Passages: 92 in the Shade

Panama is the Thomas McGuane novel that speaks most acutely these days (to my chagrin, perhaps), but The Sporting Club, Nobody's Angel, and 92 in the Shade have all had their hold at some point in this life of mine. Here's a passage from that latter novel that still seems to matter.

"What about biology? Your old teachers told me you were gifted."

"They said that? Huh. Well, yes, I was good at it. But it needn't have taken me that many years of school to see I just liked salt water, you know, at some really simple phenomenological level. I like fishing better than ichthyology because it's all pointless and intuitive. I mean, there is no value equivalent in biology for the particular combination of noise and sight of blackfin tuna working bait in the Gulf Stream."