Tuesday
Mar092010
Vintage Chum - The Maclean Brothers
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 12:00AM 
Paul Maclean in a photograph by Norman Maclean, late 1930s.
Norman Maclean in an undated studio portrait from his college years.
tagged vvintage fly fishing in Vintage
vvintage fly fishing in Vintage
Reader Comments (6)
Wow! Thanks for posting these great photos. I caught the movie on a cable channel this weekend, for the umpteenth time, and Brad Pitt and Craig Sheffer always bias my mind's eye image of how I pictured Norman and Paul Maclean from when I read the book. Now I know and can block the Bradgelina thing!
..... which one is the drunk asshole that got beat to death
I believe I enjoyed the book, "A River Runs through It" more than I did the movie. And although I watched the movie prior to reading the book, Maclean's art was in the simplicity of his story telling and structure of his sentence, making the story fresh.
I just finished the "The Norman Maclean Reader" and Maclean is just as readable and entertaining. His views on story telling and sentence structure is revealed in this collection of pieces and letters. It's all good.
Although Maclean lived most of his life in Chicago teaching, he was never far from Montana, the mountains and the rivers he loved. Their clean and pure inspiration is reflected in everything he wrote. It's a shame he didn't share more with us.
Great photos. Wonderful book and amazing story. I was lucky enough the read the book before the movie came out so I wasn't jaded by the poor qualities of the big screen.
Wow, thanks for posting these photos. I have never seen the movie on the advice of good firiends of mine, but the novella has meant a lot to me over the years. I was an English teacher like Norman. The truest words in American literature are in that book.
"On the walls of the church were the words "God is love." I thought that that applied only to the four memebers of my family and not to the rest of the world, which is full of bastards their number ever increasing the further on gets from Missuola, Montana..."
or something like that.
I don't know why people don't like the movie, I can only assume because it's not your flashy hollywood type that our culture nowadays thirsts for; however, I thought Redford did a great job with it... of course it pales in comparison to Maclean's writing. Still, both are my favorites. The soundtrack, dialogue, acting, characters... can't beat it.
What draws me the most is the scenery and values associated with this story. I grew up in the country in northeastern Iowa. A place touched by both, so much of what is included in this story, especially its naturalism, resonates with me. I only wish I had grown up during Norman's time... a time when the 'dew was still fresh' on the world. It would have been tough, but it would have been worth it.