Product Description

Thirty-five million Americans–one in eight–like to go fishing. Fly fishers have always considered themselves the aristocracy of the sport, and a small number of those devotees, a few thousand at most, insist upon using one device in the pursuit of their obsession: a handcrafted split-bamboo fly rod. Meeting this demand for perfection are the inheritors of a splendid art, one that reveres tradition while flouting obvious economic sense and reaches back through time to touch the hands of such figures as Theodore Roosevelt and Henry David Thoreau.

In Casting a Spell, George Black introduces readers to rapt artisans and the ultimate talismans of their uncompromising fascination: handmade bamboo fly rods. But this narrative is more than a story of obscure objects of desire. It opens a new vista onto a century and a half of modern American cultural history. With bold strokes and deft touches, Black explains how the ingenuity of craftsmen created a singular implement of leisure–and how geopolitics, economics, technology, and outrageous twists of fortune have all come to focus on the exquisitely crafted bamboo rod. We discover that the pastime of fly-fishing intersects with a mind-boggling variety of cultural trends, including conspicuous consumption, environmentalism, industrialization, and even cold war diplomacy.

Black takes us around the world, from the hidden trout streams of western Maine to a remote valley in Guangdong Province, China, where grows the singular species of bamboo known as tea stick–the very stuff of a superior fly rod. He introduces us to the men who created the tools and techniques for crafting exceptional rods and those who continue to carry the torch in the pursuit of the sublime. Never far from the surface are such overarching themes as the tension between mass production and individual excellence, and the evolving ways American society has defined, experienced, and expressed its relationship to the land.

Fly-fishing may seem a rarefied pursuit, and making fly rods might be a quixotic occupation, but this rich, fascinating narrative exposes the soul of an authentic part of America, and the great significance of little things. George Black’s latest expedition into a hidden corner of our culture is an utterly enchanting, illuminating, and enlightening experience.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #456146 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-08
• Released on: 2006-08-08
• Format: Deckle Edge
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Roughcut
• 272 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In the rarified world of bamboo fly rod making, names like Ed Payne and Sam Carlson, and their progeny, acolytes and apprentices, stand like giants, casting long shadows that stretch from the dawn of modern American fly-fishing in the late 19th century to the present-day reality of multimillion dollar "cabins" along the Bitterroot River valley in Montana. In this beautifully crafted, utterly engaging work, Black wraps his own personal journey through the contemporary world of bamboo fly rod making in a sweeping, meticulous telling of the history of American fly-fishing. With admirable dexterity, he manages to make the story a metaphor for a great deal of how American social and commercial culture has evolved over the past 150 years. Black indelibly etches a story of peerless craftsmen laboring toward perfection, sparring all the while with corporate interest, fickle customers and the inevitable diminishing of their own inspiration. A must for any committed angler, this is a worthwhile read for those who have never rolled out of bed before dawn, pulled on a pair of rubber waders and ventured into the ice-cold waters of some trout stream in search of that perfect catch. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Black celebrates the bamboo fly rod, finding in this special piece of fishing tackle a metaphor for an offshoot of the American dream: what he calls the "pursuit of perfection" in craftsmanship. The text combines a history of bamboo rod development--from -nineteenth-century craftsmen through such recent rod makers as Hoagy Carmichael Jr. (son of the songwriter)--with a broader narrative in which bamboo craftsmanship becomes part of a larger story involving the cold war, the growth of outdoor retailing companies (Abercrombie and Fitch, Orvis, L. L. Bean), and the movement of the tackle-manufacturing industry from the U.S. to overseas (rod bamboo, it turns out, is only available in China). Some readers may be disappointed to find that there is relatively little actual fishing in these pages, but Black is after, well . . . bigger fish. In the manner of Mark Kurlansky writing about salt or cod, he finds in the simple bamboo fishing rod a means to express not only the essence of fly-fishing but also the unquenchable spirit of individual craftsmen. John Rowen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
George Black did not pick up a fly rod till after his fortieth birthday–and he has seldom willingly put one down since. He was born in the small Scottish mining town of Cowdenbeath and was educated at Oxford University. Black is the author of four other books, including The Trout Pool Paradox: The American Lives of Three Rivers. A journalist and editor for more than twenty-five years, he has written for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The New Statesman, Mother Jones, The National Law Journal, Fly Fisherman, and many other publications. He lives in New York City with his wife, the author and playwright Anne Nelson, and their two children.