Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)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.
Click Here to see more reviews about: The Complete Angler: A Connecticut Yankee Follows in the Footsteps of Walton
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