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Trout Reflections Reviews "With the
recent arrival of his book, Trout Reflections, David M. Carroll
has earned a spot on my list of the top ten angling writers. Actually,
Carroll's effective combination of fishing, environmental concerns and
natural history places his book on my list of the top ten nature books.
Carroll writes majestically without being pompous. He writes grand, long
paragraphs, each with a superb concluding sentence. He can be precise and
scientific in depicting the coloration of a brook trout, the sense of a
small rocky plunge pool or a wood frog. He can be impressionistic as in
his drawing of a flooded brook on an overcast day or the sticks and litter
along a streambed. In all his sketches, he captures the essential wildness
of his subjects. Given its writing insights, artwork and reasonable
price, Trout Reflections is must reading for all anglers, nature lovers
and art fans." "Trout Reflections...is filled with studied observations...and absolutely breathtaking drawings and paintings...(the) book conveys great understanding of the trout's life in the wild, the seasons of its existence as he traces a year of trout encounters along small brooks and isolated ponds. But most of remarkable is Carroll's ability to take simple things that any angler might observe while fishing and to let the reader see the greater truth within." Peter F. Cammann, Boston Book Review "...artist and writer...Carroll merges poetry, philosophy, science, and environmental activism." Rebecca Rule, Concord Monitor "Carroll's great lesson is that all life is connected everywhere. Turtles pop up in his book about trout, as do minks, mayflies, kingfishers and herons. One can enjoy his books for it historical tidbits, for its biology, for its environmental message, or for the author's shimmering watercolors." Geoffry Elan, Yankee "Carroll shares with his readers the essence and beauty of the trout and its habitat... Highly recommended for all general natural history collections." Library Journal "Trout Reflections is a happy , evocative, and memorable paean to the magic of a trout's world." Nick Lyons, author of Spring Creek "David Carroll's illustrations are absolutely wonderful." Robert Bateman Trout Reflections is a lovely book, mixing the probity of science with a touch of the poet." Ernest Schweibert, author of Matching the Hatch and Trout
John Randolph, in his 'Riffles and Runs' column in Fly Fisherman magazine (March 1997) discussed the history of fly fishing from The Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle (attributed to Dame Juliana Bernes, 1496) to the present and concludes that more recent books have "higher aspirations": these books many of them written within the past three decades, and most importantly in the past two, deserve special attention, for they achieve a level of writing that is fine art, and in some cases very fine. How does one find them? I can give you my short list... Trout Reflections, A Natural History of the Trout and Its World, by David M. Carroll is the kind of accomplishment that few of the great artists in either writing or painting have ever achieved - a double. Usually the writing slips beneath the film, or the artwork causes our teeth to ache, or both. Carroll achieves a level of both that is breathtaking. Think of what Thoreau could have created had he possessed this level of artistic talent to accompany his stunning gift with words. As a youth who grew up in the same world (Massachusetts) that the author shared, and as a fly fisher, I find Reflections to be the ultimate personal artistic statement, one man's completely portrayed perception of his natural world. In the history of fly-fishing literature no one has ever reached these levels simultaneously in two fine-art fields, although artist/writer Russ Vhatham can claim challenge in his superb piece, "Desert as the Main Course" published by Fly Fisherman in its 1979 Jan/Feb issue. John Randall's Review of Trout Reflections (from his short list of 10 books)
©2006 David M Carroll |
