This is one of those rare perfect books that I will want to keep forever to loan out to friends in need of enlightenment or encouragement. It has everything: a good storyline; characters that are real, complex and that you would want to meet in real life; it’s funny; it talks about the Northwest US (not quite British Columbia, but close enough); it’s about fishing (and I mean ALL about fishing); the situations and problems are some that all of us can understand, relate to, and learn from. Basically, this book was just “tintinnabulatious”.

The main character, Gus, is raised, nay, conceived, to be totally caught up with fishing and everything related to it. His father is a snobby English fly fisherman, and his mother is a down-home wildcat of a bait fisherwoman. The two meet hilariously over a fish and end up making Gus. So from the moment he’s a “twinkle in his daddy’s eye” as my mom would say, he hears about fishing. The family Bible is the Compleat Angler by Isaac Walton. His parents argue fishing philosophy the way my parents used to argue the meaning of Revelations.
I guess this is one reason why I love this book. I was raised in an atmosphere of religious excess similar to his rearing in piscatorial excess. Like me, he grows disillusioned with his “religion” (which, however, does not include God, although he explores the idea of “Fathern Heaven” and “R. Lord” among others.), and sets out to discover for himself what the world is about. He is amazed to know that the world includes love, friends, children, homegrown food, poetry, philosophy and a certain spiritual force or Person, to name a few things. Also, that we must respect and appreciate nature, not necessarily to the point of vegetarianism or tree hugging, but with the frame of mind that it is a gift and not a right or privilege for us to thoughtlessly destroy on a whim.

I’ve read rumors that The River Why will soon be made into a movie. I can’t help but wonder what took so long. It was first published in 1983. But maybe the world wasn’t ready for its message then.
This book is delicious for its humor, its spirituality that comes from childlike observations of life rather than a dogmatic interpretation of a holy book, and for the rich language and characters found throughout. It comes across as very real, and from the acknowledgment, where Duncan dedicates certain characters and events to real people in his life, one can tell that this story is definitely rooted in reality.