Friday, November 18, 2011

Book 16 - Legends of the Fall - Jim Harrison

After a rather prodigious run, I seem to have slowed down a bit, which does not bode well for completion of the challenge.  Yes, I'm still considering that possibility.  It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings, and she doesn't break out her Viking hat until New Year's Eve.  Any suggestions for brisk reads are welcome.  Please leave them in the comments section or on my FB page.  BTW, I always appreciate any comments on the books or the content of the reviews, so don't be shy about that either.

So...I'm somewhat of a fan of Anthony Bourdain.  I read Kitchen Confidential in last year's challenge (click here for the review).  Although he can be a little annoying sometimes, I love the way that he fearlessly approaches the food and culture of the places he visits.  Also, he's never really thought of himself as a great writer, but he admires people who are.  I recently came across an episode of No Reservations, his TV show that appears on the Travel Channel, in which he visited Montana.  One of the people he talked with while he was up there was Jim Harrison, apparently one of Bourdain's literarary heroes.  I'd never read anything by Mr. Harrison, but Tony mentioned that one of his books was Legends of the Fall.  Having heard that the movie had been rather good (I haven't seen it), and curious to see whether Harrison was worthy of the praise Bourdain was heaping upon him, I decided to check out the book.

Book 16 - Legends of the Fall - Jim Harrison

Legends of the Fall is actually three novellas - a fact that I may need to revisit if I find myself two books shy at the end of the year.  The first, "Revenge," deals with Cochran, a man who befriends a very wealthy businessman named Tibey.  This nickname is short for Tiburon, which is Spanish for shark, and which ought to tell you where this is going.  Although he has some legitimate business concerns, for the most part Tibey earned his money the old fashioned way - drugs and prostitution.  As his name implies, Tibey has a reputation for being ruthless, and when he discovers that Cochran and his wife Miryea are having an affair, he arranges to catch them in the act.  He beats Cochran senseless and leaves him to die in the Mexican dessert, and maims his wife and puts her into service as a prostitute.  Cochran is found by some Mexican villagers and nursed back to health, whereupon he sets out to seek his revenge against Tibey, and reclaim his beloved Miryea.  There's a couple of ways you could imagine this playing out, and you'd be wrong about both of them.

In the second Tale, "The Man Who Gave Up His Name," Nordstrom is a man who marries the woman of his dreams, has a beautiful child, and has an extremely successful business career.  Everything is apparently wonderful for 18 years, until one day his teenage daughter notes that he is a bit of a cold fish.  Swept up by a wave of self-doubt, he starts trying to change his life.  He learns to cook.  He embarks on new experiences.  He realizes that his marriage is over, and he and his wife divorce.  As he becomes increasingly detached from his previous life, he is viewed as increasingly eccentric - even crazy.  However, he finds in this change a new freedom that he never new existed, and in that freedom a new-found courage to live life on his own terms.

In the final story, from which the book takes its name, Harrison tells the tale of a father and his three sons living on a ranch in Montana in the early part of the twentieth century.  Alfred is the ambitious one, who will ultimately run for the U.S. Senate.  Samuel, a bit of an intellectual, is his mother's favorite.  Tristan is the black sheep.  He is mercurial, strong-willed, resistant to authority, and wants to carve out his own path in life.  When the war tragically takes Samuel, Tristan reacts by going on a scalping spree of the enemy, an action that lands him in a mental institution.

He returns home and marries Susannah, a woman that was originally chosen for Alfred, but he is restless and sets out again, this time to sea.  He is gone so long that they are sure he is dead (it doesn't help that he sends word back to this effect), and Alfred winds up marrying Susannah.  He ultimately returns and settles down with a different wife and has some kids.  However, there still exists a tension between he and Susannah that fuels her bipolar disorder, and causes friction between the two brothers.  Tragic events and Prohibition lead him to become a smuggler, which puts him at odds with the Irish mob, and ultimately sends him away from the ranch again.

While none of these storylines are connected, all three of these tales share a common thread:  what happens to a man when you take away those things for which he cares the most?  Harrison tells these tales beautifully, deftly weaving interludes of introspection and brutal violence throughout the plot.  Although all three tales are great, I especially enjoyed the second one, perhaps because it comes the closest to having a happy ending.  I highly recommend this book!

No comments:

Post a Comment