Among the last of a generation of truly literary modern sporting writers
By Chad Love
This is a follow-up of sorts to last week’s blog about writing, because I recently learned that Guy de la Valdene died.
Some of you who follow the literature of bird hunting know who he was. Guy de la Valdene wrote several small but influential books on bird hunting, and he was among the last of a generation of truly literary modern sporting writers, the talent and voice and perspective of which we rarely see these days.
He was a contemporary of that group of writers and artists that included the likes of Thomas McGuane, Jim Harrison, Russell Chatham, Richard Brautigan, Steve Bodio, and other so-called “counter-culture” writers, artists, and poets. Not exactly your average bunch of hook-and-bullet writers. He also dabbled in documentary filmmaking. His 1973 flyfishing film Tarpon is a bonafide cult classic and features many of those same people.
I first discovered de la Valdene — like most — through his book “For a Handful of Feathers” a long time ago. I had never read anything quite like it, and was instantly hooked.
This is probably a dangerous thing to admit to an audience of bird hunters, but I — with a few notable exceptions — never really got into most of the old-school “Golden Age” sporting writers.
I found them incredibly boring and stilty; the reading equivalent of those old Movietone newsreels where the announcers all had the same fake, nasally monotone, old-movie accent. The all seemed to write the same story, use the same template, same imagery, same tropes, same jokes, same cliches.
Maybe it was because I grew up in a different time. I was a suburban kid raised in the 80s by a single mom and so I didn’t come of age in a traditional male hunting culture. I read all the outdoor literature voraciously, of course, but I just didn’t connect with or care about those old writers who wore fedoras and sat around drinking bourbon and smoking cigarettes down at the club like mid-20th century caricatures.
I was always more into the ones who came after; the ones who had hippie hair, dropped acid, smoked weed, and cussed a lot. The ones who partied and wrote their hunting and fishing stories like they wrote their novels and poetry and short stories — as the literature of life. Many of those writers were, in fact, novelists, journalists, and poets who also loved to hunt and fish.
It’s also no accident that many of these writers, and this new style of hook-and-bullet writing, coincided with the rise of the boundary-pushing New Journalism movement of the 60s and 70s and a concurrent evolution of American literature in general.
I’ve always been drawn to writers with unique voices, and de la Valdene had a wonderful writing voice. I recently pulled out my copy of “The Fragrance of Grass” and tried to reconcile that gorgeous piece of writing with much of what passes for modern hook-and-bullet “content” and it drove home to me how much poorer we seem to be now for the passing of such writing, and writers.
I’m not usually one to grouse and gripe about generational differences. I fully realize that for a younger person, the things that speak to me and move me are probably as boring and irrelevant to them as those stilty old golden age farts were to me, but I can’t help but think we’re slowly losing something fundamental to the core of what makes hunting and fishing writing so compelling and powerful.
The thinking, literary side of outdoor writing has always been a small subset, a niche — but an important one. In today’s world a thoughtful, honest, well-crafted story that says something about life will never win a popularity contest with a TikTok video or a slick, ultra-produced Instagram post.
But those kinds of stories serve as an introspective counterweight to the whack ‘em and stack ‘em mindset, and a reminder that bloodsport isn’t just a hobby or a game or a branding opportunity.
Writers like de la Valdene brought humanity and grace to a genre that quite often sorely needs it. He’ll be missed, and I wonder who will continue that tradition, now so pushed to the side by the frenetic pace of our culture of endlessly streaming content consumption.
I’m not utterly without hope, though, and I do believe the next generation of thoughtful, contemplative hunting writers is out there, and I hope they will not be dissuaded by the sense that no one cares about good writing anymore.
Because there will always be readers who appreciate good words. That’s not a generational thing, it’s a universal human thing. I suspect the next wave of great outdoor prose writers will not look or think like me or those of my generation. It will be younger, more female, more diverse, more non-traditional. And that’s a good thing.
Who are some of the younger outdoor writers you’re reading these days? And in what form? Print? Digital? Where do you see outdoor literature headed in this brave new world of content creation?
Chad Love is the editor of Quail Forever Journal.