The Founding Fish

De: John McPhee

Narrado por: John McPhee

Few fish are as beloved, or as obsessed over, as the American shad. Although shad spend most of their lives in salt water, they enter rivers by the hundreds of thousands in the spring and swim upstream heroic distances in order to spawn, then return to the ocean.

John McPhee is a shad fisherman, and his passion for the annual shad run has led him, over the years, to learn much of what there is to know about the fish known as Alosa sapidissima, or "most savory". In The Founding Fish McPhee makes of his obsession a work of literary art. In characteristically bold and spirited prose, inflected here and there with wry humor, McPhee places the fish within natural history and American history. He explores the fish's cameo role in the lives of William Penn, Washington, Jefferson, Thoreau, Lincoln, and John Wilkes Booth. He travels with various ichthyologists, including a fish behaviorist and an anatomist of fishes; takes instruction in the making of shad darts from a master of the art; and cooks shad and shad roe a variety of ways. Mostly, though, McPhee goes fishing for shad, standing for hours in the Delaware River in stocking waders and cleated boots, or gently bumping over rapids in a chocolate-colored Kevlar canoe. His adventures in the pursuit of shad occasion the kind of writing, at once expert and ardent, in which he has no equal.

©2002 John McPhee (P)2002 Recorded Books

Reseñas de la Crítica

"McPhee reaffirms his stature as a bold American original. His prose is rugged, straightforward, and unassuming, and can be just as witty. This book sings like anglers' lines cast on the water. It runs with the wisdom of ocean-going shad." (Publishers Weekly)
"McPhee is in great form here, as informative as always but also funny, unusually self-revealing, and quite passionate." (Booklist)

Really good, nerdy fish book!

I really enjoyed this book. It was fun, super nerdy if you can consider fishing nerdy, and very insightful. Must listen at 1.25 speed, otherwise it is very slow. But at that speed, the author, who is clever and witty, sounds good.

mixed thoughts

I enjoy nonfiction and John McPhee. As an audiobook, it's kind of neat to have John McPhee read it himself, but in printed book form it would be easier to skip over parts not of interest. This book contained many long fishing stories with too much minute by minute detail. Fishing fanatics might enjoy this - if that is you, then go for this book. I was expecting history, economics, science, and there was all that and much, much more. Making the darts, history of dams, biology of fish, deep sea fishing contests, many interesting topics and very comprehensive coverage. Now that I'm done, when I think back over what I learned, I do find it was worthwhile. But during the listening, I felt tortured at times.

McPhee Drills Down

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I would heartily recommend this to someone who loves to fish or to any devoted McPhee advocate. I happen to fit both of those checkboxes, but this book is probably not McPhee's best. The author still has juju: he still flares his unique ability to drill down into witty detail at the most unexpected moments like a peacock revealing a jeweled fan. Which is still highly alluring. Unless fishing just isn't your thing.

Would you ever listen to anything by John McPhee again?

Always and ever.

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

The author narrated this, and he's very good at it. There are some annoying repetitive oratory pops in some sections that endure for entire chapters as if the speaker had a very dry mouth, but hearing him narrate his own book brings the listener closer in. The pace of the story seemed to stray occasionally into dry turf. Overall, the telepathic process of his writing was able to build grand pictures of the subject in my imagination.

Did The Founding Fish inspire you to do anything?

Certainly. I can't wait to see a shad rise to a dry fly set in an a New England river some day.

Any additional comments?

Read it if you're a piscophile. Read it if you like McPhee's style.

Happy Happy Shad

McPhee at his absolute best! American Shad at its absolute best. Spell binding tale of the mastery
needed to hook American Shad, you WILL be hooked, even if you don't have the habit of fishing. If you
do have the habit, and you do have the good fortune
to hunt for The American Shad, these tales will make you wiser and crazier about the American Shad in our coastal waters. Good Luck

WHERE WAS ALL THIS INFORMATION HIDING

A TYPICAL JOHN MCPHEE BOOK. LOADED WITH INFORMATION, ADVENTURE, HUMOR AND FACTS, LOTS AND LOTS OF FACTS.
EVERY BOOK IS WORTH TWO OR THREE COLLEGE CLASSES. THIS IS MY THIRTEENTH BOOK. I MUST BE CLOSING IN ON A
DEGREE OF SOMEKIND. MANY, MANY MOONS AGO WHEN I WAS IN SCHOOL I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THESE SUBJECTS EXISTED.

I FEEL SO FORTUNATE TO HAVE FOUND AUTHORS LIKE JOHN MCPHEE, PAUL THEROUX AND BILL BRYSON. THEY FILL MY
EVERY NEED FOR A TOP-TIER EDUCATION.

audiobook that changed me as a fisherman forever

the audibook itself is like listening to an older gentleman tell random stories for hours and hours. At first I couldnt get a grip on this, but as I continued to listen closely I learned some interesting perspectives that I have never been exposed to. It made me a more complete and educated fisherman, and i would recomend it to anyone, its slow at times but honestly I cant wait to listen to it again. I often found myself going back and playing a section again and again. john mcphee isnt your average audibook narrator but I am glad to have him presenting the story as he orginaly intended.

I knew nothing about shad and now I know lots!

I really enjoyed this book and generally enjoyed the author reading it, but what is going on in the studio afterwards? They did nothing to get rid of noises made by McPhee while reading. The 3 stars for performance is on the audiobook producer!

I loved the book. I knew nothing about shad and gave never eaten any. No shad come up the river near where I live - it has been dammed since the 1630s. The dam itself is historic.

McPhee is a genius at making what could be a boring subject interesting. He weaves his experiences, science, environmental concerns, history, and the fishing experiences of others into this book. He talks about George Washington's troops, fish brought out west, the roe of the female shad, fish hatcheries, and more. Sometimes there is a little humor that comes in a McPhee book.

After listening to the book I'd like to try eating shad, but not roe. He's got recipes at the end for anyone who wants to try cooking.

If you can handle the lack of audio engineering, listen a little faster for better results, then enjoy the book.

Not Dated

I don't know what kind of reading this book would have made, but it made for very good listening. I suppose fish stories should be 'told' after all, and I suspect the author sensed this, because he did the narration himself, and his voice was a good fit.

I expected a somewhat scientific treatment, so I was surprised at all the fishing, and, though I don't fish, it was engaging (I haven't fished since childhood - fresh water perch in Michigan's Lake St. Clair - usually hooking a hundred an outing back in the mid-1960's) (along with my thumbs).

Curiously, when his locale was near where I live now (the Delaware Basin), it tugged at some long-lost primal urge to go fish.

So it was quite listenable - good while multi-tasking. He covered a lot of ground, from fishing in various locales to the issue of Dams to fishing gear to cooking to tournaments to museums to oil rigs, and even to PETA, in an unbiased manner.

Surprising was finding out why he named the book "The Founding Fish".

Read and released.

Reading McPhee is like watching a brilliant tennis player you've followed for years. I know his moves. I can even predict most of his methods, but I keep coming back to watch him put it all together. He is masterful. He makes the incredibly difficult work of narrative nonfiction seem effortless. Beautiful prose swims right up to McPhee and jumps into his net or flops right into the pages of his book.

Once again McPhee matches a microhistory (the American Shad) with great characters (biologists, fishermen, sportsmen, presidents, even his wife) present and past, amazing locations and takes you completely through the subject. You emerge from tail of the book knowing the history, the biology, the life, the death, the taste and the debate surrounding America's founding fish. He shows you every single bone in a boney fish. Read and released.

Entertaining from/for all angles/anglers

This book was so well done! I loved how John wove personal stories with both humorously ironic and historical fact. He displays all angles of angling with a seemingly unbiased but clear and respectful position of his own. Not really sure how he did that? I think I was smiling through every chapter. This is a guy I’d love to crowed on the river and become a character of his story lol! Highly recommend!