We have read John Steinbeck's account of fishing as practised in the
USA and
England. But at the end of his essay he comes to France and finds the angling there to be superior to that in both the other countries. He invites the reader to imagine the banks of the River Oise 'on a summer Sunday afternoon'. All the anglers have a fixed spot which is theirs and theirs only, so that one has even planted geraniums along his little stretch of water, so confident is he in his right to the place:
The fishing equipment is simple but invariable. The pole is of bamboo, not expensive but often adorned. On a hook about the size of a pinhead is fixed a tiny bread pellet. The Parisian is now ready for the fishing.
Here is no sentiment, no contest, no grandeur, no economics. Most of the time there seems to be a courteous understanding by which fish and fisherman let each other strictly alone. Apparently there is also a rule about conversation. The fisherman's eyes get a dreaming look and he turns inward on his own thoughts, inspecting himself and his world in quiet. Because he is fishing, he is safe from interruption.
Steinbeck likes this approach to angling better than the others he describes. He characterises it as possessing a certain 'sanctity'. While engaged in it, he says, 'a man is alone with himself in dignity and peace', and afterwards may come away from it 'refreshed and in control of his own soul'. I'm interested in Steinbeck's choice of terms here. I think we're fairly used to the idea that fishing can be peaceful, refreshing, and so forth, but the idea that it confers a certain
dignity upon one who practices seems important. Does this quality arise in the assertion of autonomy implied in the pursuit of such a solitary activity? From the absence of 'sentiment', 'contest' and 'grandeur'? Or from the insistence on the importance of recreation - simple and uncommodified - in the midst of the demands of the capitalist economy?
Where the Oise meets the Seine to the north-east of Paris.
I think this dignity and conversation aspects link with my experiences fishing last week. When I started on the Language as Talisman project Kate took me to the park to look around and get a sense of what we were doing. She talked to me about how young people were always doing something when they were talking. The activities facilitated the socialization. I found this last week, I didn't have to speak at all to Martin who was teaching me and he was very happy watching in silence until I spoke, caught a fish or he decided it was time to change tactic. The activity was the socialization not the conversation. I got a sense of dignity and pride from the fishermen. In the sense that they were proud of the work they had done to maintain and progress the fishing ponds. But also from the fisherman on the opposite shore who was completely separate from us all, and never really spoken to but somehow part of our group. Maybe I can explain this a bit more after I fish today.
ReplyDeleteI spoke to one of the engineers from the Advanced Research Manufacturing Centre in Rotherham about this. He said it was the same with engineering. He described an engineer who was aligning a steel plate. He said no words could describe what the man needed to do. He thought fishing and engineering were similar activities. Maybe it is no co-incidence that many of the fishermen worked in the steel industry? The ponds are maintained by the steel words.
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