Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Grew Up… son of a Presbyterian minister in Missoula, Montana, in the 1920’s.
Living… in the same small town, taking advantage of all the natural beauty the West has to offer.
Profession… journalist, and a good one. Paul is known throughout town for being a successful and daring writer, who asks the hard questions and breaks the big stories.
Interests… drinking, gambling, and of course fly fishing. The latter runs in the family, with Paul and his brother Norman practicing daily as children under the careful direction of their father. The drinking and gambling, however, are hobbies that Paul picked up all on his own, though he’s just as serious about them. When his brother refuses a celebratory swig of whiskey upon returning from University one morning, Paul quips, “Come on now, brother. The East has made you soft!”
Relationship Status… single, but often accompanied. Paul, in addition to being famous around town, is an excellent dancer and usually arrives at the bars and dance halls with a beautiful woman on his arm.
Challenge… keeping his composure. Paul clashes with the devout ways of his father, and pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable in small-town Montana with his large lifestyle. Living the free and inspired life he wants to live often draws the scorn of others around him who don’t share the same priorities or morals.
Personality… wild and energetic. Paul lives life as a set of opportunities and challenges that should be embraced, and he does so with gusto. This lends itself well to the newspaper business, where Paul excels at writing compelling articles. However, his energy often spills over into conflict, leading Paul into plenty of rowdy fights and drunken confrontations. Normally cheerful, Paul is beloved by many as the life of social events, instantly commanding the attention of a crowd. Progressive and inquisitive, Paul doesn’t accept cultural norms, and sometimes goes out of his way to shake things up.
Get to Know him in...
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A River Runs Through follows Norman and his brother Paul through the experiences of life and growing up, and how their love of fly fishing keeps them together despite varying life circumstances in the untamed west of Montana in the 1920's.
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When Norman Maclean sent the manuscript of A River Runs through It and Other Stories to New York publishers, he received a slew of rejections. One editor, so the story goes, replied, “it has trees in it.” Forty years later, the title novella is recognized as one of the great American tales of the twentieth century, and Maclean as one of the most beloved writers of our time. The finely distilled product of a long life of often surprising rapture—for fly-fishing, for the woods, for the interlocked beauty of life and art—A River Runs through It has established itself as a classic of the American West. This new edition will introduce a fresh audience to Maclean’s beautiful prose and understated emotional insights. Elegantly redesigned, A River Runs through It includes a new foreword by Robert Redford, director of the Academy Award-winning 1992 film adaptation of River. Based on Maclean’s own experiences as a young man, the book’s two novellas and short story are set in the small towns and mountains of western Montana. It is a world populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, but also one rich in the pleasures of fly-fishing, logging, cribbage, and family. By turns raunchy and elegiac, these superb tales express, in Maclean’s own words, “a little of the love I have for the earth as it goes by.”
