Wolf False Memoir

by Jim Harrison

Le roman, pour Harrison, c'est la religion du délire. Il enivre les mots, les soûle à mort ; il écrit à tue-tête et bâtit des phrases où se devinent encore les ahans et les suées. Jim Harrison est unécrivain passionné, donc il nous passionne.
Yann Queffélec.

Jim Harrison est un auteur culte. Les superlatifs lui sont donc familiers, mais le style de l'écrivain est contagieux et, au-delà des encensements ordinaires, il possède la faculté d'inspirer des commentaires qui se voudraient aussi évocateurs que ses propres figures de style. C'est ainsi que, d'un bord à l'autre de l'Atlantique, on parle volontiers de son écriture au lance-flammes, de ses conflits détaillés au scalpel, de son humour assassin et de cette faculté parfois inquiétante de percevoir les êtres et les sentiments avec l'acuité d'un pic à glace. Le plus étonnant est qu'il obtient cela avec une rare économie de moyens. La prose de Jim Harrison est à la fois simple et précise. La forme même de ses narrations est d'une concision presque magique. Or, en dépit de cette expression dépouillée jusqu'à l'os, il se dégage de ses livres une poésie subtile, parfois brutale et même cruelle. Il évoque aussi bien le charme d'un sous-bois que la fuite éperdue d'un lièvre condamné ou le regard presque humain du chevreuil tourné vers le fusil d'où jaillira la mort à travers les frondaisons rousses de l'été indien.
Cela dit, attention : danger ! Les livres de Jim Harrison ne se lisent pas impunément, et si l'on ajoute au génie du romancier la part de création du lecteur, il devient alors impossible d'en sortir tout à fait intact.
Serge Lentz.

Genres: Fiction, Literature, American, Outdoors, Nature, Novels, The United States Of America

225 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Jim Harrison was born in Grayling, Michigan, to Winfield Sprague Harrison, a county agricultural agent, and Norma Olivia (Wahlgren) Harrison, both avid readers. He married Linda King in 1959 with whom he has two daughters.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

His awards include National Academy of Arts grants (1967, 68, 69), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1969-70), the Spirit of the West Award from the Mountain & Plains Booksellers Association, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2007).

Much of Harrison's writing depicts sparsely populated regions of North America with many stories set in places such as Nebraska's Sand Hills, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Montana's mountains, and along the Arizona-Mexico border.

Reviews

[David Veloz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I began Wolf a few days after Harrison died. I’d read it before in graduate school, but thanks to what I’m now calling ‘therapeutic amnesia’ it felt mostly new. It’s too bad — I think a review from the 26 year old me would be more enthusiastic. Had I been 26 in 1971 when this book was originally published, my review might have consisted of little more than expletives and exclamation points.

Harrison acknowledges his first novel isn’t one in the subtitle: “A False Memoir.” Coming around the same time as the New Journalism of the late 60s began to coalesce into the Creative Nonfiction of the late 70s, the subtitle might seem provocative, but I think it’s actually more of a warning. Harrison isn’t concerned with classification or genre — he’s just writing a tale that doesn’t involve any of the structural hallmarks of an actual story, and he does it pretty well.

The reviews for Wolf called it lusty and cocksure, the recollection of a young man’s “swordsmanship” (thanks, New York Times) from coast to coast between 1956 and 1960, surveying the decadence and decay of the American landscape from the vantage point of a camping trip deep in the Michigan woods where the writer, Swanson, now 33, ostensibly is hoping to see a wolf before the species becomes extinct.

What I read is different: the self-induced struggles of an overeducated arrogant young man with enough sense not to starve to death, but only just. He’s a restless middle-class dilettante who doesn’t go on the road so much as roll himself in front of traffic to see what happens. And when he does bottom out, he can call home and have money wired to get him out of a jam. Young Swanson is cruel to women, high-minded, arrogant, unreflective, and aimless. Older Swanson seems to have calmed down some, but he’s become more reductive: the natural world is where it’s at, and everybody but him seems destined to fuck it up. He’s also an alcoholic and a serious candidate for lung cancer, but he doesn’t see that yet.

That’s what I mean about wishing I read this when I was younger than Swanson, when I had the same luxury and propensity to toss around cutting judgements and sweeping indictments of the world that somehow magically absolved me at the same time. This feels like a young man’s book written in a young time. So much freedom, so little terror. And it’s all the more a shame because almost every sentence in Wolf is brilliant. Harrison had already started to find his voice, his style: his sentences feel plain & conversational, but in truth he’s a careful craftsman, writing vivid scenes full of surprising music.

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barring love I'll take my life in large doses alone--rivers, forests, fish, grouse, mountains. Dogs.

During my 20s a friend was reading Whitman, one night walking home from the pub where he worked he decided to swim in a pond under the stars--he nearly drowned. A few months later (or possibly years) I went hiking and found myself lost on a logging road, a couple miles above the park as the sun melted away for the night. I wandered, a bit panicked. Then I heard coyotes and I decided to head for the headlights I saw on the horizon. I walked through row after row of brambles but was not eaten. I made it to the state highway and then backtracked to the park.

I thought of both those events when I began reading this. I have family connections to both Harrison and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. This "false memoir" is a portrait of that urge in one's 20s to walk about. The details here are a penis and liver in the woods looking for a wolf. I was not impressed with the first half of the book. That changed in the final third, a flourish of images seasoned with emotion. It wasn't until very recently that I discovered that Harrison was initially a poet. I have read a handful of novellas, stories and his food writings. This wasn't very different until it was.

[Rémy Macca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Premier roman de Jim Harrison et première franche réussite:) J'ai lu du même bonhomme Légendes d'Automne(1979), Dalva(1988) et Une Odyssée Américaine(2008). Tous ces romans et novellas m'ont beaucoup plu et leurs qualités étaient déjà en germe dans ce Wolf de 1971 aux effluves autobiographiques:)

Swanson est un homme de 33 ans porté sur le whisky, les femmes et les forêts. Ses ambitions professionnelles sont minimes et il passe de petit boulot en petit boulot tout en essayant d'écrire ou du moins peut-on le penser. Il part pour un périple d'une semaine dans les monts Huron et ce faisant il se raconte par flash-backs qui sont autant de bribes et de morceaux d'un passé en lambeaux épars.

Harrison a mis beaucoup de lui-même dans ce roman mais ce n'est pas une autobiographie. De même le récit de Swanson a peut-être des velléités littéraires et on ne sait pas toujours si ses digressions sont des créations ou si elles font référence à des faits avérés:)

Quoi qu'il en soit le roman est puissant, et, de par cette forme qui fait sans arrêt l'aller-retour entre passé et présent au détour d'une sensation qui ravive le souvenir, terriblement efficace. On finit par être pris dans un flux de souvenirs qui n'est pas sans rapport avec les rivières et lacs où se baigne Swanson.

C'est aussi une célébration bien particulière de la nature que je rapproche du Big Sur de Jack Kerouac. La nature n'y est pas idéalisée et elle est parfois très hostile, enfin elle vit sa vie propre, mais elle est aussi catalyseur du souvenir, et refuge d'un homme blessé et un peu paumé:) blessé et paumé parfois de façon bien volontaire.

Swanson est cet homme, et d'ailleurs tous les hommes, qui ne savent pas ce qu'ils veulent être et ont une constante envie de partir, puis de revenir, et de ce fait, sont toujours frustrés et mal à l'aise partout, comme inadaptés. Il a eu des aventures sentimentales et sexuelles( Bukowski es-tu là ? :) mais toutes ont été soit courtes, soit incomplètes, soit encore l'affaire d'une nuit ou d'une partie de jambes en l'air sans plus d'attaches.

Wolf, c'est le portrait d'un homme qui est aussi porteur d'un lourd passé, qui a connu des drames familiaux mais qui est comme étranger à ses racines et à ses parents, tout en ayant de l'affection et des souvenirs bien précis d'eux. Wolf, c'est le roman de la mémoire familiale et affective qui revient lancinante et ô combien tangible sans qu'on ne le demande.

Le roman est également traversé de mille interrogations politiques, philosophiques( entre deux bourbons:), écologiques...humaines enfin. Pour moi cela fonctionne très bien et est fort intéressant.

C'est enfin une réflexion un rien désabusée sur le passage du temps, l'éphémère de toute chose, l'intangible des relations humaines, sur la solitude, la puissance de la nature et son côté " rédempteur", la permanence du souvenir et l'insatisfaction de l'Homme, toujours en quête et toujours en mouvement.

Je ne donne pas 5 étoiles car les thèmes ont été abordés avant et de façon magistrale par Kerouac notamment. Reste que cette lecture a été excellente et qu'Harrison me parle définitivement:)

Pour aller plus loin:

Voir Into the Wild de Sean Penn(2007)/ Gerry(2002) de Gus Van Sant pour l'errance et le "retour à la nature".

Lire Big Sur(1962) de Jack Kerouac/ Souvenirs d'un pas Grand-chose(1982) de Charles Bukowski.

Écouter After the Gold Rush(1970) de Neil Young.

[Larry Bassett · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I read that this may have been the first book published by this author in 1971. The audible version that I listen to was not done until 2019. I think the audible version has done quite well as the reader sounds just like you would imagine the author might’ve wished.

The short book is the meanderings of a young man from East Coast to West Coast. And yet he never seems mentally to be outside of a camping trip and hike in northern Michigan. From New York City to San Francisco he seems that any moment to be able to toss off his clothes and dive into some Michigan body of water.

Buy some standard the main autobiographical character that we watch galumph through young life is not particularly admirable. But though the language in the book is occasionally crude it is also simultaneously surprisingly poetic. I understand the author wrote poetry proceeding this first move into writing.

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had always heard good things about Jim Harrison's writing and thought that it would be a good time to read something by him since he recently died. I was wondering where to start, Legends of the Fall seemed too obvious. Then I came across this article by a NY Times book critic I respect, Dwight Gardner. He lists the following as his personal favorites: "Wolf" (1971), “A Good Day to Die” (1973), “Farmer” (1976) and “Warlock” (1981). So I decided I would start with the earliest on the list and if I liked it I would read the others in order. And when I saw that the quote preceding the text was from Julio Cortazar's Hopscotch, I figured I was in good hands-and I was. It is an atypical novel in that there is very little plot. The narrator is camping in the forests of Michigan hoping to come across the illusive wolf while he re-lives the last decade or so of his life which includes flashbacks to the locations of his wanderings such as Boston, the West, New York City, before coming Home. There is no theme or method to his wanderings, dissipation (drinking and smoking pot), meetings with various people as well as his interactions with women. Strangely it reminded me of the novels (despite the Henry Miller-like randiness of macho affectation throughout) of Renata Adler, which are also atypical novels with musings about modern life. Both are almost aphoristic in their musings as well. Needless to say, I expect this is the first of many Harrison novels that I will read.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb.

I still remember stumbling onto my first Jim Harrison book. Wolf: A False Memoir. I can't imagine another author ever having as much reverence as he does to me. Prior to Harrison being The Man, John Steinbeck held the title.

When I worked as a lumber yard foreman, I used to frequent a dusty used bookstore next to the Denver University campus. A serviceable cafe was within walking distance with pretty university girls who would never give me the time of day; me smelling and looking like a poor workingman, but they were nice to leer at. The waitresses smelled like soap and french fries. Perfect butts, perky tits, and eyes that said 'you will never enter my life or my body without poetry, lies and a fat bank account.'

The book caught my eye because of the title. I was fascinated by wolves and viewed them as my totem animal. As soon as I started reading it I knew it would be a lifelong treasure. At times I felt he was writing about me and my feelings towards the world. A young man lost and despondent with no concrete leads on where to go in life. Burning bridges and spurning love in favor of wildness, lust, drugs, liquor and books. An old fishing rod rotting wherever I left it.

The book was lightly used and probably cost me a dollar or so. Now it is falling apart - having read and re-read it a dozen times. The pages are falling out, the pages dog-eared and worn. Multicolor ink where I underlined quote upon quote. The back inside cover as an index where I could easily re-find a quality quote about dogs or being in a heart wrenching pussy trance. It still smells like a good book should. The way a good library smells or the way bookstores used to smell when bookstores made sense.

Well, she's come undone. I need to replace that good book-friend of mine. It's almost like saying goodbye to a friend or a good dog whose time has passed.

[Li · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm on the final few pages, which is enough to be able to write my review. Jim Harrison's, "Wolf: A False Memoir" has an interesting format. It shifts back and forth from present to memoir. The present has Jim camping out in a northern area of Michigan, trying to catch a glimpse of a wolf in the wild, which he feels will send him an important message from the cosmos. The present is linear and has what I have to belief are genuine "foxfire" tips. This part is interesting in and of itself. The memoir sections are interspersed and in stream of consciousness, a Jack Kerouacesque romp across the country. Where Kerouac leans more towards eastern philosophical meditations, Jim's trips focus more on drinking too much, bedding various wenches, and avoiding anything with even a slight whiff of permanence or commitment. Underlying this and that are an educated man's search for significance. Alcohol pours itself on most pages. Lots of commentary on environmentalism. What compels the reader onward are the brash, at times scorching, always brilliant observations on human nature and how the writer's experiences have shaped them.

"Wolf: A False Memoir" is a short book so it doesn't take up much time. The "false" part of the title is wry, as they are unquestioningly based upon actual experiences; however there is some skill involved in how the writer has interwoven fictions used during his encounters with others.

[Sissy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book and think it should be more well known for what it is and represents. I share many feelings of the author and it is around 45 years later - that is the enduring spirit of literature. It was like an outdoorsy Bukowski who is less abusive and more oblivious about this relationships with women. There are several sections that are so good I could memorize the passages like classical poetry - even though they may be surrounding "modern" problems, ideas and feelings.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Barring love I'll take my life in large doses alone —rivers, forests, fish, grouse, mountains. Dogs.’

[Jim Laughren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks for the ride, Jim. Through the years I've read various works by Harrison. Though he's never been my favorite author - I think mostly due to subject matter - I've always enjoyed his writing style and sensibilities. I picked up Wolf shortly after his recent death, as much to honor his memory as to take a look at one of the high points of his early career. The man was a damned good writer and a person with an enviable relationship with nature, and an interesting relationship with people. He's of a generation that included Bukowski and Roth, Steinbeck and Vonnegut. And it shows. Read the book; it's good. Soul searching of a high order contrasted with the ultimate practicality. He was, I dare say, the last of the Hemingways.

[Peter Bridgford · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend suggested this book to me, and I appreciate them enough to go right out and buy a copy. I read the book during this last summer, in a perfect locale to take in a book and savor it. I really, really liked the book, but I cannot say I loved it. That being said, I am going to hold onto my copy and try rereading it again someday - there feels like something in it I can't quite grasp right now. But I can tell it's important. Do you know what I mean? The way the story floats through time and places is jarring, but intriguing. The overt sexuality of the stories was wonderfully shocking, but then I am not sure how to process those scenes with the one about being in the woods. It is a book that leaves its mark upon you.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Harrison's first novel after writing a lot of poetry. To me, it had a feel like a late Beat poet. I kept imagining Kerouac in terms of the language, the themes, the time sensibilities. That said, the protagonist is a kind of angry young man, angry at the world, angry at himself and some of his language is sexist and very much of the time period (60's and 70's). I loved it, though I know it's not for everyone.

[Andrew Pitkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reaffirms why I loved Jim Harrison's 'Legends of the Fall':

A tight, densely packed, yet flowing and accessible narrative that you love, making you laugh, cry, bemoan, stare - and all the fuzzy feelings in between.

This has given me reason to revisit Harrison's work because he is a foremost Nature writer, akin but different to Annie Dillard and Henry Thoreau. Dense philosophy packed into entertainment. What more could you ask of a read?

[Matt Stebbins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book kind of gives you a hangover. I enjoy the reflections for the most part -- fairly vivid imagery and it feels honest. That said it is pretty lewd at times.

[Lassonnery · Rating 2 out of 5]

J’ai eu beaucoup de mal à accrocher, sûrement avec le style d’écriture que j’ai trouvé vulgaire et l’histoire qui revenait constamment sur les dérives alcoolisées d’un homme.

[Eric Sutton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Jim Harrison's writing - not only the meandering prose and hearty storytelling, but the nuggets of truth that seem to crop up and deliver a blow from seemingly nowhere. He's a Michigan treasure, though I'm sure other states would claim him as well, so vividly does he capture his landscapes, whether that's the Upper Peninsula, the Arizona desert, or, for the case of Wolf, New York and San Francisco too. I could tell this was his debut - born under incredible circumstances that, had they not happened, he may never have shared his genius with the world - as he forges his archetypal "Harrison hero": intelligent, countercultural, boozy, restless, searching. His novels are not necessarily stories to follow but journeys on which we ride. I lost touch often, only to be pulled back by a place referent or compelling piece of wisdom. No matter - it's a fun reading experience no matter what one takes from it. This trademark style would morph into the Brown Dog novellas and others of his wanderlust tales, and stay comfortably in the background of his more refined works like Legends and Dalva. Most of what he touches turns to gold, though some of the material hasn't aged well. Still, reading a writer fumbling through his first effort - which he hadn't planned on writing in the first place - especially having gone on to read so much of his later work, I enjoyed the novel despite its apparent flaws.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

When Jim Harrison has a story to tell, he can be one of the finest American writers of the past generation. (Legends of the Fall, The English Major, the Road Home.) When he does not, as in this book, he sounds like the drunk in the bar stool next to you who won't shut up. I may have like this book better when I was 20.

[Sergei · Rating 5 out of 5]

Джим Гаррисон — американский классик, но в России известен катастрофически мало. Больше как сценарист: знатоки кино, поклонники семейных саг, наверняка видели снятую по произведению Гаррисона картину «Легенды осени». В том же году, также по сценарию писателя, увидел свет фильм «Волк», с блистательным дуэтом Джека Николсона и Мишель Пфайффер, в котором героиня Пфайффер грациозно следует во тьму за своим избранником.
Однако роман «Волк: Ложные воспоминания» к фильму имеет отношение не самое прямое, хотя наиболее въедливые искатели второго и третьего дна и смогут уловить что-то общее.

Между тем, «Волк» был написан около сорока лет тому назад и путь к русскоязычному читателю оказался долог. Несмотря на временной разрыв, роман оказался весьма к месту и ко времени. С хорошими правильными книжками только так и происходит.

Главный герой, тридцатитрёхлетний (во сколько там начинается «кризис среднего возраста»?) Сэверин Свансон устав от жизни, от самого себя, или просто в поисках новых ощущений, отправляется жить в лес. И там, бродя по лесу в поисках волка, рассказывает всю свою недлинную жизнь. Жизнь — преимущественно — состоит из бесконечной дороги, переездов с места на место с библиотекой в чемодане, и некоторого количества секса. Впрочем, к подругам он не особенно привязчив. Да и, в конце концов, не в подругах, и не в алкогольных трипах и их муторных последствиях дело. Правда, о природе Гаррисон пишет с вниманием и бережливостью профессионального натуралиста, да и с алкоголем тоже, в общем-то, на короткой ноге. Кроме того, персонаж «Волка» — человек крайне неравнодушный и наблюдательный. Так что не так всё просто с этим Свансоном.

Главное ощущение: «Волк» похож на хороший взрыв. Известно высказывание одного французского автора: «Быть писателем несложно. Если вы человек неглупый и сердечный, то просто садитесь и пишите, всё, что у вас на душе». Вот в душе у героя Гаррисона и накопилось. «Волк» читается так же, как и был, похоже, написан: взахлёб. В книжке дикая энергетика, которой только и можно объяснить это рваное повествование, когда автор без всякой особой логики перескакивает из леса в город, из рассказов о сломанной челюсти к радикальным предложениями по изменению общего мироустройства. А за всем этим ощущается усталость, отсутствие надежд и жуткий конфликт между тем, как хотелось бы, и тем, как оно есть.

Такие книжки пишутся один раз, на одном дыхании, без оглядки. А в итоге получился крайне эмоциональный, шумный манифест одиночки (ради точности высказывания, эмоции, Гаррисон в выражениях, по счастью, не стесняется), радикальный дауншифтинг заката эпохи хиппи. Хороший удар под зад устоям. Чем дальше в лес, тем меньше фальши, обрыдлой цивилизации, сомнительного стремления к прогрессу, неясных правил, которые зачем-то необходимо соблюдать.

«Волк. Ложные воспоминания» — попробуйте взглянуть на себя и мир другими глазами. Глазами волка, если угодно.

[Brian Lombard · Rating 5 out of 5]

"WOLF:A False Memoir"
by Jim Harrison
Dell Publishing
New York,1971

In his book “Wolf”, Jim Harrison displays creative genius at its best. Being a false memoir of a fictional character lost in the woods recalling his memories, the book puts you in a front row seat to observe Swanson’s thoughts as they come and go in his head. The intricate writing scheme keeps you very entertained and paints a magnificent picture of the main characters life through the various memories.

The main setting takes place in the Huron Mountains, Michigan where the main character is lost in the wilderness and finds himself caught in a whirlwind of flashbacks which takes him through many walks of his life including relationships, drugs and alcohol, and the accident which killed his parents. Swanson, the main character, is often transitioned back to the present by something occurring in nature such as tracks or animals in the wilderness. A true appreciation for nature shines through in the book and is not surprising for Jim Harrison himself lives in Michigan and grew up with a great reverence for the outdoors. This presence of nature grounds the story and the main character as it sorts through his seemingly aimless life.

It took me a little while to catch on to the writing style of Jim Harrison and the pace of his story. Once I was able to place myself in the mindset of free flowing thought and detach myself from the want of a concrete storyline I was able to follow the book clearly and enjoy the memories as they came. Harrison has a remarkable descriptive talent which seems to translate from his poetry. I felt a similar feeling reading this book as I did when I visited the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, walking from painting to painting being completely captivated by each and then from time to time realize I was still in the museum and had a group to keep up with. I would want more from each scene and memory but the feeling of wanting more was soon forgotten and replaced by yet another intriguing scenario.

Jim Harrison has a very interesting and enjoyable writing style with great descriptive imagery showing the reader the story with minimal telling. In “Wolf” Harrison moves from memory to memory as you or I would as one memory would fade into the next in our own minds. The story comes alive for that reason. I was able to sink myself into the book and read along as if it were happening in my own head. This is a remarkable talent and a style I would want to emulate as well as read more of.

This was a fantastic read and unlike any books I have come across thus far. This was my first experience of Jim Harrison’s work and it certainly won’t be my last.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know whether to put this on the fiction or the non-fiction shelf. Having read Off to the Side, Jim Harrison's memoir, this book is labeled a "false memoir." Harrison mentioned this book in Off to the Side, but I don't remember exactly what he said about it, but seem to recollect it was something about not wanting people to thing this book was a biography or actual memoir. But, once you read Off to the Side and then Wolf, A False Memoir, you see the great similarity between the two narrators. One man's struggle through life, seeking something, and not always finding it. In this book the narrator, Swanson, is camped out in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and hopes to see a Wolf. Despite looking and thinking and imagining, he never does. Life is like that, I guess. But meanwhile, searching and hoping to see a wolf moves one along, and what happens on the way can be good or bad, but it's living, and in its own way a source of meaning to the person.

[BRT · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is either a novelette of sheer literary genius or absolute prurient drivel, depending on the reader and how deeply it’s read and interpreted. It may also be one of those literary Emperors New Clothes , where if you want to appear intelligent, call it literary genius. It’s the purported stream of consciousness story of a young man of intelligence, creativity, and promise who, lost in alcohol, drugs, and random sex, takes himself off to the woods of the Huron Mountains in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It’s not for the easily offended because there’s a great deal of cold, impersonal sex, drug and alcohol use. However, even on a cursory reading there are social and psychological insights that are impressive. Sadly, I know a few lost young men like this who never outgrew their adolescent rapacious urges and who are unable to balance their intellectual ability with living daily life.

[M. Sarki · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://rogueliterarysociety.com/f/wo...

...There must be reasons why I seem to closet funerals and weddings and love affairs together: mortal accidents, simply the given on which a shabby structure may be subtracted or added…

I too have lumped funerals and weddings into the same boat. Neither appealing and both to be avoided at all costs, if possible. Unfortunately, life offers ample opportunities of this given on which a shabby structure may be subtracted or added. Wolf was not my first introduction to Jim Harrison. Most likely it was Sundog, but regardless, I knew in many ways I had discovered a kindred spirit. Fellow natives of Northern Michigan, Jim and I shared a love for the outdoors, animals, food, and women. Actually it was ultimately only one woman for both of us, but lust and sex covers the gamut of human experience. It is love that matters most, and Harrison and myself loved religiously by staying truly devoted to only one woman for a lifetime.

...It is strange to know a girl you can love without words, with whom language is only an interference…

The love of my life fits this bill. There have been countless instances when silence ruled, when nature prevailed, and the majesty of life cloaked its sense upon us. Sunsets, swims, and walks through the forest offered many opportunities to commune with nature. Even the last two years living full-time in a travel trailer has enriched our prior experiences.

...I could not dry out my brain long enough to regard any day with total focus. Others in my generation took drugs and perhaps expanded their consciousness, that was open to question, and I drank and contracted my brain into halts and stutters, a gray fist of bitterness…

And I did both, eventually turning to alcohol exclusively due to its social acceptance. But I was wrong. I should have chosen cannabis. All the terrible things that can be associated with my abuse of alcohol would never have happened. Perhaps I would have also had better focus as Harrison surmises.

...There is a constant urge to re-order memory—all events falling between joy and absolute disgust are discarded…

This is something I definitely agree with. My memory consists of only significant details which fall under the categories of extreme joy, fear, happiness, lust, pain, and whatever totally obsessed me.

...Billy maintained that as long as his wife balled for money it was OK but that if she ever went to bed with anyone for free it would be adultery…am one and over and above the average simplicities of love...monogamy usually involves retreat and cowardice.

I think Billy is right, and for a period of time we did consider as a couple doing something similar. But it remained only an idea and we never acted on it. But it was an interesting and entertaining concept that did enrich our lives.

...It's a matter of contention now who got fucked over the most, the blacks brought here as slaves or the Indians who were totally dispossessed…

After more than a century it seems that people of color are finally getting the attention to their plight after horrific recent police brutality, murder, and all the world marching to their defense. Native Americans have yet to get the justice they deserve. But the country, the world, seems to be moving in the right direction in spite of Covid19.

...We parted affably outside after Barbara arranged to shop with her mother the next day and off they went to the Pierre while we went back to the apartment and dog-fucked in front of the hall mirror…

This type of sentence above is to be expected in the writings of Jim Harrison. Sex acts so matter of fact and treated as natural instead of romantic. Harrison often produces a smile on my face as I envision his fiction.

...Nature doesn't heal, it diverts and because we are animals too all this silence is a small harmony…Barring love I'll take my life in large doses alone—rivers, forests, fish, grouse, mountains. Dogs…

Social distancing today due to Covid19 fits me to a T, however Jim Harrison enjoyed his social drinking so much he most likely would have perished from the virus. Better to have stayed in the woods or his writing studio. Or out hiking with his dog.

Consciousness is simply the kind of work I can't make a continuous effort at—a disease causing giddiness, brain fever, unhappiness.

Even though I am completely enamored with the personality and the writing of Jim Harrison, I am put off by his stream of consciousness memories in this book. Add that these remembrances alternate with the main plot regarding his present tense camping and hiking trip to the woods in search of a wolf. I am completely interested in the life of Jim Harrison but for me this precept fails to deliver. Revisiting this first novel by Jim Harrison was again for me not remarkable. The book however did cement his woodlands/tough guy personality that would persist throughout his writing career. And there is truth in this almost fabled persona. Harrison drank with the best of them, ate enormous and exotic meals, obsessively celebrated sex and the naked woman, and lived a life enriched by solitude and nature. Though obviously finding his voice, this first novel failed on a literary level. Too disjointed and unfocused. Harrison in proceeding works goes on to achieve high merits in both his enormous and remarkable collection, specifically within his fiction and nonfiction oeuvre. Though poetry was his first love, and what kept him sane, it is my contention that Harrison achieved far greater success with his prose.

[Dragisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished Wolf and I’m still a little drunk on it - in the best possible way. This isn’t a tidy memoir or a neat novel; it’s a raw, whiskey-soaked ramble through the Michigan woods, memory, lust, failure, and the stubborn refusal to grow up on anyone else’s terms. Harrison calls it a “false memoir,” and that’s perfect. It feels like the truest thing I’ve read in years precisely because it refuses to pretend it’s fact.

The setup is deceptively simple: a thirty-three-year-old narrator (Swanson, though we all know it’s Harrison in a thin disguise) heads into the Huron Mountains with a tent, a bad .30-30, and a half-baked plan to find a wolf. He never sees one. Instead he gets lost, soaked by storms, eaten alive by bugs, haunted by ghosts of old girlfriends, dead relatives, Baptist hymns, peyote visions, and the constant low hum of his own appetites. That’s the whole book - wandering, remembering, drinking coffee by a fire, and letting the mind spin wherever it wants. And somehow it never feels aimless. Every digression lands like a perfectly placed shotgun slug.

What I loved most is the voice. Harrison writes like a man talking to you at 2 a.m. over the last warm beer in the cooler - funny, crude, tender, self-mocking, and suddenly lyrical in the middle of a sentence. One minute he’s describing the “low pelvic mysteries of swamps” and the next he’s remembering a twelve-year-old girl on a tire swing whose dress flies up while he sits in his father’s car pretending to fiddle with the radio. The erotic passages are blunt and unapologetic; the nature writing is so vivid you can smell wet ferns and pine smoke. He moves between the two without a seam, because for him they’re the same thing: the wild inside and the wild outside.

The book is soaked in place - northern Michigan in the late ’50s, that hardscrabble, clear-cut, mosquito-ridden country that most people drive through without stopping. Harrison makes it feel mythic. The Huron Mountains become a kind of interior frontier where the narrator can strip down to his boots, walk naked around a fire, and try to figure out who the hell he is when no one is watching. It’s funny, it’s filthy, it’s mournful, and it’s weirdly hopeful. Even when he’s at his most self-destructive (the peyote overdose, the barroom encounters, the endless list of things he misses), there’s a stubborn vitality running underneath. Life hurts, but damn if it isn’t interesting.

Harrison’s prose doesn’t try to be poetic - it just is. It’s the kind of writing that makes the Michigan woods feel like a living, breathing body: damp, scarred, and haunted. The greatest parts aren’t flowery; they’re visceral, exact, and strangely holy. They hit like a cold creek on bare skin.

The Word List - Pure List-Poem Longing (mid-book memory spiral):

“sun bug dirt soil lilac leaf leaves hair spirea maple thigh teeth eyes grass tree fish pine bluegill bass wood dock shore sand lilypads sea reeds perch water weeds clouds horses goldenrod road sparrows rock deer chicken-hawk stump ravine blackberry bush cabin pump hill night sleep juice whiskey cards slate rock bird dusk dawn hay boat loon door girl bam straw wheat canary bridge falcon asphalt fern cow bees dragonfly violets beard farm stall window wind rain waves spider snake ant river beer sweat oak birch creek swamp bud rabbit turtle worms beef stars milk sunfish rock-bass ears tent cock mud buckwheat pepper gravel ass crickets grasshopper elm barbed-wire tomatoes bible cucumber melon spinach bacon ham potatoes flesh death fence oriole corn robin apple manure thresher pickles basement brush dog-wood bread cheese wine cove moss porch gulley trout fish-pole spaniel mow rope reins nose leek onion feet”

One of the most astonishing passages in American literature. No verbs, just nouns - everything the narrator aches for while lost in the woods. It reads like a Whitman catalog crossed with a hungover litany. This is Harrison at his most nakedly poetic: memory as inventory of the world.

“I floated on my back and saw one still cloud. Where would the turtle have died otherwise? In winter deep in the mud. As bears do, dying in their sleep from age.”

Short, perfect, Zen-like. After pointless cruelty (shooting the turtle), Harrison finds grace in the cold water and a single cloud. It’s the book’s quietest, most beautiful meditation on mortality.

These are the passages that feel written by the woods themselves. Harrison’s genius is that the poetry never announces itself - it just rises out of the mud, the fire, the memory and the longing. The whole book is a love letter to a place that will never love you back, and these moments are where that letter catches fire.

“Maybe I would track it until it stopped and greeted me and we would embrace and I would become a wolf.”
“That night around my fire I heard howling far to the west of me, perhaps several miles away. Sure as God a wolf.”

The wolf is the white whale that never appears - and that absence becomes the most poetic thing in the book. It’s longing turned into landscape. Every mention of wolf tracks, imagined howls, or the fantasy of becoming the wolf feels like a prayer.

If you like your literature polished and polite, this book will offend you on every other page. If you like your literature honest, muscular, and alive with the smell of dirt, blood, bourbon, and pine needles, Wolf is a goddamn masterpiece. It’s the kind of book that makes you want to throw your phone in a creek, drive north, and disappear for a week with nothing but a tent and a notebook.

I already want to read it again. And I want to find that wolf he never saw. Highly, enthusiastically, stupidly recommended.

[Ned · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a tumble/jumble of thoughts as Harrison counts and recounts his life and regrets. He's not what is considered a naturalist so much as a lover of the primeval pure animas. When I read this book I remember from Legends of the Fall when Tristan used to live in the wild and return to town semiannually to gorge on food and women, then disappear again. Also remember he wanted a good death, e.g. getting eaten by a bear.... Hemingwayesque for sure, but without all the pretense / self importance...

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written. I mean ruggedly handsomely written. Definitely a dude's book. Sensitive reading while hunting dude.

This would have affected me more at 20, I think. I really like his meandering stream of consciousness. Other reviewers describe the style as a marriage of Bukowski to Kerouac. I thought more of Virginia Wolf (interesting - pun intended? I'll never tell) seducing Thoreau out from his hovel.

A nice short read, unfortunately unavailable in digital format. The Dell trade paperback was typeset by a chimp, I think, or mimeographed by a donkey.

[Cédric Jover · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harrison est un homme aux semelles de vent, qui bouge sans cesse et depuis son plus jeune âge. Dans ce roman, il se penche sur son passé lors d'une retraite solitaire en forêt, histoire de se faire une petite introspection à la campagne, loin de tout.

J'ai adoré...pour moi ce bouquin est beaucoup plus profond que "Sur la Route" de Kerouac.

[Sam Klemens · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Dad gave this to me as a present. And I was slightly hesitant to begin. But boy was I wrong. It's like a young, pre-philosophical Thoreau who drinks whiskey neat goes into the woods and lives without a cabin. For a couple of weeks. At times burying cigarettes, only to furiously search for them later.

It's well written and I loved the scenery. I would recommend this book to a friend.

[Kipp Wessel · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you only read one Jim Harrison novel in your lifetime, choose this one. On the other hand; if you only read one Jim Harrison novel (or fewer) in your lifetime, something is seriously wrong with you.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great lines and wonderful commentary. This is not a book for the lighthearted, and due to the times, some of the language is not very PC, but you can not deny this man's brilliance. His first novel and one of his best.

[Fred · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harrison's first novel. It was as if you knew you were reading a poet's work even though it was a work of fiction. However, it's not for everyone the way it is written. Especially if it's your first time reading Jim Harrison. But try it, how else will you know if it's for you.