Jim Harrison

McCarthy and Harrison

Submitted by John Winkelman
on Mon, 07/25/2005 - 15:33

Stopped by the bookstore on the way home from work. Intended to grab No Country for Old Men and leave, but there next to it on the new release shelf was The Summer He Didn’t Die by Jim Harrison. Of course, I couldn’t pass that up, especially seeing as how they were both discounted.

I haven’t read Harrison in several years. The last of his novels I picked up was The Road Home about seven years ago. More recently was The Beast God Forgot to Invent, a collection of novellas. I like Harrison’s shorter works more than his novels, so finding the new book was quite a treat.

The new Harry Potter book was quite good. I won’t say “better than I expected” because I expected it to be good. J.K. Rowling is consistently doing a very good job of both changing the tone of her novels as the protagonists age, and improving the quality and complexity of her writing. It will be interesting to see where she goes after the next (and last) Harry Potter.

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Jim Harrison
Cormac McCarthy

re: Visions

Submitted by John Winkelman
on Sun, 05/18/2003 - 00:00

I began to read Jim Harrison when one of my college professors came in to the bookstore to pick up a copy of Wolf . This was about the time that the movie of the same name , written by the same author, but having nothing to do with the book, was in the theaters.

So, being fresh enough out of college that I still wanted to read everything the professors were reading, I picked it up. Since then I have read just about everything Harrison has written, and even attempted to read things others have written about him. The latter tend to be kind of shallow and boring. There are two collections of his articles and essays currently in print, and some collections which contain his work.

Harrison has a new book out - a conversation in verse with longtime friend Ted Kooser, called Braided River . The conversation takes the form of short verses - three to six lines, usually, which can easily be imagined scribbled on the back of postcards in the midst of cross-country drives. The tone of the verses, which alternate between Harrison and Kooser, feels like gentle jazz riffs on traditional haiku:

We flap our gums, our wattles, our
featherless wings in non-native air
to avoid being planted in earth,
watching the bellies of passing birds.

On its stand on the empty stage
the tuba with its big brass ear
enjoys the silence

The verses alternate between authors, but there is no mention of who wrote what. The back cover of the book says When asked about attributions for the individual poems, one of them replied, "Everyone gets tired of of this continuing cult of the personality... This book is an assertion in favor of poetry and against credentials."

Having not yet read any of Kooser's individual work I can't say for certain which verses are his, but many of Harrison's are obvious, and read like inside jokes to his old friend.

Braided Creek is a thoroughly enjoyable read. With so much of what is published today relying on pop culture references and turgid vocabularies, the simple, real verses within are a refreshing change, like cold water on a sunburned scalp.

The one-eyed man must be fearful
of being taken for a birdhouse.

What is it the wind has lost
that she keeps looking for
under each leaf?

To have reverence for life
you must have reverence for death.
The dogs we love are not taken from us
but leave when summoned by the gods.

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Jim Harrison
books

Furor Scribendi

Submitted by John Winkelman
on Sun, 11/24/2002 - 19:00

I have finished Off to the Side , and am wiser therefore.

Reading Jim Harrison has always affected me, usually hitting me with strong wanderlust, cabin fever, and a general dissatisfaction with many areas of my life. This time through I drove around a lot, explored those parts of Kent County of which I had always been aware, but never seen. I also tried purposefully to get lost, but what with the sun always directly south and the large number of large roads, this turned out to be impossible.

On Sunday I sat down with my dead-tree journal, an apple, and a bottle ($5.99) of Leelanau Cellars Autumn Red, a wine which has never disappointed. My idea was to enjoy the wine and the apple (which seemed an appropriate pairing) and, sip by sip, describe the experience of drinking.

And I discovered that this wine, which I have always quite liked, does not hold up all that well under close scrutiny. Granted that I am far from a connoisseur of wine, but this just tasted a little...off. Musty. Thick. If chilled in the refrigerator and drunk on a hot summer day it would more than serve, as it is quite dry, but slowly taken at room temperature with a tart apple it suffered.

The argument could be made that one gets what one pays for with wine, but last winter I picked up a case of, uh, some red wine for $20.00 which was excellent, light and dry and a steal at twice the price. Currently my favorite red is St. Julian Great Red ($5.99), which is difficult to beat at any price.

For some interesting writing about food -or using food as metaphor for sex, death, etc.- pick up Harrison's book The Raw and the Cooked , a collection of his food columns from various magazines during the 1990s.

Next up is the Rowe book Living Philosophy , which should build my brain muscles up to where I can dive into Dostoyevsky after the Thanksgiving holiday.

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Jim Harrison