billiards

The passage about trout and what the narrator sees in them is an important part of the story, because trout are mentioned earlier in the novel (I can't find the page but I believe the man was watching them swim through the water) to me suggests the trout have some significance, a message McCarthy is trying to convey. I believe what McCarthy is saying is that human life is only an unfathomably small part on the grand scale of the flow of the cosmos. "Patterns that were maps of the world in it's becoming" - Everything that makes up the universe is contained "in the deep glens" of the trouts patterns, where everything is "older than man and hummed of mystery." Nothing can be made right again because the universe is indifferent to the suffering of man. The mystery (maps and mazes) of the cosmos befuddles man and guides him to a greater understanding, but through that understanding our own violent nature can lead to our self destruction. However, it is here that the significance of "the fire" emerges. The human spirit can overcome himself and transcend the seemingly chaotic nature of the universe, refusing to be stamped out against all things including ourselves and pass on the flame.