After many weeks of reading through these short stories, I finally finished the last one. It was such fun reading the short story that the film A River Runs Through It was based on, especially since it’s been so long since I watched the movie. This was the perfect opportunity to read the story and become reacquainted with the film at the same time.

This collection of novellas incorporates Maclean’s own experiences in the forest service, living in the mountains in the west, plus camping and fishing, to create this world where life isn’t easy, family isn’t easy, and finding out what you truly love despite everything else.

His stories are so real and personable that every person who reads it can relate in some way to the message he has penned for eternity.

While these stories were very enjoyable, both from the skillful telling and the subjects, it also left me sad. I was sad to think of all the years lost where Norman Maclean hadn't picked up the author's tools and I was sad for a world that no longer exists and the characters that we're unlikely to ever meet. I guess that means it's a great book. ( )

A River Runs Though It by Norman Maclean, is comprised of three different short stories; A River Runs Through It, Logging and Pimping and “Your Pal, Jim,” and The Ranger the Cook and a Hole in the Sky. The first short story, A River Runs Through It, is about two grown up brothers living in western Montana. Paul, the older brother is a skilled fly fisherman with a drinking problem. Paul’s younger brother also has a love for fly fishing but does not nearly have the talent of Paul. When Paul’s drinking gets worse, and he gets in trouble with the police, his brother is given the task to turn Paul around. Using Paul’s unconditional love for nature and fly fishing, his brother helps Paul change his no good life for the better.

Norman Maclean can definitely evoke a sence of place and time. The stories are told in the first person, but in a way detached in time and space. But you become enmeshed and engrossed by the place that the author remembers. The characters are great, but his is about *place.* This is a great way to escape into the beauty and majesty of the Bitteroot range, and to learn what it is like to live there, fish there, and work there. I enjoyed the USFS story more than A River Runs Through It. A definite read for anyone interested in tales of the West. ( )

While I am not normally a fan of any author classified as a "regional writer" or a "western writer," this was fantastic. I had almost forgotten the pleasure of a wonderfully crafted, recently written novel. Just remarkable, fantastic, lovely.I think that part of what I enjoyed about this book was that it evoked for me a very specific image of the American West that I grew up in, even though I was only tangential to it; it rang true enough that I wanted to keep reading and was strange enough that I wanted to keep reading. This is one classic that absolutely deserves the name. ( )

While I am not normally a fan of any author classified as a "regional writer" or a "western writer," this was fantastic. I had almost forgotten the pleasure of a wonderfully crafted, recently written novel. Just remarkable, fantastic, lovely.I think that part of what I enjoyed about this book was that it evoked for me a very specific image of the American West that I grew up in, even though I was only tangential to it; it rang true enough that I wanted to keep reading and was strange enough that I wanted to keep reading. This is one classic that absolutely deserves the name. ( )

I enjoyed this book immensely. Maclean has a wonderful way of writing that makes me think of my father. This was an enjoyable read, and definitely a classic I'll keep on my personal bookshelf to pass on to my son when he is older. ( )

In case anyone reads the review and is worried, the information I've referred to in it, whilst containing plot details, is not a Spoiler as Maclean himself refers to the events at the beginning of the novella. I have focused on the main piece in this collection, 'A River Runs Through It' as it is the most substantial of the three novellas.

"In our family there was no clear line between religion and fly-fishing"
So starts the chronicle of the hot summer of 1937, the last Maclean spent with his younger brother Paul. This is an unparalleled piece of writing, a poignant and captivating memoir of a particular moment in time for this family and an evocative description of a bygone era in Montana. Maclean's descriptive talents are immense and there is great poetry to his portrayal of fly-fishing as an art form. He applies them equally as effectively when describing the natural world around him and the reader is transported to a time past - feeling the lazy summer heat and the constant flow of the great Montana waters.

He is exceptionally perceptive in his description and analysis of his relationship with his brother Paul. The mirroring of their interaction in the landscape as the brothers cross the Continental Divide at the same time as it becomes apparent there is a great divide in their own lives is subtly achieved.

It is a short work that is peppered with humour to balance the poignancy of events, none more so than the extremely funny description of the disdain which fly fisherman have for fishermen of the bait variety. The descriptions of Maclean's brother-in-law (a bait fisherman, no less) especially on the ill-fated fishing trip which culminated in a naked, sunburnt prostitute running down the main street, are acerbic and brilliant.

This short novella is as much a history of the waters and fish of Montana, as it is of the family Maclean. The river lives in it as a character all of its own and the reader finds themselves infused with the same love and enthusiasm for fish and the art of fly-casting as Maclean and his family have.
"If you listen carefully, you will hear that the words are underneath the water"
Maclean's use of words and vocabulary choices are second to none. This piece is rich and full. I found myself noting so many quotes from it, just because I found his phrasing so beautiful and his meaning so relevant. It is a piece that is based on a deep foundation of words that breathe life into the natural world around the protagonists.

In the end, however, this story of a family tragedy is heartbreaking. The description of the final fishing trip the sons took with their ageing father is almost painful as the reader is already equipped with the knowledge each moment is one that would never be repeated. Maclean artfully conveys the inevitability of Paul's death through his character building and leaves the reader aching for the loss both to the family and the world, of a brother, a son and an artist.

I cannot recommend this highly enough. It is a classic work and is both moving and affecting. Maclean puts it more eloquently than I ever could:"I am haunted by waters". ( )

Norman Maclean grew up in Montana in the 1920's and this novella and two other short stories describe his experiences there. In many ways it wasn't so different from the way I remember growing up in Arizona in the 1950's. The West was always a tough place. The title story of Maclean's fine book was made into a movie staring Brad Pitt and directed by Robert Redford, but I don't remember it having the same effect as reading the story did. An excellent book for rainy afternoons when the wife is complaining about cleaning the house alone and you remember how full of promise life used to be for a young man growing up in the West. ( )

In my opinion, this is one of the most beautiful books ever written. I'm not a reader who often rereads books. This is one of the very few that I will and have read over and over and over again. So authentic, so lyrical, heart-felt, beautiful. Oddly, it is so beautiful that I can't really bring myself to continue reading the "other stories" in the book! I start into Your Pal Jim... and feel like I left my home for another, less appealing locale... longingly looking over my shoulder regretting that I had to leave in the first place. ( )

Two Novellas and a short story. I loved the fishing in the title novella, but the best story was probably the last "USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook and the Hole in the Sky" which concerns his experiences in the early years of the forestry service. Beautiful.

Recently re-read. Such good stories! I liked both the low-key grappling with human nature, as well as the "frontier" quality of some of the lumberjack stories. ( )

How can you not love this book? Norman Maclean made me want to write. ( )

I loved the story of "A River runs through it" but the other stories not so much. ( )

i've only read a river runs through it.. not any of the other short stories. it's a very pretty story, and well written. who knew fly fishing would be so interesting? ( )

Occasionally, I find a book--like this one--that I want to give to other people to read. After reading this book, I started looking for other Western books, but I think that doing this is a little like reading Jane Austen's complete works and then trying to replicate the experience by reading other novels set in Regency England.

This is probably my favorite book. I want to call it pseudo-autobiographical because it's based on fact, but these facts are freely bent for literary effect. What makes this book so powerful is that so much happens between the lines. The fundamental emotions are unspoken, or only mentioned. But the weight of them is readily felt. They are wrapped within a story where religion is fly fishing; and, polished by striking descriptions of land and nature. Maclean even knows his geology. ( )

On the surface, the title story is his recollections of his father, a Presbyterian minister, and his troubled but talented brother, with whom he fished. Set in the Montana of Maclean's youth, he paints exquisitely vivid and beautiful word pictures of a land and water and family now gone. At the core is the frustration of the often-futile attempt of trying to help another or trying to save a loved one from their self-destruction. (this paragraph lifted from Amazon)

This is one of my favorite books - MacLean's description of the river, the mountains, and the trees is poetry in prose. The imagery is compelling. The book is highly autobiographical: though it focuses on a small part of the author's life, he tells the story so that everything that he has learned about life reflects through these experiences. This book is full of beautiful language describing nature, people, and God. ( )

I was bored . . . 100 pages without much happening. Most interesting part? Someone gets sunburnt where NO ONE should. The end. ( )

Maclean writes beautifully and evokes Montana with lyric prose.

I enjoyed it, but at only a hundred pages, I somehow thought it would be more. This might be one of those rare occasions when I got more out of the movie than the book. ( )