean, his gifted but fundamentally flawed brother, their father, the land that they loved and the religion of fly fishing that bound them together. But it's also a book that has a great deal to say about the bonds that tie family members
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Jun 06, 2011
Nathan
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The story of brothers has always been fascinating to me - I still believe it to be one of the most formative, aggressive, and comforting relationships a person (I suppose I can only speak for males here) can experience. The competitiveness, the constant yearning to impress the other while still holding yourself apart, the simultaneous desire to win the validation of parents over the other, the need to have a friend, an adversary, a...brother - these are all inimitably wrapped up in the fraterna
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Aug 02, 2010
Chandra
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I feel that this book has a target audience: people who like fly fishing, and that's it. I mean, I get that there are family aspects and even some stuff about religion. But it's buried under so much crap about fly fishing that by the time it gets to anything else, you don't really care, because you know the book is going to go right back to freaking fly fishing. I mean, the book even kind of sums up if a person is "beautiful" or "a bastard" due to how much the like fly fishin
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May 12, 2009
Sam
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This is a story of two boys who grow up with the authority of a Presbyterian Minister. They were given the same instruction as children growing up and turned out so different. One was a daredevil determined to challenge the world. The other became a writer and reflective. The two of them could not have been any different.
This novel shares how each of us have a built in path that has to be followed. It is the destiny of us all to fulfill and express our own uniqueness in the world. A More...
This novel shares how each of us have a built in path that has to be followed. It is the destiny of us all to fulfill and express our own uniqueness in the world. A More...
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Oct 02, 2011
Guy
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I found that this book did not in any way live up to its hype. If I hadn't come in with such high expectations I might have given this 3 stars. And that's not to say that the book wasn't in places well written. It had a gentle use of language that was pleasant, but the story wound up making me feel completely dissatisfied. It struck me as being in the very worst of ways a typically sentimental American book. In a sense, Henry James but with the smell of small town rural America. By this I meant
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Jun 14, 2011
Audrey
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I needed an audio book for my drive to Indiana for my Grandpa's funeral. Fly fishing had been on my mind because of a few mentions in recent books, and I wanted a book that dealt with water. My route north follows the path of the Mississippi River backwards and then breaks at the convergence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to follow that of the Ohio and smaller tributaries all the way to Loogootee. Seven years ago, my Grandpa and I plotted that course, and he told me story after story of the
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Oct 10, 2010
Longfellow
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"A River Runs Through It" is one of the best written stories I've ever read. Nearly a third of its 105 pages are spent describing fly fishing outings in minute detail. Having never had this experience myself, I nonetheless leaned forward, spellbound, as I read. Even these details weave perfectly into the larger focus of the story, subtly showing the beautiful relationship between two brothers and their father.
Two more stories remain to be read in this short collection, but I More...
Two more stories remain to be read in this short collection, but I More...
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Jul 07, 2011
Linda
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"In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others .... I am haunted by rivers."
And so begins master storyteller Norman Maclean's tale of his family in early 20th century Montana. The book is a classic.
And so begins master storyteller Norman Maclean's tale of his family in early 20th century Montana. The book is a classic.
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Jul 07, 2011
Miles
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I'm convinced that this book is one of the most underrated American novels of all time.
I became acquainted with A River Runs Through It by way of an old audio book. I was traveling across the state of Washington, over the Cascade mountains, heading on a seven hour drive from my parents' house in southeast Washington towards college in Bellingham, WA (~2 hrs north of Seattle). School was about to start. I was 19 years old.
I forgot about the distance; the book pulled me in from More...
I became acquainted with A River Runs Through It by way of an old audio book. I was traveling across the state of Washington, over the Cascade mountains, heading on a seven hour drive from my parents' house in southeast Washington towards college in Bellingham, WA (~2 hrs north of Seattle). School was about to start. I was 19 years old.
I forgot about the distance; the book pulled me in from More...
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Jan 31, 2012
Andy
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One of my all time favorite books. There is no other work of fiction that has occupied more of my time than this one.
Having grown up with 5 younger brothers, and all of us having found different paths - this book really hits home. Norman's approach is one that speaks to me, so much so that I've memorized the last aragraph and recite it to remember our place in all of this, remember my place.
*not a spoiler-
"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river ru More...
Having grown up with 5 younger brothers, and all of us having found different paths - this book really hits home. Norman's approach is one that speaks to me, so much so that I've memorized the last aragraph and recite it to remember our place in all of this, remember my place.
*not a spoiler-
"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river ru More...
Aug 28, 2007
John
rated it:
Technically, I only read the title story of this collection, but it makes up most of the book, so I don't feel that bad about putting in my "read" shelf. The story is beautifully written, and from the first pages, you want to get out on the river and start fishing. It's definitely worth the time to read. In fact, I'll probably check out the movie now, too.
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Nov 02, 2010
Matthew
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I was assigned to read this book my sophomore year in high school, and to be honest I barely remember the plot. Why I am writing about what I learned from this book is how effective nostalgia, and images associated with that, can be. When I think of this book my heads gets filled with beautiful images of secluded rivers and streams in Montana and someone standing in the river fly-fishing on a late-afternoon sunny summer day. The book is incredibly popular among fisherman, because of the nostalgi
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Sep 07, 2010
Rob
rated it:
I probably won't win a lot of friends on this one, but here we go:
"A River Runs Through It" is a humorless, hick version of the incomparably superior journey of self-discovery and fly fishing, The River Why. I grimly struggled through the awkward prose, puzzling imagery and aimlessly wandering storyline in search of deeper meaning, and found it, but my soul was not enriched by the experience. Whatever insight I may have gained into the human condition, the bizarre use of More...
"A River Runs Through It" is a humorless, hick version of the incomparably superior journey of self-discovery and fly fishing, The River Why. I grimly struggled through the awkward prose, puzzling imagery and aimlessly wandering storyline in search of deeper meaning, and found it, but my soul was not enriched by the experience. Whatever insight I may have gained into the human condition, the bizarre use of More...
Jun 23, 2010
Maria
rated it:
Norman Maclean tells the story about his kid brother Paul. Paul is a better fisherman than anything else. Focusing on a summer of their life he tells of their fishing trips, their interactions and the love they can't communicate with mere words.
Why I picked this book up: I was looking for books and movies that would fit our Make a Splash theme this summer. I remember seeing this book in our bookcases at home so I hoped that it would be good.
Why I finished this book: The More...
Why I picked this book up: I was looking for books and movies that would fit our Make a Splash theme this summer. I remember seeing this book in our bookcases at home so I hoped that it would be good.
Why I finished this book: The More...
Dec 09, 2010
Gpickle
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I am finished with the first two stories in this three story book. I tried to read the forward by Annie Proulx, but it was pretty lame. I have seen the popular movie based on the first short story and finally got around to finding the book to see what it had to say about the things that happened in the Maclean family. It was impossible for me to read without hearing Robert Redford in my ear, like he was reading it aloud to me. The story was gripping, and I plowed through the 100+ pages in on
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Jul 22, 2008
Andy
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Just impressive stories of early American life in Montana. This guy was a stud. Anyone who's summer job during school is working on a logging crew, cutting trees down by hand with those massive two-man band saws is cooler than me.
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