The Literary Fly Fisher

In January of 2003, Outside Magazine published a list of recommended “adventure” books, in an article titled “The 25 (Essential) Books for the Well-Read Explorer.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Wind, Sand, and Stars, published in 1939 (first in French and then in English, in the same year), was at the top of their list. In the article, Brad Wieners describes Saint-Exupéry’s classic:

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Wind, Sand and Stars is so humane, so poetic, you underline sentences: “It is another of the miraculous things about mankind that there is no pain nor passion that does not radiate to the ends of the earth. Let a man in a garret but burn with enough intensity and he will set fire to the world.” Saint-Exupéry did just that. No writer before or since has distilled the sheer spirit of adventure so beautifully. True, in his excitement he can be righteous, almost irksome like someone who’s just gotten religion. But that youthful excess is part of his charm. Philosophical yet gritty, sincere yet never earnest, utterly devoid of the postmodern cop-outs of cynicism, sarcasm, and spite, Saint-Exupéry’s prose is a lot like the bracing gusts of fresh air that greet him in his open cockpit. He shows us what it’s like to be subject and king of infinite space.

I have written before about Saint-Exupéry, and I’m happy that Outside included one of his books in their list (he is, most famously, the author of The Little Prince). Truly, Wind, Sand and Stars conveys a sense of what most of us would describe as adventure. However, the books that Outside recommended, and which other publication have recommended in similar lists, might better be classified as “environmental” or “outdoor literature.” After all, “adventure” is a term that is as hard to define as “art,” “nature,” or “love.”

Regardless, if  you find yourself house-bound or otherwise restricted from enjoying the outdoors yourself,  you can find some fine reading material in Outside’s old list. By using the search function on their webpage, you can locate several other lists of recommended readings as well. Also, take a look at the extensive list of “adventure” books published online by National Geographic in 2004 (notice, there is a link to more recent recommendations at the bottom of their webpage).

My Grandfather’s Burns book, a bottle of Scotch from a Wheatley fly box I purchased in Peebles, Scotland, and a few Clyde style flies tied by Andy Gunderson.

Once again, it is that time of year when fans of Robert Burns celebrate Scotland’s most famous bard. My love of his writing springs not only from his writing talent, but from his ability to speak as one close to the land, the people who toil upon it, that animals, and even the plants.

In “Nature’s Law,” Burns acknowledges the inspiration that the world-less-cultivated provides him. More directly, though, he honors life. Specifically, he honors life (with no small amount of pride) as it is shared with and manifested in his twins, just born to him and his future wife, Jean Armour.

“Nature’s Law. A Poem Humbly Inscribed to G.H. Esq., ” 1786.

Let other heroes boast their scars,
The marks of sturt and strife:
And other poets sing of wars,
The plagues of human life;
Shame fa’ the fun; wi’ sword and gun
To slap mankind like lumber!
I sing his name, and nobler fame,
Wha multiplies our number.

Great Nature spoke, with air benign,
‘Go on, ye human race!
‘This lower world I you resign;
‘Be fruitful and increase.
‘The liquid fire of strong desire
‘I’ve pour’d it in each bosom;
‘Here, on this hand, does Mankind stand,
‘And there, is Beauty’s blossom.’

The Hero of these artless strains,
A lowly bard was he,
Who sung his rhymes in Coila’s plains,
With meikle mirth an’ glee;
Kind Nature’s care had given his share
Large, of the flaming current;
And, all devout, he never sought
To stem the sacred torrent.

He felt the powerful, high behest
Thrill, vital, thro’ and thro’;
And sought a correspondent breast,
To give obedience due;
Propitious Powers screen’d the young flow’rs,
From mildews of abortion;
And lo! the Bard – a great reward –
Has got a double portion!

Auld cantie Coil may count the day,
As annual it returns,
The third of Libra’s equal sway,
That gave another Burns,
With future rhymes, an’ other times,
To emulate his sire;
To sing auld Coil in nobler style,
With more poetic fire.

Ye Powers of peace, and peaceful song,
Look down with gracious eyes;
And bless auld Coila, large and long,
With multiplying joys.
Lang may she stand to prop the land,
The flow’r of ancient nations;
And Burnses spring, her fame to sing,
To endless generations!