The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected: A Natural Philosopher's Quest for Trout and the Meaning of Everything

Author and theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser’s quest for trout and the meaning of everything has him casting his fishing rod in a variety of cosmic sources of influences.

His philosophical musings of the inner structure of matter and energy demand a basic knowledge of physics, as well as an understanding of quantum theory.

While attending various scientific lectures, Gleiser visits fishing holes while asking beautiful questions about the serendipity of events. His river stream riddles are almost Zen-like. However, make no mistake ─ his transcendent wonder comes from the church of reason.

Some fishermen readers may be successfully lured into reading Gleiser’s book, but once his bobber makes a splash, the mystique ripples circle show more back to modern science, but not with much depth. show less

This is a story of a physicist (with the old fashioned title of Professor of Natural Philosophy) who re-discovers the art, the technique of fly fishing, which skill in turn led to a re-evaluation of childhood dreams and their linkages to science, discovery, and meaning in life. The epigraph heading his Prologue, captures the essence of this wonderful book:

"Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play."

Attributed to Herakleitos.

I received a copy of this in exchange for an honest review. I enjoyed the book. It was meandering and went from one topic to another as the author traveled, and that honestly was fine for me. I enjoyed the trip. I would have liked the chapters or sections to be more clearly defined ("hey, we're going to talk about this now") or have delved more deeply into some of the topics. It could have done some things better, but it was overall quite pleasant.

An interesting melange of subjects including fly fishing, physics, global warming, divorce, world travel, agnostic beliefs, vegetarianism and much more. A bit disjointed at times as the author tells of relating to his younger self while wading in various rivers. Rather like reading someone's personal journal entries.

I've gotta stop signing up for these "free in exchange for an honest review" things.

I've really gotta.

I'm sure the author is a very smart man, and a fabulous conversationalist. Sadly, reading this book is no more (no less, either) interesting than listening to a physics undergrad who has just tried the best weed of his life.

What a huge disappointment. I am a big fan of Marcelo Gleiser's sensitive and humane ideas about science and the search for knowledge. But I couldn't care less about fly-fishing, and the banal travelogue sections of this book didn't change that.

I really wanted to like this book. I've tried picking it up three times. I can't get past page 4. I tried skipping the Prologue all together (does anyone else read them anyway?) I never made it more than a couple pages into the first chapter. I've fly fished and I've pondered nature but no matter how hard I try I can't enjoy Gleiser's writing style. I can't truly tell you how the book is because I couldn't force myself to read it. I'm sure others loved it and the prose but I just didn't.