A River Runs Through It

“He told us about Christ’s disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.” 

Norman explains, in humorous terms, the conflation of his childhood belief that Jesus’ disciples were fly fishermen, like the Maclean men. This idea that they have holy precedent on their side lies at the root of the Maclean belief system that fishing is spiritual. For Norman and Paul’s father, there is no division between God and the natural world, and that is what he teaches his boys. 

“As a Scot and a Presbyterian, my father believed that man by nature was a mess and had fallen from an original state of grace. Somehow, I early developed the notion that he had done this by falling from a tree.” 

Norman again displays humor in his childhood explanation of the spiritual beliefs that inform his life. As with many humorous anecdotes in the novella, there is a darker dimension to this story: Paul does live out his father’s belief that man is a “mess.” Maclean constantly foreshadows the troubles still to come.

“Well, until man is redeemed he will always take a fly rod too far back, just as natural man always overswings with an ax or golf club and loses all his power somewhere in the air; only with a rod it's worse, because the fly often comes so far back it gets caught behind in a bush or rock.” 

Norman explains the grace that fly fishing offers, which is the same kind of grace that eludes the uninitiated. Fly fishing may be a spiritual endeavor, but it is also very difficult to master. 

“My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him all good things—trout as well as eternal salvation—come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.”

Norman explains what his father taught him about workings of the universe. Grace is an art that a person works to attain. Fly fishing for trout is one way to attain grace. By using religious language to discuss the act of fly fishing, Maclean emphasizes the sacred nature of spending time on the river. 

“We had to be very careful in dealing with each other. I often thought of him as a boy, but I never could treat him that way. He was never ‘my kid brother.” He was a master of an art. He did not want any big brother advice or money or help, and, in the end, I could not help him.” 

Here, Norman explains his relationship with his brother, foreshadowing Paul’s death while acknowledging Paul’s talents. Though Norman is older, Paul’s ability as a fly fisherman gives him superiority over Norman. Norman respects and admires Paul’s talent as a fisherman. Paul more easily attains the grace and perfection through fishing that Norman seeks and rarely finds.

“Undoubtedly, our differences would not have seemed so great if we had not been such a close family. Painted on one side of our Sunday school wall were the words, God Is Love. We always assumed that these three words were spoken directly to the four of us in our family and had no reference to the world outside, which my brother and I soon discovered was full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the farther one gets from Missoula, Montana.” 

This passage contains Maclean’s characteristic wit and straightforward description of his world. While pointing to the close relationships they enjoyed within their family, he also foreshadows the difficulties the brothers will experience later in life, when Paul runs afoul of some “bastards” out in the world. 

“I tried to find something I already knew about life that might help me reach out and touch my brother and get him to look at me and himself.”

Feeling helpless in the face of Paul’s drinking and gambling addictions, Norman struggles to figure out a way to communicate with his brother and to help him.

“Sunrise is the time to feel that you will be able to find out how to help somebody close to you who you think needs help even if he doesn’t think so. At sunrise, everything is luminous but not clear.” 

Norman drives home from Helena, after picking Paul up at the police station. The sergeant explains that Paul is in serious trouble: drinking too much, fighting too much, and gambling too much. At this moment, however, Norman feels encouraged by the rising sun; the nature imagery gives him hope that with the new day, some new idea will come to him about helping Paul.

“Yet even in the loneliness of the canyon I knew there were others like me who had brothers they did not understand but wanted to help. We are probably those referred to as ‘our brother’s keepers,’ possessed of one of the oldest and possibly one of the most futile and certainly one of the most haunting of instincts. It will not let us go.” 

Norman explains the responsibility he feels toward his brother, Paul. He loves Paul, but he does not understand Paul, and he feels that he must try to help him, even if such efforts are futile. Norman’s sense that he is haunted foreshadows Paul’s death. This quotation also touches on one of the major themes of the novella: that we are all, symbolically speaking, our brother’s keepers. 

“Although he and I had acquired freedoms as we grew up, we never violated our early religious training of always being on time for church, work, and fishing.” 

Norman explains the Maclean way of life. Though he has been up all night, Paul arrives on time to take Neal fishing. Neal, hungover, is still in bed after drinking most of the night. Paul tells Florence to get Neal up, enforcing the Maclean rules and asserting authority over Neal.

“I took my time walking down the trail, trying with each step to leave the world behind. Something within fishermen tries to make fishing into a world perfect and apart—I don’t know what it is or where, because sometimes it is in my arms and sometimes in my throat and sometimes nowhere in particular except somewhere deep. Many of us would be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to become perfect.” 

Norman explains the state of mind he enters as he goes fishing; it is a place separate from the rest of the world. This state of mind characterizes Paul’s otherness and his connection to nature. In nature, Paul is full of grace and the world is balanced. Norman understands the power of nature himself, but unlike Paul, Norman is able to carry the power with him and this power enables him to survive a world with which Paul cannot cope.

“Poets talk about ‘spots of time,’ but it is really fishermen who experience eternity compressed into a moment. No one can tell what a spot of time is until suddenly the whole world is a fish and the fish is gone. I shall remember that son of a bitch forever.” 

Norman laments losing a big brown trout in a willow bush. Paul witnesses Norman’s loss and tries to comfort him. Most significant in this quotation is the fact that fly fishing takes all of Norman’s concentration and effort and that he cannot think about anything else when he is fishing. This meditative experience is part of the allure of fishing; while fishing, Norman is able to focus on something positive and worthwhile rather than remaining preoccupied by his worries and troubles.

“That’s one trouble with hanging around a master—you pick up some of his stuff, like how to cast into a bush, but you use it when the master is doing the opposite.” 

Norman reflects upon the differences between his and Paul’s abilities. When fishing, Norman cannot help but mimic Paul’s techniques and ask for Paul’s advice. Paul’s fly fishing ability contrasts sharply with his inability to regulate the rest of his life. In “real” life, Norman has the happier, more stable life. Though Norman does not regret his life in any way, it is still Norman who envies Paul and his closeness to nature and not the other way around.

“What a beautiful world it was once. At least a river of it was.” 

Mirroring the elegiac tone of the novella, Norman, writing as an old man, reflects upon the beauty of nature and of his corner of Montana in 1937. He mourns times now long gone.

“I sat there and forgot and forgot, until what remained was the river that went by and I who watched. On the river the heat mirages danced with each other and then they danced through each other and then they joined hands and danced around each other. Eventually the watcher joined the river, and there was only one of us. I believe it was the river.” 

Norman experiences true peace in nature, as he sits and watches the river. Metaphorically, he becomes one with the river. This characteristic description illustrates Maclean’s metaphor that life and the river are one.

“As the heat mirages on the river in front of me danced with and through each other, I could feel patterns from my own life joining with them. It was here, while waiting for my brother, that I started this story, although, of course, at the time I didn’t know that stories of life are often more like rivers than books. But I knew a story had begun, perhaps long ago near the sound of water. And I sensed that ahead I would meet something that would never erode so there would be a sharp turn, deep circles, a deposit, and quietness.” 

Here, Norman makes the metaphor of the “arc of life” mirroring the “arc of the river” explicit. This metaphor appears throughout the novella, foreshadowing the end of Paul’s life and the continuation of Norman’s life without his brother. 

“Much as he hated her, he really had no strong feeling about her. It was the bastard in the back seat without any underwear that he hated. The bastard who had ruined most of our summer fishing. The bait-fishing bastard. The bait-fishing bastard who had screwed his whore in the middle of our family river. And after drinking our beer.” 

Norman and Paul are united in their distaste for Neal and Old Rawhide’s behavior. Though Paul drinks, he never drinks while he’s fishing. Fishing is sacred to both Norman and Paul, and only after a day of fishing will Paul indulge in his taste for beer. Therefore, Neal’s behavior is entirely unacceptable. Since they cannot take their anger out on Neal, they take it out on Old Rawhide.

“To my father, the highest commandment was to do whatever his sons wanted him to do, especially if it meant to go fishing. The minister looked as if his congregation had just asked him to come back and preach his farewell sermon over again.” 

Paul and Norman ask their father to go fishing with them, a request that surprises and delights Rev. Maclean. Together, the men go to the river, and Maclean points out that this expedition is their last; the awareness that this is their last fishing trip as a group of three makes Rev. Maclean’s joy all the more poignant.

“‘Help,’ he said, ‘is giving yourself to somebody who comes to accept it willingly and needs it badly.

‘So it is,’ he said, using an old homiletic transition, ‘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.’”

Rev. Maclean shares his understanding of human nature with Norman. They share a sense of helplessness in the face of Paul’s alcoholism. Paul’s refusal to accept help is unresolved for both Norman and his father; Paul may have thought that he did not need help, or he may have been too proud and too independent to accept it. No matter Paul’s reasons, Norman and his father take comfort in sharing this trouble with each other, even if they cannot find a solution.

“On the Big Blackfoot River above the mouth of Belmont Creek the banks are fringed by large Ponderosa pines. In the slanting sun of late afternoon the shadows of great branches reached from across the river, and the trees took the river in their arms. The shadows continued up the bank, until they included us.” 

In this description, at the end of the perfect day of fishing with his brother and father, Norman and his family are embraced by nature. The sun sets, foreshadowing the end of something; the beautiful image also reflects a fitness to the rhythms of nature echoed in sunrise and sunset, which are symbols of life and death. 

“[Y]ou can love completely without complete understanding.” 

Norman tries to comfort his father after Paul’s death. Though they loved him unconditionally, Paul’s family did not really understand him. Norman explains that their lack of understanding does not diminish their love for Paul. 

“‘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.

‘It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.’”

Rev. Maclean encourages Norman to write stories, specifically a story about Paul and their family, in order to comprehend the meaning of their lives together. He also speaks a truth that those we love most, we often know the least. Intuitively, he also understands that Norman must write the story to understand his own life.  

“Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.” 

Norman, now an old man, still finds peace in fishing and in union with nature. In a sense, he continues to fish for himself, but he also fishes in remembrance of his family—particularly his brother and father.