The River Why

David James Duncan
Quote:

That was the thing about Nature: make one lousy rule to describe it and it’ll contradict you even if it has to transmogrify and metamorphosize and bust its ass to do it. And so what? If anybody grew wise enough to grasp the real immutable laws of Nature, Nature’d only rear back and strike ‘em dead before they got anybody to understand them.

I recalled sentimental paragraphs wherein authors bootlessly lament departed fisher friends; I recalled adventures where some angler meets his death by some unfortunate outdoors accident, or, more frequently adventures wherein some angler hears of another angler who heard of an angler who met his death by some unfortunate outdoors accident, thus keeping the Grim Reaper at a pleasant distance while we readers, like overstuffed cattle in the slaughterhouse corral, ruminate the cudlike morals Death’s victims leave as their legacies to Angledom—pithy maxims like: “Don’t make Fred’s mistake: wear a life jacket” or “Don’t pull the fatal boner Arnold pulled: carry that compass in the woods at all times”

I don't think I have ever read a book more exactly in the style of writing I like than The River Why. But I am putting it up here for more than its style. The River Why has good thought in it too. I thought about comparing it to Walden, but the only way Thoreau could have written something like this was if he had been about twenty years younger and high as a kite. I think a hundred and fifty years of social relaxation and retardation have also helped to produce The River Why instead of Walden. Whatever the case, there are always stories of men who cannot stand that great invention we call civilization. These men usually get angry, retreat in a girlish huff to some remote area--almost always within a few miles of the thing they got huffy at--and discover that they didn't hate civilization at all. With the exception of Daniel Quinn, who apparently does hate civilization, these hermits end up ruminating their minds off and finally slapping their knees with jovial hands as they say, By Golly, I miss Mom, Pop, and little Jimmy.
The River Why spends a good deal more time than these others though on the metaphysical topics. Retreat from society to discover the self, retreat from civilization to discover the metaphysical. The lens Duncan uses to look at metaphysics is definitely the mystics, but if you are up to a discussion of shadows as twins and Garden Worlds where Garden Angels all burst into white flames at the sight of a Queen, well then, you might just be able to enjoy The River Why.
Duncan will surprise you though, no matter what you come looking for: humor, love, Zen, Daoism, and some fishing; environmentalism, psychology, mentology, emotionology, drunkenness and human nature; bartering, home-made whiskey, dogs as philosophers, philosophers as dogs, God, salmon, and five-year-olds' confidence. The wandering and wondering journey Duncan takes you on covers more ground than a river in a hundred years, about as much as the quivering wavering trickle of water down your windshield, asking that great question of its changing path and unlike both streams, ending in a place that will likely surprise you. For instance, one of the best personal adds I've ever read:

Will the girl who ran from the guy who recited Izaak Walton in the tree please contact Gus on the other river he named. He has your rod and fish and wants to return them. He is totally harmless, but urges you to bring a loaded gun if frightened, as long as you come. Thank you.

One last rumination of my own: I think thought about metaphysics sometimes is very like climbing a mountain on a cloudy day to look at the sun. There are about as many mountains as there are people who would like to climb them. And along the way, almost everyone gets a good peak at the burning sun. Some end up hiking above the clouds for quite a long time, while others only get caught in the fog and don't see much more than a luminescent brilliance. But none of them ever get to the sun because they climbed the mountain. It may help them get a better tack on the sun, figure out where it's shining, perhaps even what the sunlight feels like, but the mountain never reaches the sun. The River Why is a hike up a mountain, not an especially tall mountain, but I guarantee you will get above the clouds.

In Dubious Battle

John Steinbeck

Burton sighed. “You see? We’re going to pile up on that old rock again. That’s why I don’t like to talk very often. Listen to me, Mac. My senses aren’t above reproach, but they’re all I have. I want to see the whole picture—as nearly as I can. I don’t want to put on the blinders of ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ and limit my vision. If I used the term ‘good’ on a thing I’d lose my license to inspect it, because there might be bad in it. Don’t you see? I want to be able to look at the whole thing.”

Steinbeck. I am starting to wonder if I am not blinded by my admiration of his writing; I have yet to read something written by him that I did not enjoy immensely. There is always a point in his books where I let the book slip down and stare at the wall or out the window for a while. He has captured, not perfectly but piercingly, what it is to be human.
In Dubious Battle is not the sort of book that would normally catch my interest--being the story of early communists at work in depression era America. But when Steinbeck tells the story, my preconceptions are broken in moments. Though In Dubious Battle sounds like propaganda at times, it is more realistic than anything else--not realistic in the documentary sense, but realistic in the mythological sense. Though the men and women in Steinbeck's books move about like great raging furies, orchestrating and living such drama as is fit for the gods, they have the meaning of reality. That men will take advantage of whatever system they live under, that men are often cowards and often enjoy evil, that men will sooner betray a friend than face a fear, that men are capable of God's good.
In Dubious Battle is not about Communism or Socialism or Labor Rights or Capitalism--it deals with nothing else. But these things are merely the stage upon which a much greater theater is performing--the performance of strangers having a conversation, of friends sitting in silence together.
If you do read it, pay especial attention to the character of Doctor Burton. Almost all of Steinbeck's novels have this sort of weary character; his voice often is the quietest, sometimes the strangest, almost certainly the wisest. He is a character who will scare you, but he will also make you wish you were strong enough to be him. He says, "We fight ourselves and we can only win by killing every man. I'm lonely, Jim. I have nothing to hate."

The Origin of the Brunists

Robert Coover

The illusion of having solved the Great Mystery, simply because the parts seemed to fit.

I do not recommend this book, especially if you are Christian. I have read no more condemning, no more insidious criticism of faith than this book. Perhaps I have taken it wrong, perhaps I am too personally interested, but Coover's The Origin of The Brunists seemed to scream mockery of Christianity at almost every turn.
It is the story of the founding of a small cult and its various lunacies as it destroys the village it was based in. There is little in The Origin of the Brunists that will make you smile, particularly because Coover is a good writer. He depicts perversion and insanity with such guile, you will see yourself in some of the most revolting characters.
The Origin of the Brunists is a great ode to circumstance, a triumph of coincidence and the determinism of a life doomed by spinning atoms ten billion years ago. Humans are little more than mindless units of matter spinning about without much reason at all, driven by what most would consider vile or animal lusts and going just about nowhere.
I read The Origin of the Brunists because Coover plays havoc with traditional form and narrative structure. He does wonderful things along this line, producing fresh forms without being confusing.

The Life of Pi

Yann Martel

I put a message in the bottle: 'Japanese-owned cargo ship Tsimtsum, flying Panamanian flag, sank July 2nd, 1977, in Pacific, four days out of Manila. Am in lifeboat. Pi Patel my name. Have some food, some water, but Bengal tiger a serious problem. Please advise family in Winnipeg, Canada. Any help very much appreciated. Thank you.'

I have read no other account of a castaway upon the sea as incredible as this one. Martel is a master, Pi is a hero. The Bengal tiger, Richard Parker, is the supreme friend to be stuck in a lifeboat with for 277 days on the Pacific. And when you include various other exotic animals, fish, storms, carnivorous tree-algae, and of course a mad French cannibal cook, you find a story unparalleled in human history. Outrageous you say? Every next breath we take is an outrage, that this globe should go on spinning a supreme act of defiance. It makes them no less true.
The Life of Pi is surely a story which needs to be read more than once. It begins and you will suspect it to be some philosophical work, perhaps a bit ponderous and somewhat pretentious, but in very little time you will forget about all the metaphysical ruminating and be caught up in the very life of the story. Living in a small lifeboat while a hyena and orangutan duke it out and a Bengal tiger sleeps leaves you little brainpower left for theological questions. And just when you think you've got a handle on this story and it hasn't any more to surprise you with--after a floating land of meerkats who eat mysteriously dead fish--The Life of Pi savagely turns on you and slaps you several times in the face. Martel deftly sets up a scene that is not only hysterical, but a brilliant summation of the book. The interrogation scene between the two Japanese men and Pi in Mexico is beautiful dialog--better than any I have read in a good while.
Martel writes very well, but he thinks even better. You will spend many days thinking about The Life of Pi after you finish it. As will any book with such lines as: "Isn't telling about something--using words, English or Japanese--already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention?"