Norman Maclean’s View of Concepts of Spirituality as Illustrated in His Book, a River Runs Through It

God is in the River

The novella A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean is a fairly straightforward book to read, and because of this, the quiet beauty of its writing can be easy to miss. Maclean’s soft-spoken style lays the story out clearly and succinctly, and draws parallels that can only be seen in the details. The novella treats fishing and the natural world as a religious experience, and lends to these material things the grace of spirituality.

The fact that Maclean’s father is a preacher lays a foundation for this religious view of the world, but it is not in this obvious fact that the view is expressed. “Going fishing” is treated as a cure-all, especially for immoral behavior. Several times throughout the book, characters can be heard uttering this phrase with the deference that they would say “going to church.” From the very beginning, the reader is told that Norman and his younger brother were taught to treat the river with respect, and were not even allowed to fish until they could properly handle a rod – out of respect for the fish.

Maclean speaks of how a fisherman tries to make a perfect world out of his trade, which is perhaps the ultimate goal of religion: perfection from imperfection. This sentiment expresses the beauty and subtlety of what is really an overarching metaphor throughout the novella: the precision and honesty of fishing as an act of religion. However, in watching the film of this movie, much of the subtlety is lost.

In attending a peer-led viewing of the film A River Runs Through It, the thing I was most conscious of was the awkward and almost jarring silences and conversations between the characters. In the novella, the author Norman Maclean talks about how his family was one of few words, and in reading one was given the sense – as well as being outright told – that there were always things being left unsaid. This attitude was amplified in the film, and left me constantly searching faces and dialogue to answer my sense that something was missing. Because of the age of the movie, it was hard to tell if this was a device, or simply a result of less-than-excellent acting. However, from viewing an interview with director Robert Redford, I know that the film made an honest attempt to stay true to the novella, and for this reason believe that the movie created this discomfort intentionally.

I found it interesting that the film changed the timeline of events rather substantially as well. In the book, Norman has already been married to his wife for the second half of the novella. In the film, all the events of the book happen before Norman and Jessie have married, instead ending with their intention to get married, but have not quite yet. I do not see any real gravity in this choice, other as a story-telling device. Norman and Jessie’s leaving for Chicago provides a definitive end to the story, as well as signaling the final break of the closeness of Norman’s family. While the book was able to wrap up its story in more natural ways, the film had to meet its time limit; marriage serves both as an end to an era, and a beginning of the next.

In attending some of the workshops that were offered during the Common Read, I was able to gain a more personal understanding of the life that the characters of A River Runs Through It would have led. In one lecture, a man who had been fly fishing all his life came in to talk about this lifestyle that is so near to his heart. I was given the sense that he, like the Macleans, had a deep respect and a deep love for the river, especially his home river, which is the Davidson in Brevard. He brought the first fly fishing rod he had gotten with him, and when he held it and spoke about it, it seemed that he spoke about a good friend. This deep connection with the natural world further impressed on me a sense that I’d gotten while reading the novella: fly fishing is an art and a way of life. It is religious, in a way that it connects one to the beauty and patience of the natural world.

I also attended a working writers’ lecture, in which three published authors read selections from their works and spoke briefly on their inspiration behind the works. Incredibly, two out of three of the writers spoke about their relationships with nature, both through science and the belief that religion is found in nature. I personally have always thought that true religion is, at its heart, based on the power of nature, and both this specific workshop and the Common Read as a whole have strengthened this conviction within me. Though God as a single omnipotent being does not exist for me, the godliness of the cyclic nature of Nature holds the same majesty as a God to his followers. It is in the natural world that we can truly understand ourselves; perhaps fly fishermen understand this better than anyone.