The unnamed narrator is the only significant character in this antinovel that mocks traditional approaches to characterization, and his character can only be guessed at by carefully judging his manner of narration. His passivity indicates that his purpose is to understand rather than to change. He treats the beautiful and the grotesque equally, and this sense of objective disengagement makes his vision of America convincing. Trout Fishing in America — a Protean phrase applied to people, a place, a hotel, a pen nib, a state of mind, and the book itself — becomes a kind of character in the book, a fragile evocation of the spirit of pastoral America that is whimsically embodied in various objects and people.

Other characters (the narrator's "woman," Pard, Mr. Norris, Art) are minimally drawn, usually appearing in only a single chapter. They are elements in a documentary collage that includes historical characters...