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Title: Off to the Side: A Memoir by Jim Harrison ISBN: 0-8021-4030-0 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: September, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3 (7 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: in praise of the candid
Comment: When I finished this book, I felt much like the other reviewers. I thought the first half was great, and it finished strong in the very end, but my perception of Harrison was tarnished as one Hollywood name after another was trotted out during the screenplay writing phase. It was as if, caught within a pseudo-fame, he had to ensure his readers (or moreso himself) that he was in the game, whether we knew it or not.
Then, as the book settled in a bit, I began to realize that this was probably a relatively candid look at the man's professional life (I don't know him - I'm only guessing). True to his persona, he didn't fall into politically correct pressure - this time by not being modest about who he knows. Maybe this reveals just another one of his addicitons.
The only difference is that the other addictions he talks about have a mythological romance to them, evoking endearment in job-shackled readers and probably selling a lot of books for him. This particular vice repels people.
Nevertheless, whether he intended it or not, I felt the book revealed a man constantly torn between the seduction of Hollywood's powerful, fast pace and his cheap cars and favorite dogs rolling out to a fishing spot before hitting the local northern Michigan watering hole. I can relate.
His language is, as always, poetically beautiful and you can truly feel the passion of somebody who seems fascinated by the simple fact that he's alive.
Out of morbid curiosity, I would have liked to understand more how he maintained his family life with so much wild and carefree excess. But, then again, that's really none of my business.
Rating: 3
Summary: Portrait of the artist as a philosophical old drunk
Comment: It's one of the most uniquely American career paths in literature. Boy grows up in the hinterland, discovers that he has received the divine ray of talent, follows his dreams and scrabbles for decades, then finally hits the big time in Hollywood.
The difference is that Harrison never lost touch with the land, much preferring to repair to his favorite hunting and fishing spots, and drink with the locals back home in Michigan, rather than toil away in the studios. Oh, he did lose his church unbringing, and G. K. Chesterton would surely call Harrison's idea of a private religion mere weakmindedness, but Harrison has undoubtedly consumed an adult portion of life, and he's here to tell us all about it.
As a biographical account of his life and career, this is much too misty. The reader must swim open seas of random impressions, interesting anecdotes, and barstool wisdom to get from one fact to the next. And they are not especially sequential, either. I guess that job will have to wait for a professional biographer.
But taken for what it is, this book is enjoyable. There's too much name-dropping in the Hollywood phase, though he is sincerely grateful to Jack Nicholson for his help breaking into pictures. But really--eating sandwiches with Art Garfunkel while betting on which skiers on a slope are going to wipe out? And there are dozens such little passing mentions. Maybe I'm just jealous...
His love of the land, of the countryside, of his hunting dogs, and his unsparing accounts of his own shortcomings and addictions and mistakes make this book one to respect. It may be a mishmash, it may not be the whole or unadulterated truth, but it is visibly a labor of love.
Rating: 1
Summary: Banalilty with a capital B
Comment: Harrison fans should steer clear of this nonesense. Two paragraphs about Brown Dog and endless dreck about Jack Nicholson. Stick to his stories; they're much more interesting and well written than this star-schtooping melange of junk.
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Title: The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand by Jim Harrison ISBN: 080213937X Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Conversations With Jim Harrison (Literary Conversations Series (Paper)) by Robert J. Demott, Jim Harrison ISBN: 1578064562 Publisher: Univ Pr of Mississippi (Trd) Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Just Before Dark by Jim Harrison ISBN: 061800193X Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Shape of the Journey: New and Collected Poems by Jim Harrison ISBN: 1556590954 Publisher: Copper Canyon Press Pub. Date: November, 1998 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: A Good Day to Die by Jim Harrison ISBN: 0385283431 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 15 July, 1981 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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