I love this Andy Anderson portrait of Jim Harrison, which accompanied this interview: http://mynorth.com/2014/09/jim-harrison-a-northern-michigan-literary-icon/. Harrison looks like some ancient Norse woods troll.
One of the great American men of letters has fallen. Jim Harrison died Saturday in Patagonia, Ariz., at the age of 78.
Hunter of birds, lover of wilderness and women, of food and booze. A man of gargantuan appetites and lust for life.
Writer’s writer.
UPDATE: The Daily Beast ran a 2010 interview with Harrison by way of tribute. I like it. Especially this closer:
“Reading Jim Harrison can help you be a better animal, balancing the examined life with unselfconscious enthusiasm for living. He is a direct connection to the dwindling tradition of the literary outlaw, offering a sip of the frontier spirit that says that if you think for yourself and stand on your own feet, you’ll find yourself in good company—one way or another.”
NPR has a fine story/obituary here.
This bit resonates:
In a 2007 interview, Harrison said he needed the wilderness. At the beginning of his career, he tried teaching at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, in the company of Alfred Kazin, Philip Roth and Louis Simpson.
“It was an exciting place,” he recalled. “I enjoy intelligent company, you know? But I like outside better than inside. And there weren’t enough places for me to feel free.”
It’s a bit eerie, too, I must say. Not 15 minutes ago, I was thinking about “Legends of the Fall,” and Herbert McBride’s “A Rifleman Went To War” and the novel concept I’ve been sitting on for a couple of decades. I sat down in front of the computer to print out a plot synopsis and the headline on Harrison popped up. I’m still catching my breath.
I like to think Harrison has passed to Valhalla and is currently raising a glass with Ernest Hemingway after a long day in the field shooting over a good dog. I know Harrison despised constant comparisons to Hemingway, but still…
Harrison knew that to be a man meant being a romantic. In my experience, contrary to stereotype, the more masculine the man, the more sentimental the man. And for that reason, this ranks as one of my favorite statements from any author ever:
“I like grit, I like love and death, I’m tired of irony…A lot of good fiction is sentimental. The novelist who refuses sentiment refuses the full spectrum of human behavior, and then he just dries up. Irony is always scratching your tired ass, whatever way you look at it. I would rather give full vent to all human loves and disappointments, and take a chance on being corny, than die a smartass.”
Thank you, Jim Harrison, for everything you gave us.
Craig Rullman says
Brown Dog. That story, by itself, is a fitting epitaph. He was a giant. He contributed. He cared. He lived life on his own terms, and wrote that way too, which is an exercise in bravery that I admire greatly. He will be greatly missed, and much too sadly, he will likely be missed in other countries more than our own. That says something worth investigating. Vaya Con Dios, badass.
JimC says
Yep. The real deal, with no apologies.
Breaker Morant says
I am making my way through a book of 100 Essential Books for the Sportsman by Stephen Bodio. These are short monographs on the books and authors. I love what he said about Jim Harrison;
(Harrison) “aches for the Great Plains tribes and has written more movingly about their passing than any other recent novelist.”
Have an interesting brush with history going right now. We (the kids and I) are cleaning out the attic. According to my wife, we need to do it so I have room for my books.
We have lived here for 25 years(since 1991)-so we have my unorganized crap to get through-but there is also a lot of stuff from the long time farming family that lived here until 1974.
One of their “Kids” graduated in 1963 and we found a bunch of his Vietnam photos and slides. I know him, but I did not know for sure that he was in Vietnam. According to docs, he was in the 101st Abn. I plan to look at some of the pics tonight-the slides might be a winter project.
In addition to the pics, we found a hard-sided travel case with a map of Vietnam on one side (the soft side). I would love to salvage it, but it is in really really bad shape.
My history buff 13 YO son thought he hit the jackpot when he found the Vietnam stuff.
JimC says
Nothing like having history get personal like that. Your 13-year-old did hit the jackpot.