The Earth is Enough: Growing Up in a World of Flyfishing, Trout, & Old Men

I've read a good number of books that deal with the subject of fly-fishing, streams, trout and country living, but I've never read one that makes me see the images of my home; home stream; home woods; home folk, quite the way Middleton does; he is superb. Middleton's pen works just like the streams and life he writes about; it wanders, meanders, gurgles, sprits, colors and calls: beckons you to come along - regardless of whether you see where you're going or not. You will gladly follow and are generously rewareded for your efforts. Middleton is such an artist in delivery, that one must be patient in order to see the full palette of his work. It is well worth the wait. The captivation experienced within the color and tale found in Middleton's work, is only the lure for the more meaningful and deep-rooted feelings he exposes and we try so desperately to hide from.The meaning of words like: home, place, belonging, passion, love, devotion, loyalty and the like are all brought to clarity through Middleton's pen. Middleton pens the human condition into hues and shades we canot overlook; cannot run from; they envelop you and gracefully force you to look deep into the soul that makes us who we truly are.This book may be best read after living the first 50 years of ones life; else it's wisdom would most likely be lost. But I surely wish all would read it - at least the first time - early in life, then pick it up again later on; read it again, and drink in the full meaning: drink long and full. If only the simple wisdoms pointed out here could be learned early on ... life would be far more enjoyed, than simply endured.The rest of Middleton's books are equally salient and soulful reminders of what truly matters in life. And chorus the statement eloquently posited here, "The Earth is Enough"; take care of it, there's only one. When it is gone, it's ALL GONE.

This book has it all. It's funny, touching, beautifully written, easy to read, contains life lessons - what more could you want? And I don't even fly fish!!! Buy it, read it, keep it, re-read it. I first read it years ago, and keep buying copies as gifts.

In the preface to a later book, the late Harry Middleton said he was asked by an young student how much of this books were true. His answer was, "More than I want."This is the story of a young boy growing up in a military family, stationed at a staging area during the Vietnam War. When one of his friends is killed - and Harry badly injured - playing with a grenade they found in the jungle, Harry is packed off to his grandfather, a subsistence farmer in the Ozarks of Arkansas. There, with his grandfather, granduncle and the old American Indian, Elias Wonder, Harry is healed, not just of the trauma of seeing his friend disappear in a "pink mist" but healed as well of a great deal of other things he may not have known ailed him. As Harry learns the rhythms of the land and the mysteries of Starlight Creek from his grandfather and the irascible Elias Wonder, he grows and the reader grows with him. Like David James Duncan's _The River Why_, this is a book about growing up and coming of age, and flyfishing - that "hopeless addiction to trout and the push of water against your legs" - is simply the author's narrative tool.Harry must have been a more patient and willing teenager than I was, or perhaps time has colored over Harry's experience, but there is nothing else to criticize. Beautifully written, exceptionally well told, full of life, sadness, humor, death and understanding. And if flyfishing became an addiction for Harry, that was to haunt him in his later years, well, he was warned and in any event there are far worse fates.

Harry should take his place next to other great authors. Themessage that this book carries is in the depth of caring and auniversal consideration for life, along with the message that these things do not come from the material comforts on which we have we have come to depend. I think of this book and its lessons often in this era when our children eat drugs like candy, flock to the artificiality of backsteet urban culture and shoot each other just to "belong". I think it offers a moral reality that they yearn for. I agree with the reviewer from WA, this should be made by Redford into a movie. Maybe with Newman or Ralph Waite with some of the old" Walton" cast (especially the narrator). Does anyone know how to contact him? This book will remain number one on my bookshelf. Its too bad we lost Harry so early. Now we have to hope some publisher will buy the rights and re-issue "Starlight Creek Angling Society" so the rest of us can read the continuing saga.