|
Kingfisher Roethke Edition |
||
|
BOOKS Norman Mailer, The Ghostly Art, Random House, 2003, $25 Jim Harrison, On The Side, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2002, $25 I always need to place myself chronologically with a writer when I read his book, or a book about him, for what is life if it isn’t a mutual race toward death, and whomever gets there last is the clear winner. Thus, Norman Mailer, who just published The Ghostly Art, is eight years older than I, and Jim Harrison’s memoir, Off To The Side, is eight years younger than I. I
respond more strongly to Harrison’s book than to Mailer’s. Much of
Mailer I’ve read or listened to elsewhere, since it is drawn from
interviews, articles, and book prefaces. As I inch through it, I have the
feeling I’ve heard it all before. There is nothing new here, yet Mailer
is one of the leading writer/intellectuals of our time, and his piercing
opinions ring true time after time on such writers as Henry Miller, D. H.
Lawrence, Faulkner, and many of his contemporaries, most of whom he speaks
respectfully of but has minor quarrels. Harrison,
on the other hand, has led a life more ordinary than I suspected from
having read his books as they came out over several decades. A memoir is
where you tell all, or as much of it as you can handle, or think
your audience can tolerate and still respect you. In
his books, and in his articles, Harrison gives the impression he is a big
doper, and gives credulous to the idea that it is a viable way of life.
And sex is constant, weird, and varied. But in real life I am surprised he
is still married to his high
school sweetheart and, in spite of difficulties, seems not to have strayed
much, or else doesn’t talk about it in this kind of memoir—which is
not to bare all. As
for dope, he never liked marijuana. Qualudes are for women, he maintains.
Now, cocaine is his thing, but most of his life he hasn’t had the money
for it, and it wasn’t until Hollywood bought his novels for movies that
he could afford it. He overindulged himself, he says, as he does with food
and booze. But then he has tapered off largely, due to deteriorating
health. He
spends two months out of the year fishing or hunting birds. McGuane is a
close friend for several decades and Harrison now is moving from Upper
Michigan to Montana—that Mecca of all serious trout fishers—and has
another home in Arizona. He is bad with money, and when he started making
a lot of it, it simply disappeared because of carelessness and generosity
to his strapped friends. Friends with big names get mentioned frequently, such as Jack Nicholson, who seems to be a friend to many, but not to those who have TV programs. And while the parade of big names and things they have done together gets a bit tiresome, it is hard to take Harrison to task over this, since it is all obviously true, and these people now are an essential part of his life. Still, his married children and grandchildren, he says, are an important part of his life, and he plans on keeping writing. He is about 65. Harrison’s book, in my opinion, is a better book, but Mailer’s mind is a superior one, and even though he hasn’t much that is new to say, whatever he says is penetrating and gives food for much thought. Robert Arnold, Editor
|