The Doryman's Reflection: A Fisherman's Life

The Doryman's Reflection is an excellent book about the problems of sustainable fishing and the coastal environment. While the book is very serious, it is also an enjoyable book to read and not at all a strident "the sky is falling-scream and shout and dance about" type thing. Paul Molyneau writes very well and writes about what he knows. The book is in five sections, each of which is a complete story or booklet, able to stand on its own, it can be read over a number of nights or airline flights. I would reccommend this book to anyone who is interested in and cares about the coastal environment, the sea, fishing and the fish we eat.

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.

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.

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.