The Earth Is Enough: Growing Up in a World of Trout and Old Men

"Well, it’s not unusual for writers to base fiction on their own experience, of course—Norman Maclean is a great example—but the various publishers and promoters of this book seem not to have been sure if it was one thing or another. And I suspect Harry Middleton liked it that way. He himself is a bit of a mysterious figure, which is surprising given that he was alive until the 1990s. He was a sports journalist, who at some point was fired from his job, became a binman, then died in his early forties. I’ve read different accounts of how he died, and I’ve no idea which is true. Middleton was one of the very best writers who’ve chosen fishing as a subject. There’s a kind of anarchic energy to his language. In style and inclination, I suppose, he had something of Edward Abbey about him. He seemed ill-at-ease in the world, comfortable only beside water. This book is the story of a young boy, Harry, who is shipped off to live with his uncle and grandfather in the Ozarks, after an accident in which his friend is killed. The two old men teach the boy to fish, and together with their Native American neighbour they teach him to distrust modern life, to love nature, and to love trout above all. It’s a making-of-the-man story, and it’s weird and funny and moving and gorgeous at once. I’ve never read anything quite like it. Ha, well, it’s not exactly a testable claim is it? I suspect there may be more books about fishing than any other sport, in part because books about fishing have been written and published for as long as the printing press has been on the go. And angling offers more time to think than most sports, too. It’s an activity that lends itself to contemplation. So it’s perhaps not surprising that a lot of anglers have written books. I do think that the best fishing literature is as good as any other writing you’ll find. There’s plenty of dross out there too, naturally, but the very best of it shows this hobby for what it is: strange and complex and wonderful. And it uses angling as a lens through which to think about the world, to think about how we interact and engage with that world, how we measure time, how we remember, how we prioritise one thing over another. Fishing is about fish, certainly, but it’s also about everything else, too."