Response to River Why Question by Cristina Wozniak

The first three chapters of the book The River Why are not easy to read because it is difficult to determine what Duncan’s main point is. Whether or not these chapters are necessary and if they should be eliminated is a reasonable question to ask. Even though Duncan is an experienced writer and has written many other books does not mean a serious critic of this book cannot be made. This novel was one of his earlier works, thus his skill and ability as a writer was not as developed as it is today.
If the reader does not understand these first chapters of the book, there are two possible reasons for this. Maybe we do not understand what Duncan was trying to say in these chapters and have missed the point of them. It could also be that Duncan was having trouble with the beginning of his novel. He may have had trouble beginning this book and figuring out how he wanted to introduce to us the main characters, Gus, H20, Ma, and Bill Bob. Perhaps he was unsure how to introduce the dynamic between the characters and how they would interact with each other through the novel– especially Ma and H20.
As I was reading the first three chapters of this book, I did have some trouble understanding the chapters themselves and how it was that they tied into the rest of the novel. There were parts in these chapters which I thought were entirely unnecessary. For example, the long story told in the “back woods” slang. It just seemed too much of a focus on Uncle Zeke, who is not mentioned anywhere else in the novel. Furthermore, both parts of chapter three could have been summarized into one. They do give insight on the obsession that Gus sinks into, but to not seem vital to the story itself. For example, the references he makes to the Bible do not seem important or really have anything to do with the story.
The first three chapters of the book set the stage for two of the major themes in this novel, which are fishing and obsession. The reader could figure this out even if these chapters did not exist, since Duncan starts the book out talking about his mother. “Having harbored two sons in the waters of her womb, my mother considers herself something of an authority on human fetuses (Duncan 2).” Nowhere else in the novel does Duncan talk about how his mother believes herself to know anything about fetuses. In chapter two, Duncan tells us about “The Rogue River Fishing war,” which was actually Ma’s and H20’s honeymoon. The sentence that summarizes the whole experience is, “The effete angler and the raucous cowgirl were the material prima, the Rogue River the crucible, worms and flies the catalysts, angling the white-hot fire, and a marriage that has stood the tests of time (Duncan 11).” After reading this chapter it seemed that the book might be about how tough the marriage was and how they were two completely opposite people but still extremely attracted to each other. There must have been something else that Duncan wanted to tell the reader by writing these passages because this was not what the book ended up being about.
However, these opinions are only based on my interpretation of the novel. If the reader knew why Duncan had put this information into the first three chapters then there would be no question if these chapters were important or not. One cannot know for sure whether or not the book would be better off if these chapters were eliminated. Unless you could convince yourself that nothing in the way you interpret the book would change had you never read the first three chapters they would have to be included. It must however be said that this was one of Duncan’s earlier novels and he was probably struggling to find voice and how he wanted to begin the novel.
-Cristina Wozniak