Word: skiffs
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McGuane is rhapsodic in his meticulous, almost poetic description of the inspiration the ocean offers Skelton--seascapes of rocky bottom and tide-waved weeds; schools of fish gliding instinctively past each other without colliding; the expert crafting from scratch of Tom's skiff; the art of guiding that provides a framework within which Skelton makes his last ditch attempt to integrate his psyche with the natural world. Guiding is a one-man job, but Hemingway style requires full exertion of Skelton's intellect, intuition and physical strength in mastering fishing equipment and tides, navigating channels and neighboring keys, and sniffing...
Value is found not in objects or personalities themselves, but in the degree they trigger his mind to acknowledge their identity. When Skelton's skiff is finished and he and his girl Miranda haul it to the harbor, he scorns unearned satisfaction...
...drunk to speak. One day he offers Skelton his bookings; he has killed another man, he claims, and will soon be in prison. When the younger man finds out that all this is only a casual redneck ruse, he sets fire to Dance's skiff. There is only one riposte to that act of war: Dance promises Skelton a speedy death if he ever tries to guide in the Keys. Skelton orders himself a skiff...
Samuel Johnson once remarked that there is nothing like waiting to be hanged to sharpen a man's faculties. So it is with Skelton from the moment a last horizon is penciled in a few inches from his nose. He designs the skiff along the firm specifications of his daydreams. He begins to fall in love with his girl. Most of all, he seeks links between himself, his father, and his grandfather, an energetic old crook of limit less cynicism, "bilking everyone and being down right fatherly about it." His preference in sexual foreplay is to jump around...
...beach. But, as with most sequels, this second outing of a boy and his dolphin fails to improve on the flippertygibbet fun of the original. When Sandy (Luke Halpin) learns that Flipper is going to be taken away from him, both head for the open sea. Sandy's skiff konks out near an island paradise where he meets the wife and daughters of Sir Halsey Hopewell, held prisoner aboard his yacht by three escaped murderers...