The book I bought when I went to see my parents includes an essay by Tim Goode called 'Catching Big Fish' and the essay tells an interesting story about the history of this specialist area of angling:
Before World War II, the capture of a big fish was regarded as a matter of good fortune. The possibility of narrowing the margin of luck was hardly considered and, if it was, disregarded. The concept of a man directing his angling towards the capture of 'glass-case-sized' fish would have been greeted with laughter.Goode goes on to explain that attitudes changed in the years immediately after the war, when a small group of anglers began developing techniques to improve their chances of landing really enormous specimens of carp. (The idea of searching for astonishing individuals from different species of fish gave rise to the name of this branch of angling - 'specimen fishing'.)
I'm interested in this story - the reconceptualisation of something originally seen as a question of luck into a matter of skill. This, I think, feels like the narrative of technology more broadly: 'This is not a matter of chance or fortune - we can prevent the illness, build the flood defences, predict when the earthquake will come.' But, in spite of our technological advances, a sense of the external still haunts us. In fact, the very distinction between the internal and external becomes more complex all the time. As science has more to tell us about the life of the individual - the factors that produce our characters, capabilities, weaknesses, and proclivities, we (collectively) have more control but we (individually) may have less, and the very opposition between inside and outside becomes a less familiar terrain and one that feels a little frightening to walk through.
Writing is variously described as a craft (internal) or something gifted to the writer (external). There are now many guides for writers which characterise the process as similar to the story of the king and the fisherboy - the wonderful catch is, to some extent, a matter of chance or of providence, but it will never happen if you don't turn up regularly and cast your line into the sea. Similarly, you can never be sure that what you write will be good. You can only make it possible for grace or chance or luck to intervene by sitting down regularly and writing.
There is nothing very profound in what I've said here but the relationship between internal and external is figured powerfully in the imagery of fishing and perhaps nowhere more than in the competition between the angler and the fish on the line - a direct struggle between the skill, preparation, and effort mustered by the self and that other will, pitted against your own, fighting with all its might to elude your control.
Stuffed fish in the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum. [By Herry Lawford [CC-BY-2.(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.]
I like this post and think it is fundamental for our project. Fishing is also a bit like writing. Here is Tim Ingold: 'in writing with a pen, nothing guides the tip save the movement of the hand and figures with their characteristic penhold. The line rendered on paper is the trace of an ongoing gestural improvisation' (2004 p. 13). I like the idea of writing as ongoing gestural improvisation and wondered then how much a rod, a line, is like a pen?
ReplyDeleteI like what Kate was saying about being a fake academic in the previous post and the idea that 'good' writing has some sort of chance aspect. 'I have become very interested in what criteria people use to decide what is 'serious' literature or 'good' literature and how 'literature' itself has an ideological basis. For example Hines as a schoolboy when being taught literature 'felt that [he] was being imposed upon by middle-class teachers in a middle-class institution glorifying upper-class values' (Hines 2009). But also that in the same way with angling you can have all the right gear and technique but not catch a fish, you can study literature, look at technique, practice writing etc. but in the end you still may not think that a text is 'good' even if it has all the 'right things' because of your emotional response to the world around you. Its that 'so what?' question that can always be asked when someone tells a story, its about relevance. Hines used to read comics like the Rover because the stories were relevant to him, unlike the literary books he was taught at school. Hoggart talks about serious literature and does not speak very highly of pulp magazines, 'low-brow' literature etc. but even he admits that 'they may in all their triteness speak for a solid and relevant way of life' (Hoggart 1957: 107).
ReplyDeletePerhaps it is more like Crayon's experiences in the previous post. Sometimes fishing with the 'rod from a branch of tree' is more rewarding than fishing with ' a patent rod, a landing-net, and a score of other inconveniences, only to be found in the true angler's armoury'. But I suppose what I am more interest in is how people use high and low culture to create social distinction between themselves and others.