River Music: A Fly Fisher's Four Seasons

by James R. Babb

James Babb imbues his devastating wit, ornery perspective, and musical language within each of the ribald tales in River Music . This is exemplified in the “Prelude,” his opus about “the occasional laugh, the occasional thought, a bit about fly fishing and a bit about Life, and all of it underpinned by the music of rivers.” The pieces are arranged in a harmonious current that carries us through the seasons, and life itself.

He recounts a disastrous--and hilarious--spring canoeing trip with a friend in “The Darling Buds of May,” where the snow accumulated so quickly on their hats that they “looked like Conehead voyageurs from Remulak.” In “The Coriolis Effect,” Babb rhapsodizes about the sights, smells, and culture of what he considers to be the last great place on Earth, where pristine Chilean waters and a native way of life relieve him of an obsession about which direction the water flushes. And in “Little Jewels,” he weaves an exquisite, deeply humorous, and haunting nocturne with peccadillo accompaniment that considers the mating habits of trout and men, mortality, and a thirty-nine-year-long unrequited love. Babb is a maverick whose latest offering is a true departure from conventional essays on fly fishing, or on any subject, and will be relished by the growing circle of Babb fanatics everywhere.

196 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2001

Reviews

[Darin L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think that I may have grown tired of reading books about fly fishing that aspire to be of a literary nature, and so I wasn't really taken with this author's work. "River Music" is a title that is a bit hackneyed for my taste; it seems like a title I might have used. I was prepared not to like this book of short stories.

And so I did not like the first few of them. Mr. Babb has a sense of humor that fails almost as often as not. I found a number of his jokes unfunny. But it is nevertheless a sense of humor, and gradually, I began to laugh at some of his observations. The quality of the stories seemed to improve later in the book; toward the end, I found myself fairly engrossed.

The somewhat convoluted nature of Mr. Babb's sentence structure detracts from what otherwise would be some fairly good writing. If you don't mind reading sentences with more than one or two dependent clauses, it isn't a problem, but I find that kind of writing a bit bothersome. It's almost as if the author seeks to sabotage himself by diverging the reader's attention from the more interesting aspects of the story.

If you enjoy stories that are related to fishing, and fly fishing in particular, you may enjoy this collection of short stories that ends with some fairly solid writing.

[Hannah Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book really does give "a life of adventure." You start with learning how a little boy talks how the world was like with fly fishing and surviving in the wilderness during the 1700s. He meets with various people, grows up as a man and, eventually, ends up with a wife and kids of his own. You do get your "sense of adventure" out in the wilderness and you feel that you're actually taking that journey yourself. You forget that you're reading a book! The very critique I have: It is hard to understanding what the time period for the book is. It's both an unanswered and answered question in my head.

[Chris Warren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even better than the first. Beautifully written non-fiction, the fact that it's about fly fishing is (almost) incidental – almost! Right up there with Gierach. No other sport can offer such fine literature. One of those books you are desperate to read but don't want to read too fast because then you will finish too quickly. Ordered his third.

[Chuck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lost in the Writing

It is possible to over-write something. There were some good stories here, but the writing demanded more attention and hid those stories behind the words. Not high on my list of recommendations.

[Matthew Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

enlightening and great for vocab building