Too often, there's a conception of literature as something dusty and inactive. This
couldn't be further from the truth. The great books feature tons of examples of strong
characters doing dramatic and compelling things, and this is true from any perspective,
even that of the sportsman who isn't accustomed to being drawn in by literature. A good
example of this is the proliferation of big game fishing in classical books.
For instance, Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" is a novel that takes the thrill of
fishing and draws an analogy to every man's search for meaning in life. Grappling with
such huge concepts, Melville tells the huge story of a demented sea captain and his single
minded obsession with the whale who maimed him years earlier, Moby Dick.
Over the course of the novel, one learns a great deal about whaling and the kind of people
who might take part in it. On the other hand, though, the real thrust of the novel is
Ahab's obsession and the depths to which it takes him and the rest of the crew. A nice
reminder that life shouldn't be squandered on a singular obsessive search, no matter the
object.
Then, of course there's Hemingway. A fisherman himself, Hemingway put all that he knew
about the sport into his classic story, "The Old Man and the Sea". Here, an old
man has been down on his luck in fishing as of late and hasn't caught a fish in more than
a month. Both his livelihood and his life are at stake unless he can land something big.
And he does. One day he hooks into a massive marlin, but he cannot overpower it. All he
can do is remain hooked to the beast, fighting its efforts to free itself, until at last
it becomes exhausted and he can row it in. For days and nights, he hangs on, and we get a
glimpse of just how much something like fishing can define and underline a human life.
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Even the Bible chimes in with its own fishing story, and it too is a pretty good one. When
the prophet Jonah hears the call of God, he attempts to shirk his duty by buying passage
on a fishing vessel headed far away from his homeland. During the course of the voyage
though, things do not go as planned.
God continually besets the ship with one hardship after the other, including devastating
storms and a total lack of successful fishing, until at last the crew throws Jonah
overboard. Once they do, the ship continues on unabated, but Jonah himself is swallowed up
by a whale or shark (the exact type of fish is unspecified).
As we all know, though, Jonah is delivered up from the whale in the end, and this is very
similar to the act of deliverance that literature performs upon the sport of big game
fishing. Far from being something un-intellectual, it is a passionate undertaking that can
mean the difference between life and death for many people. The great authors of the world
have known this and their wisdom should be heeded.
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