Of Prayer and Fishing

 

Tying flies brings the composure of prayer. It is a composure that begins in the fingertips. The composure of angling is different, where equanimity comes through the eyes, the angler concentrating on her float or her fly, anticipating the take. The composure that comes from tying flies does not begin in sight. It begins in blindness….

 

…The anchor of the well-tied fly is the thread, and the anchor of the tranquil mind is the tension in the thread. No matter how scattered my spirit becomes during a day of wayward winds, the tying of flies gathers it together. Tying readies it for prayer.

 

- John Gubbins, Profound River

 

Such are the satisfying ruminations of a 15th-century gentlewoman, narrator of John Gubbins’s novel Profound River, a character whose lack of dowry helped her decide to enter the Order of St. Benedict in a convent near the town of St. Albans where she eventually rose to the rank of prioress. 

 

The fictional Dame Juliana is all the more fascinating in that her character is based on (although some doubt has been raised) an actual person. Called the “Mother of Fly Fishing,” the historical Juliana Berners, born in 1381, invented and perfected during her lifetime the art of “fysshing wyth an angle,” using that art for years to feed her sisters in the convent. (You see which side I am taking in the historical controversy!) Her written work on the subject, moreover, her Treatyse on Fysshing Wyth an Angle, interposed in the treatise on heraldry in The Boke of St. Albans, published by Wynken de Worde (who had apprenticed as printer to the iconic William Caxton of London), was the first printed book in the English language on fishing, and the entire book was probably her work.

 

The town of St. Albans in the 15th century, as the author has his narrator describe it, depended largely on what we in northern Michigan today would call tourism, although in that earlier time and distant place the tourists were pilgrims. Having come often long distances to view and pay their respects to the bones of St. Albans, Britain’s first martyr to Christianity, once in the area they had perforce to be lodged and fed — and they were also plied with plenty of drink and religious memorabilia for sale. Pilgrims and sheep, we are told, were the backbone of the economy of St. Albans, and Gubbins brings a welcome liveliness to complicated details of religious, secular, and royal claims to property and independence.

 

But it is the passages on fishing and on Dame Juliana’s personal history and reflections that rightly take center stage -- lengthy and enthralling riverside scenes as the prioress makes endless minute observations on hatches and weather, effects of light on water, and the habits of insects and fish. The language is specific, and we are transported far beyond the page to the out-of-doors of centuries ago, a world so changed in some ways and yet changeless in others. Dame Juliana has seen many changes in her own lifetime, in the natural as well as in the political world, and so the author has her musing generally on faith and earth’s abundance -- “Our sense that we belong in the world is more ancient than our faith”— and reflecting on the world’s “extravagant generosity,” all of it taken as gifts from God. 

 

Our ancestors counted on the annual runs of thousands upon thousands of salmon, wilderness forests forever rustling with coursing deer and boar, soaring flocks of geese and ducks blotting out the sun, gushing pure springs of water, and so many other signs of God’s interest in us. …Such signs bolstered our ancestors’ faith in the divine….

 

Dame Juliana speculates on how the diminishment of such plenty, which has evidently already begun in her lifetime, may affect a human sense of being at home in the world. She sees religious liturgies built up in compensation for that earlier sense of belonging and importance. 

 

When these signs [of God’s interest in us] dim and disappear, when air and water threaten us, when wilderness forests are leveled to a bleak horizon, then our sense of security will disappear altogether. And we shall overtax our faith to salve our profound loneliness.

 

Some might find the character’s musings on a diminishment of nature as evidence of “presentism,” a sin historians commit when they inject sensibilities and ideas from their own time into events long past. In a lesser writer, the accusation would find a readier target, but such are the obvious intelligence and independence of the narrator Gubbins has created that we readily accept her taking a longer view of history than would most of her contemporaries. There is the matter of the audience for this book, also, which Gubbins no doubt considered. Published in the United States in 2012, and in Utah, part of what once seemed, to some, America’s “limitless” West but now a region where the limits of natural resources are only too obvious and subject to competing interests, the novel's passages on diminishing plenty are entirely appropriate. 

 

Descriptions and stories about hunting and fishing have always lent themselves to metaphor. When Juliana tells us, “Difficult fish are the angler’s best master,” because the angler’s mind tends to see patterns and seek predictability, whereas “each river, each pool in that river, and each and every fish” offer individuality, we can be fairly certain that the lessons she takes from the old trout under the bridge will serve her well in resisting the abbey’s greedy desire to rob the convent of its independence.

 

Serendipity put this novel in my path. I can account for it no other way. And as I read, fly-fishing friends past and present come to my mind, along with gardeners and hikers, artists, pilgrims, those who practice meditation in one way or another, devout religious friends, and, finally, anyone who appreciate not only history but also beautiful writing. And joy. 

 

My day courses with feeling. I would never banish a one, and as a follower of Holy Benedict, I am not asked to banish any….

 

The hours with their psalms order my affections. Countless small joys – the breath of the morning breeze carrying the fragrance of roses, the moist smell of a riverbank, soft drops of rain on my face, our voices changing as one the hour’s psalms, the smiles on my sisters’ lips, a well-turned stitch, a countryside shrouded in fog, a heartfelt prayer – all become a river of feeling, transforming by the hour my deepest affections.

 

Nature not to be mistrusted or felt as alien, but to be loved as a river of gifts. As Wendell Berry has written, it all begins with affection. 

Postscript 11/12/2021

 

In this morning’s wee dark hours I came to the last page of the novel, Profound River. Going on to pursue the author’s fascinating essay, “Who Was Dame Juliana Berners?” at the end of the book, I found myself falling back asleep and reawakening several times, as happens so often in my early dark reading; during my waking spells, however, I was closely focused on the essay (which, by the way, won a national award from no less than the British Studies affiliate of the American Historical Association), happy to have such a strong argument for the historical reality of the author’s strong character. So that was all good. 

 

A glossary precedes the historical essay, and following it is a single page of suggested readings. – And then comes the final “About the Author” page, where I learn to my delight that “John Gubbins lives with his wife, Carol, alongside the Escanaba River in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan”! (I guess if I'd read the Acknowledgements at the beginning of the book I would have known this from the start.) He lives in Michigan! Surely we have friends and acquaintances in common! Suddenly I am overcome, thinking of so many dear friends, living and dead, but all of them alive and lively in my heart and mind. 

 

Did my friend, the late Chris Garthe, know John Gubbins?

Then, too, there are more books by John Gubbins, including one very recent, and that is always any writer’s best gift to readers.

My Sustain Pedal Is Not Working Today

After the long, three-part review series, my brain is weeping with fatigue. Miscellaneous short tidbits are all it can produce today. Fortunately, I have a few.

It’s Transition Fortnight everywhere Up North. The week before Thanksgiving as well as the week of the holiday, mean changes in weather, merchants’ displays and village decorations. Yes, we are switching over from fall to winter. Winter coats are coming out, along with warm caps, scarves and mittens. Sally Coohon and I took down scarecrows in Northport (we only missed one, and I cut him free a few days later), and the village people (but can they sing?) put up evergreen branches and red bows.

Lights were strung on the tree Friday. Then an errand in Lake Leelanau meant I made my way home at the end of the day through Leland, where I saw the same kind of thing taking place.




My events calendar over in the right-hand column only has to do with the bookstore, but there will be much more happening on Saturday, November 27, so here’s the complete list as it was given to me:

• Have your pet’s photo taken with Santa at Northport Bay Dog and Cat Company on Shabwasung Street. Donations will benefit Black Sheep Crossing Farm Animal Sanctuary. 11 a.m.- 1 p.m.

• Enjoy story time for kids at Dog Ears Books on Waukazoo Street. Who will read, and what will be read? Be surprised! 2:30 – 3:30 p.m.

• Join the puppet-making workshop at Dolls and More. All materials provided for $10 fee. 3:30 – 5:30 p.m.

• Decorate a couple of ornaments (buy one, get one free) at the Ceramic House on the corner of Waukazoo and Nagonaba. This is an all-day opportunity for fun.

• Another all-day event will take place at the Pennington Collection on the corner of Mill and Nagonaba: decorate a pinecone!

• Santa (Mr. Claus) will be at the Big Store (corner of Waukazoo and Nagonaba) from 3:30 – 5:30 p.m. Not something to miss!

• Finally, the official lighting of the Christmas tree is scheduled for 6 p.m. There will be a fire in the fireplace, and the Northport Community Band will be playing, so come and sing along!

I’ve made a couple of changes to my settings on this blog, so it should now be easier for people to leave comments. It worked for Steve. If you had problems before, try again and see if we’ve got a solution.

Follow this link to another review of Jeff Vande Zande’s book, Threatened Species, in case you missed my review or want a second opinion before committing to a quality reading experience. The newer link (first in paragraph) will also give you an interview with the author.

That's all, folks. Sayonara, night-night, and bon weekend!

Fishy Coincidence

It was a quiet morning following a stormy evening, and as soon as I realized that sleep would not return I got up to reheat coffee and pick up a book. (Always, when I put a mug of yesterday’s coffee in the microwave I think of Barry, a fellow graduate student at the University of Illinois, and the expression on his face when I admitted to this habit; it was as if I’d told him I served scrambled eggs on used carpet squares.) The book I opened so eagerly was Into the Desperate Country, the first novel by Jeff Vande Zande, yesterday’s visiting author at Dog Ears Books. Jeff’s story quickly plunged me into a cold, swiftly flowing river, where it was night, the air full of white mayflies, the woods of silently moving deer. And there were trout.

A few chapters in, my reading interrupted by David’s readiness for reheated coffee (yes, we share that sorry vice), I got online to check e-mail and found a heart-warming surprise. Someone who’d been Googling the Michigan adventure writer James B. Hendryx found a blog post I’d written and sent me a message with a question. “You mention meeting a decade previously a Hendryx collector and his wife. I just wondered if that might be my parents....” Well, yes, it was, and reading the message I remembered not only her parents but also her dear grandmother, my old neighbor in Traverse City many years ago. That is, the mother of my morning’s correspondent was the daughter of my old friend and neighbor—which is only important to me, the daughter and the granddaughter, but it was very meaningful to me.

The coincidence has to do with fishing. Here I am, reading a first novel by a talented young writer whose stories often involve fishing Michigan rivers, a writer I met and hosted only yesterday (when he came to Dog Ears to read from his most recent book), and this morning’s e-mail brings a connection to another Michigan writer who loved to fish northern waters. James Hendryx could lure his wife only as far north as Suttons Bay to live, but they and my old neighbor’s daughter and son-in-law made many fishing trips farther north, into the U.P. and Canada.

Michigan, dear Michigan! It changes and changes, and always (as Bruce Catton wrote so poignantly in Waiting for the Morning Train) it changes faster than we can adapt to the changes, whether it is the passing of people or of wilderness, but so much of what we love is still here. The Pigeon River is recovering, Jeff Vande Zande says, from a fish-killing release of dammed silt and warm water two years ago. That was good to hear.

It was also good to hear Jeff read yesterday, to listen to the way he answered questions from a small but very attentive audience, to begin reading another book by him this morning, and to realize, once again, that Michigan fiction is still in very good hands. We have treasure here: woods and waters and wonderful writers.

The fishing goes on, the stories go on. Yes, Virginia, there is an Up North, and there are many wonderful books about it, too.

Book Review: THREATENED SPECIES

Sometimes I amaze myself. I actually manage to keep reading books during the incredibly busy, full summer days! The effort pays off, too, and this quiet, drizzly, sweet Monday after the hot, hectic holiday weekend seems just the time to slow down and tell you about one of my latest finds.

It took Ed Winters some time to remember how to walk on a beach. His feet sank, and for a while it was more of a stumbling gait than a walk. He had to stop thinking and concentrate on his feet. He moved closer to the water where the sand was wet, smooth and firm. He walked, moving up and then back with the rhythm of the waves. The small waves hushed against the shore. The sky was overcast, but it wasn’t going to rain. At least a mile out, a car ferry made a small shadow on the surface. Ed stopped, as though he could keep a step ahead of the heavy feelings, like some stranger walking close behind him. He looked for beach glass, but found none.

Threatened Species is the first work I have read by Midland author Jeff Vande Zande, whose knowledge of and love for Michigan roads and streams pervade the pages of this quiet book, and I’m glad to have been led to discovering him. (Thank you so much, Valerie!) Vande Zande’s characters are ordinary people. They have pain and confusion in their lives, but the author’s language is never overwrought, never overreaches. My feeling as a Michigan reader is that of encountering on these pages people I know in places I love.

“Threatened Species,” the 110-page novella that is also the book’s title story, tells of a camping trip that turns into a road trip. The travelers are a father and his pre-adolescent son, and the trip begins in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, but I don’t want to give away too much of the story by recounting the full itinerary. I’ll tell you that it is trout season, so early spring, and that, because in August the boy will be moving to Paris, France, with his mother and stepfather, Ed Winters feels this will be his last chance for any extended time with his son.

His son. In the guest room, separated from him, he imagined what it would be like to have him an ocean away. Holidays would be hell, but even the day-to-day stuff would get to him. ...Ed raised a fist in the air and then swung it down forcefully into the mattress. Alone. He would soon be absolutely alone.

Like other fathers and sons, especially in northern Michigan, these two have been bound by fishing as much as by blood, and it is the promise of a legendary fish that draws them farther and farther from home. We as readers experience anxiety along the way over the fate of this often-sad pair, as decisions made on this trip could influence the rest of their lives, and fear of loss does not always make for good decision-making.

The chapters narrating Ed’s point of view are written in the third person, those from Danny’s in the first. When a second first-person narrator enters much later in the story, the reader feels a shock, but that was a strong decision on the part of the author. It all works and would not have worked the same way had he decided differently. There is a competent sureness at work here.

The five short stories that fill out the remainder of the book reaffirm the impression one receives from the novella, that of Vande Zande’s strong story-telling skill. In “Haunted” and “Breakdown” his protagonists are women, and their points of view as true as those of their male counterparts. This author accurately sketches human situations in much the same way a visual artist sketches human forms. Truth is complex, and truth is simple. Vande Zande catches the paradox artfully.

I’m trying to put together a visit to Northport for Jeff. If it comes together, we’re all in for a treat. Meanwhile, we have his book, and that’s the main event, after all.