Jim Harrison produced an extensive number of novels, novellas,
poetry, and screenplays, yet I had never read his work (other than seeing his
screenplay version of Legends of the Fall,
perhaps his most famous novella). When I
saw his obituary earlier this year I made a mental note to remedy this. Just this short eulogy by his best friend,Thomas McGuane (whose recently published short story collection Crow Fair is a treasure) says it all about the kind of writer and person Harrison was.
I chose to read one of his more recent works, The River Swimmer, which is the title of
one of the two novellas therein, the other being The Land of Unlikeness. I
forgot what a joy it is to read a novella, which can be read in one sitting
(but in my case taking my time, savoring the language, the perfect literature
to read at bedtime, being able to expunge the real world and take in the rural
north of Harrison’s world). These two works
are about two men, one young, one old, each on a journey to find his true
self.
The Land of
Unlikeness especially resonates as it is about a man much closer to
my age who is going through a late life identity crisis. Clive was an artist who became a renowned art
appraiser and as such traveled throughout Europe on behalf of his clients,
leaving far, far behind the farm on which he was raised in Michigan. There, his mother lives with his sister. Suddenly he finds himself obligated to return
home for a summer, when his sister wants to see Europe for the first time and
expects her brother to step into a caretaking role for the mother. He does so reluctantly, finding himself back
in his boyhood room. And then things
change.
His first love, Laurette, now owns the old stone farmhouse
of her parents, visits there on weekends, her “housesitter” or “whatever” Lydia
living there as well. It brings back
memories of Clive’s nearly consummated sexual encounter with her as a teenager. But it also brought to surface the truth about
his life: “He was suddenly quite tired of the mythology he had constructed for
his life. The idea of having quit
painting was far too neat. He had lost
heart, run out his string, or the homely idea he had painted himself into a
small dark corner.”
Meanwhile, he had his mother to care for and all she
wants to do is to be taken out for bird-watching expeditions early in the
morning. “The dawn was loud with the
admittedly pleasant chatter of birds.”
These expeditions, although obligatory, become pleasurable. More things change. Laurette and Lydia come to visit the mother as
they have been neighbors for a long time.
Clive awakens from a nap and observes the women on the patio and goes
downstairs to join them and have a martini. “Even more prepossessing was a casserole of
lasagna she had brought over which was on a table beside an empty wine
bottle. The smell of garlic and tomato
sauce, Lydia’s thighs, and the sunlight dappling through the willow tree
overwhelmed him and he drank deeply.”
He and Laurette wander to the back of the garage
nearby. “He found himself pressing her
against the hood of his mother’s car, trying to kiss her but she averted her
face. His hands kneaded her buttocks and
he was becoming hard at an amazing speed. ‘Jesus Christ, I have to think about this. I can’t fuck you in a garage with people
outside.’ She slipped away laughing. ‘Why’ he said glumly. He stood there waiting for his penis to
slump. It seemed comic at best that this
woman could still bowl him over after forty years. How wonderful it would be to find a ’47
Plymouth and paint her slouched in the corner with her pleated skirt up.”
Just superb erotic imagery as Clive works towards that wishful
goal of finally consummating their teenage relationship while still caring for
his mother. Then he finds himself
painting once again. In fact, “on a
warmhearted whim he did a small portrait of a bluebird for his mother and then
was embarrassed when she was overwhelmed.”
It is at this point that I totally identified with Clive, his love of
painting is akin to my love of writing, but to say I’m a writer, or that I’m a
pianist, my other great interest, is to endow an obligation and subjects the
passion to categorization: “Now he was speculating whether or not Laurette would
pose half-nude on the car seat. The
whole idea was preposterously silly but why not? It was not more cheeky than the idea of his
resuming painting. Part of the grace of
losing self-importance was the simple question ‘Who cares?’ More importantly, he didn’t want to be a
painter, he only wanted to paint, two utterly different impulses. He had known many writers and painters who
apparently disliked writing and painting but just wanted to be writers and painters. They were what Buckminster Fuller might have
called ‘low-energy constructs.’ Clive
didn’t want to be anything any longer that called for a title. He knew he wanted to paint so why not
paint. Everybody had to do something
while awake.” A priceless paragraph of
writing and wisdom.
A subplot in the novella is his being estranged from his
daughter Sabrina and their eventual reconciliation, all part of his becoming
himself, they sharing a camping trip to Marquette on Lake Superior. But it was stormy and that first night they
had to take a hotel room on the lake.
Finally, they were able to camp.
“Behind Sabrina there was a shade of green on a moss-colored log he had
never seen before. And on that first
afternoon in Marquette there had been a splotch of sunlight far out on the dark
stormy lake, golden light and furling white wave crests.” In nature Harrison finds his halcyon home and
his most beautiful writing is centered there.
Nature figures even more prominently in The River Swimmer, the second story in
the book. Here Harrison moves into the
realm of magical realism. Thad is a
young man who wants to swim all the rivers of the world. Cheever’s The
Swimmer merely swims the suburban sins of Westchester. Thad wants to take in all of nature and in
fact has a mystical relationship with “water babies” which his American Indian
mentor, Tooth, called them. She was born
on the same land as Thad and was allowed to stay there when Thad’s father
bought the land. Tooth says they may be
the souls of lost children who became aquatic infants. These apparitions frequently accompany Thad
on his journeys but the demands of two young women conflict him, Laurie and
Emily. “Thad felt a slight wave of
nausea over money and power, including Laurie and Emily. Nothing ever seemed to be denied to rich girls….What
kind of preparation for life can wealth be except to make it easy? Thad preferred Tooth’s niece, Dove, in many
ways….They had such a good time his heart broke apart when they split up and
she said, ‘You like those rich pretty cunts not a big-nosed Chip girl.’
As in any piece of magical realism, one has to suspend
belief to get the most out of the tale.
Thad endures criticism, even violence, in his pursuit of his aquatic
life. “In periods of extreme loneliness
we don’t know a thing about life and death and the reality of water consoles
us. In school he had long thought that
history, the study of it, was an instrument of terror. Reading about either the American Indians or
slaves can make you physically ill. He
wanted a life as free as possible from other people, thus simply staying on the
island was tempting. The possibility of
stopping people from doing what they do to other people seemed out of the
question.”
He makes compromises towards the end, but one in keeping
with “the idea that he was a whore for swimming, the only activity that gave
him total pleasure and a sense of absolutely belonging on Earth, especially
swimming in rivers with the current carrying your water-enveloped body along at
its own speed. It was bliss to him so
why shouldn’t he be obsessed?”
As painting was an obsession to his older version, Clive.
They both found solace in nature, doing what they were born to do.
Jim Harrison, a unique writer, who died while writing
long handed at his desk.
