Items related to Crazy For Rivers

Crazy For Rivers - Softcover

Barich, Bill

  • 4.04 out of 5 stars
    26 ratings by Goodreads
 
9781592288335: Crazy For Rivers

Synopsis

"That autumn, I went a little crazy for rivers," writes Bill Barich, and this charming volume captures the essence of this obsession. The hours he spent on various streams became a kind of meditation on family, friends, and the natural world. To anyone who remembers the infinite patience of a grandfather on a lake, or the romance of a mountain getaway with a new girlfriend; to anyone who can recall each fish caught on days that were far too hot, or way too cold, or on rivers too crowded or in canyons too steep; to anyone who has appreciated the trust of an age-old fishing partner, or marveled at the beauty of a leaping trout--to anyone, in fact, who has ever gone a little crazy for rivers, Bill Barich's wonderful memories of a season on the water and a lifetime of fishing will seem both touching and wise. This little book is a gem.

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Review

Bill Barich casts such deft prose that the thinness of Crazy for Rivers might feel like a disappointment to some readers; at 80 pages in length, you wish there were simply more of it. Barich's skill flows from the way he can layer a book, pulling in disparate venues--as he did so masterfully in Laughing in the Hills with death, mourning, horseracing, and the Renaissance--to form a three-dimensional whole; when he limits himself to a narrower scope, his pool seems achingly fished out.

Still, what there is here is choice, elegant, and even stark. When Barich writes about fly-fishing and the pursuit of trout--"That autumn," he begins, "I went a little crazy for rivers"--he's, of course, writing about more, much more: family, friendship, loyalty, identity, obsession, even midlife crisis. For all the good fishing and fish stories he offers, it is ultimately the reeling in of the spirit that becomes his best catch: "I thought about the friends, lovers, and family I had fished with," he writes in his notebook on his last night out: "where they were now and what they might be doing....It must all be catch-and-release in the end, I thought, all part of a flow whose essence we can never truly grasp." Perhaps we can't. But at least Barich provides an angle on it. --Jeff Silverman

From the Publisher

A lyrical reminiscence of a magical autumn of fishing--and a lifetime love affair with rivers. Line Drawings.

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