- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins Canada / Non-Fiction (Mar 8 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0060929316
- ISBN-13: 978-0060929312
- Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Prosek has commandeered a unique branch for himself in the long stream of fishing literature. With Trout: An Illustrated History and Joe and Me, he's reeled in the reputation of a modern-day Audubon with a keen eye that translates experience into both words and watercolors. In The Complete Angler, he sets out to tackle the legacy of Isaak Walton, the granddaddy of littoral lit and his 17th-century classic, The Compleat Angler. While still an undergraduate, Prosek convinces the solons at Yale to fund a traveling fellowship for him to fish the waters Walton fished, to ponder their joint obsession with angling, and the fellowship and philosophies inherent in sitting on banks with a rod in your hand. "Fishing is my religion and the trout stream is my temple," Prosek declares proudly, which makes Walton at least a High Priest, if not the Messiah.
You certainly can't accuse Prosek of shrinking from a challenge. Walton's Compleat Angler is one of the towers of English literature. Not only the third most reprinted volume in the language (after the Bible and Shakespeare), it is the rare book that has spanned several centuries of readership without ever going out of print. Stepping into Walton's waders--literary and sporting--and fishing his way through public and private waters throughout Britain, Prosek attempts to navigate deeper, trickier currents than he's previously attempted. What he catches is part homage, part pilgrimage, part meditation, and entirely alluring--a work that balances youthful exuberance with insight and depth. Walton's considerable shadow challenges and encourages Prosek's growth as writer and artist; both his writing and the painting that illustrates this handsome effort are maturing. "I didn't exactly know what I would find," Prosek admits at the start. It's precisely this attitude that makes his journey, and the surprises he snares, all the more enchanting. --Jeff Silverman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Prosek (Trout) recounts the adventures he had while fulfilling both his love of fly-fishing and the requirements of his senior college thesis. Traveling on a grant, he roved the English countryside, visiting significant landmarks and streams in the life of Izaak Walton, the 17th-century angler and writer who penned The Compleat Angler, the book considered by many to be the definitive work on the sport. Prosek envisions his own work as "a popular, not entirely scholarly piece, with hopes that Walton's works may enjoy more readers." Indeed, there is much careful research into Walton's life. Prosek is particularly interested in the idea that Walton came to think of angling as his religion, much as Prosek does himself, but he realizes that while biography reveals almost as much about the writer as it does about the subject, such a neat comparison could well be romantic and wishful thinking. Prosek points out that Walton, an adherent of the Church of England, wrote his own book after fleeing London during the English Civil War, and one Walton scholar makes a case that Walton's book was really a coded polemic whose proper title was The Compleat Anglican. In any event, Prosek's take could aptly be named The Compleat Anglophile (which Prosek admits to being), and at times the proper tone and borrowed British idioms are pretentious. The book's charm, however, lies in its quiet realism, both in Prosek's honest reflections and in his vivid paintings, which accompany the text. 18 full-color plates. Author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
Many of the discoveries and advances that have surfaced along the river of my life have been serendipitous consequences of my passion for fishing. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Many of the discoveries and advances that have surfaced along the river of my life have been serendipitous consequences of my passion for fishing. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Meet Izaak Walton,
By Glenn (Perrysburg, OH USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Complete Angler: A Connecticut Yankee Follows in the Footsteps of Walton (Hardcover)
I enjoyed this book. I was one the people who had heard (quite a bit, actually) of Izaak Walton's "Angler", but had not read it. Prozek's work was the motivation for me to dive into the 17th century for a few hours and read the book. So, if for no other reason, I'm grateful to Prosek. There is a lot here to remind the reader that this is an effort made at the beginning of a literary career; some undisciplined gushing here; a bit of bragging there. But it's hard to deny that there was real effort involved. Prosek has worked on understanding both his subject and himself enough to win me over, even though I'm jealous that he (at least by his account) catches way more fish than I do.
2.0 out of 5 stars
not-so-deep thoughts,
This review is from: The Complete Angler: A Connecticut Yankee Follows in the Footsteps of Walton (Hardcover)
This book tries very hard to be "deep" and insightful; it is neither. This is not a book about the human condition; it is a book about a privileged young man fishing with privileged old people.Prosek does lovely paintings, but the bottom line is that his writing lacks maturity. He violates many rules that should have been drilled into his head during "freshman comp" class. He doesn't show, he tells. He overuses flowery adjectives. And he can be melodramatic to the extreme. There is no shortage of books about flyfishing that are filled with overblown prose, books that try to make flyfishing something it is not. This book is one of them. Comparisons to Izaak Walton abound. This gets old after a while. So do the many "characters" Prosek fishes with, who we are told are very interesting and "quite delightful," but most seemed to be pompous, bland individuals. For some reason, the trip itself bothered me. He got to fish many rivers only because he was a young man of privilege. Everyone he meets is awed by him, mainly because he is an Ivy Leaguer with the right connections. He then makes sure we know that the class-obsessed people he meet complimented him on his "class" and "character." He seems to revel in this, never examining his privilege. Many times I wanted him to quit rhapsodizing over trout and start examining his own life. I was very disappointed in Prosek as a writer. It lacks the depth of a good travel book (like Fen Montaigne's "Reeling in Russia"). And he can't compare to sporting writers like McGuane, Bodio, Tom McIntyre and Robert F. Jones, all writers whose books reflect fierce joy, love, pain, conflict, and ambiguity. I understand Prosek is now writing about love. Be very afraid.
2.0 out of 5 stars
For a painter he's a good writer...,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Complete Angler: A Connecticut Yankee Follows in the Footsteps of Walton (Hardcover)
Let's face it, this is not a very good book. There is a tendency among those who fly fish to readily accept any ink put to paper as elegaic, contemplative and downright superior. Young Mr. Prosek is a fortunate lad, having pulled the wool over the eyes of the academic sachems at Yale to bless his fly fishing vacation in England as the subject of his thesis. He wraps the proposal in the esteemed pages of Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler, the most purchased and least read book in the history of print. Prosek forces us to wade through a number of English rivers and some tedious prose, and in this respect he does resemble Walton. His constant comparisons of himself to Walton tend to bog down his writing. He ruminates on how he is standing in the same water that Walton once stood, the worst kind of conceit. You don't even stand in the same river yourself when you happen to be standing in one! The only redeeming feature of this volume is that it is beautiful book, with Prosek's watercolors generously peppered throughout. He is a gifted painter and his first book is one of my favorites. This volume, however, has more of the red herring about it than the noble trout. I admire a good con job, I just hate it when it's pulled on me.
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