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The Doryman's Reflection: A Fisherman's Life | 
 enlarge | Author: Paul Molyneaux
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $3.09
You Save: $21.91 (88%)
New (22) Used (15) Collectible (2) from $2.16
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 1014527
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.2
ISBN: 1560256699
Dewey Decimal Number: 639.2092
EAN: 9781560256694
ASIN: 1560256699
Publication Date: March 10, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: SHIPS TODAY!! BRAND NEW BOOK
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Product Description
Fishermen survive as relics, the last hunter-gatherers among us. Their boats, crammed with ropes and nets, carry the mystique of a nearly forgotten world ruled by the elements. Now an accomplished writer, Molyneaux as a young man journeyed to Maine with no experience and a dream of working on a boat. This is the story of his apprenticeship with Bernard Raynes, one of Maine's last independent commercial fishermen. In the early 1980s, these two men shared some of the fishing industry's best years, as well as gripping adventures on the stormy North Atlantic. Now their world has changed. The author discusses the factors-personal and political, environmental and economic-that led to the decline of New England fishing. Thanks to a strong work ethic and an iron will, Raynes resolutely hangs on to a vanishing way of life, while consolidation pushes that way of life out of reach for today's young fishermen. For over three centuries, Raynes's ancestors invested their futures in the lives of fish. They learned to think like fish and developed unparalleled ability as fishermen. Today's fishermen will not have to match Raynes's supreme skill. Technology has edged Raynes out, and his fishing legacy will die with him.
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| Customer Reviews:
A Fisherman tells the real story April 21, 2008
Molyneaux is a beautiful writer, and tells his story so honestly that it is a prize in my collection of books about commercial fishing. As a former commercial fisherman on the west coast, my eyes were opened to the similarity in the east coast struggles to hold onto a way of life.The fishermen themselves did not understand what they were doing to the fish stocks, and then the government(s) in the name of improving the situation, gave what was left to the corporations, are rapidly wiping out the small-scale fishermen, and the environmentalists, in their urgency to save fish, did not recognize that fishermen too are a species worth saving. That seems to be changing, that is fishermen and environmentalists are beginning to see their common interest. His next book, about aquaculture is great too.
We need more poets and warriors September 21, 2005
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Paul's a friend and some of this is familiar through conversations we've had and times we've lived through. We haven't seen each other for several years and just recently reconnected via email. As soon as I could I bought the book and have been reading it-it's like we are still talking and I've emailed him my first response;
"It's like having a conversation with you-it's cool and spooky-the book is beautifully written-of course. The description of you and Bernard pulling up the fish with the seawater streaming over white knuckles was superb of course, of course.
The dark water-all of it. I can't separate it from you and the line about living another man's memories you spoke to me and reading the book I'm living them too.
Maureen"
Paul's style is so accessible and everyone in Maine should read this book. We all have a brother or uncle or cousin or sister or mother or grandparent that is just like one of the Raynes or like Paul or one of his boatmates. Everyone not in Maine will see human truth in the story as well. The last chapter Poets and Warriors is immediately recongizable to me-that was the period when we were warriors and poets watching this world we knew culminate and turn into something else.
This book is important from an ecological standpoint-it reaffirms the human connection to our environment. There are generations of farmers who've lost the land and builders who've lost their craft-everything seems to erode, if we let it. Paul reminds us that the vast ocean has been depleted by our policies and inattention and lack of care for the human connections we have to our world.
Buy it-read it-my friend has a voice that should be heard.
the best read of the summer August 9, 2005
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
More than just a fishing book, Molyneaux took me above and below the waves and into the halls of government where polcies were set that targeted people like the book's main character, Bernard Raynes. Molyneaux gives an intimate portrayal of the Bernard, whose English and Acadian French ancestors fished the Gulf of Maine since the 1600s, and depicts how that rich heritage has enabled Raynes to survive in the face of an antognistic political climate and resource scarcity. The book is beautifully written and contains lessons that go way beyond fishing.
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