Word: fisherman
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...Bell for Adano), the Holocaust (The Wall) and the atom bomb (Hiroshima), has chosen the dialogue form for what seems a lighter topic: the pursuit of bluefish off Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. But as the book's insatiably curious Stranger talks informally with the knowledgeable Fisherman, a cascade of lore and documents, poetry and tragedy is netted along with the glistening quarry...
Early on, the Fisherman pays his respects to the food chain: "It takes 50 pounds of silversides to produce a five-pound blue. It takes 500 pounds of plankton to produce those silversides. It takes 5,000 pounds of microscopic sea plants to produce those plankton animals . . . 'All flesh is grass.' " Yet there is not an ounce of false sentiment in his speeches: "It probably doesn't make sense to talk about pain in a fish . . . an angler who had caught a perch told of finding himself unable to remove the hook without taking one of the fish's eyes...
Herring gulls may have some attraction for birders; to the Fisherman they amount to rats with wings. He rings in Ogden Nash for support: "Hark to the whimper of the sea-gull;/ He weeps because he's not an ea-gull./ Suppose you were, you silly sea-gull,/ Could you explain it to your she-gull...
...John Ciardi celebrates "The Lung Fish," a survivor intact from prehistoric epochs: "If no/ creature is immortal, some/ are more stubborn than others." And Robert Lowell hopes that "when shallow waters peter out," he will be able to "catch Christ with a greased worm" and save his soul. The Fisherman notes, "Lowell was a Christian, and he was probably right to resort to the metaphor of fishing for his purpose. Christianity is an aquarium . . . in the fourth century, the cross was not the prevailing symbol for the Man-Fisher; the fish was . . . when ((Jesus)) rose from the dead and went...
...media can belly-ache all it wants about deception by the White House. But, as the fisherman said, "It don't matter what bait you use if the fish ain't biting," and the fact remains that the press must be held responsible for the stories it chooses to print. Admittedly, the Administration acted wrongly and foolishly, but the press must share complicity in this public and foreign relations debacle...