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alisa4books's review against another edition
4.0
Really enjoyed the first of the two stories. The second one confounded me. No matter how much of a chance I gave it, I still felt like it was all over the place and unsure of what it really wanted to be and say.
timdemarco's review against another edition
3.0
Three stars, but really it's five stars and one star, added and divided by two. I had never read anything by Jim Harrison before picking up this book. The first novella in this collection of two, "The Land of Unlikeliness," had me tempted to run out and buy everything this man has written. I'm glad I hesitated since it only took a few pages of the second novella, "The River Swimmer," before I wanted to steer clear of anything else this guy has written. In any case, the first novella is an excellent story, great language, beautiful descriptions of the landscape, characters that will stick with me. The second one... eh. Poor editing, strange pacing, unlikeable/unrealistic characters, just not my thing at all.
So, buy this used and read the first half. That's my recommendation.
So, buy this used and read the first half. That's my recommendation.
brussel777sprouts777's review against another edition
3.0
Fun intellectual writing style with great development of main character in each of the two stories. Yea, a little over sexed, but sex is not the main point of these. Totally disappointing ending for the second novella.
bobbo49's review against another edition
4.0
I love how Harrison writes - his characters are intensely believable (even when their circumstances are not). These two short novellas are explorations of relationships - family and otherwise - in the context of personal trauma. Interesting stories, quick reading.
caractacus's review against another edition
3.0
Although the title novella is good, the novella preceding it hews so close to the Dragging Scrotum territory of Mailer or the worst of Updike, stuff I've just read too much of in the last six years, that I had to grit my teeth through a lot of it.
nonna7's review against another edition
3.0
This is one of those books that the literary reviewers love. It's been a few years since I read "Julip," another book of novellas by Jim Harrison. I reserved this at our local library after reading a review. The title is actually the second novella. The two characters are as different as they can be and yet similar. The elder, Clive, is an artist while the younger, Thad, is a farm boy drawn to the river.
The first one, The Land of Unlikeness, is one that I particularly enjoyed. Admittedly, it may be because the character is closer to my own age. It's the story of Clive, a farm boy from Michigan who makes it big in the art world until his pictures go out of fashion. He gives up painting and makes a living as an art appraiser and on and off professor. When the story opens he is back in Michigan taking care of his elderly mother while his sister takes her first ever European trip. While there he reconnects with an old love and starts to paint once again.
The second, Thad, finds the river irresistible and sees magical creatures in the water when he swims. Honestly, I didn't get that far. I just found the character uninteresting.
One thing I loved about the first story was discussion about art. Harrison, or at least his character, is very outspoken about who is a "good" artist and who is not. He named some names that intrigued me enough that I plan to look them up. One of the "good" artists was Edward Hopper, one of my personal favorites. I also enjoyed the process of creation described in the story. Clive finds himself in his hometown, a story that could be trite, but it isn't in this case. His painting of a whale on a piece of Masonite that he paints white, his portrait of his old love in an old car, the description of the painting of willows as almost abstract were so vivid in my mind, that I could almost feel like I could recreate them myself. (Except I can't!) Then there is the description of his small pictures of scenes through wavy old glass that were so intriguing that I've made a mental note to see if pictures like that really exist.
So, I loved the first one. The second one bored me completely. Still, it's worth reserving this book at your local library.
The first one, The Land of Unlikeness, is one that I particularly enjoyed. Admittedly, it may be because the character is closer to my own age. It's the story of Clive, a farm boy from Michigan who makes it big in the art world until his pictures go out of fashion. He gives up painting and makes a living as an art appraiser and on and off professor. When the story opens he is back in Michigan taking care of his elderly mother while his sister takes her first ever European trip. While there he reconnects with an old love and starts to paint once again.
The second, Thad, finds the river irresistible and sees magical creatures in the water when he swims. Honestly, I didn't get that far. I just found the character uninteresting.
One thing I loved about the first story was discussion about art. Harrison, or at least his character, is very outspoken about who is a "good" artist and who is not. He named some names that intrigued me enough that I plan to look them up. One of the "good" artists was Edward Hopper, one of my personal favorites. I also enjoyed the process of creation described in the story. Clive finds himself in his hometown, a story that could be trite, but it isn't in this case. His painting of a whale on a piece of Masonite that he paints white, his portrait of his old love in an old car, the description of the painting of willows as almost abstract were so vivid in my mind, that I could almost feel like I could recreate them myself. (Except I can't!) Then there is the description of his small pictures of scenes through wavy old glass that were so intriguing that I've made a mental note to see if pictures like that really exist.
So, I loved the first one. The second one bored me completely. Still, it's worth reserving this book at your local library.
timdemarco's review against another edition
3.0
Three stars, but really it's five stars and one star, added and divided by two. I had never read anything by Jim Harrison before picking up this book. The first novella in this collection of two, "The Land of Unlikeliness," had me tempted to run out and buy everything this man has written. I'm glad I hesitated since it only took a few pages of the second novella, "The River Swimmer," before I wanted to steer clear of anything else this guy has written. In any case, the first novella is an excellent story, great language, beautiful descriptions of the landscape, characters that will stick with me. The second one... eh. Poor editing, strange pacing, unlikeable/unrealistic characters, just not my thing at all.
So, buy this used and read the first half. That's my recommendation.
So, buy this used and read the first half. That's my recommendation.
eiseneisen's review against another edition
3.0
After a decade of intending to read him, I made my first foray into Jim Harrison's work with The River Swimmer, a 200-page volume which consists of 2 novellas. The first, titled "The Land of Unlikeness," is about a man experiencing an artistic reawakening at the age of 60. The second, titled "The River Swimmer," is about a teenager whose unceasing love for and pull towards the water conflicts with the modern world in which he lives.
Neither novella is exceptional, but both have exceptional passages. Both have moments that make you laugh, and pull at your heart, and marvel at Harrison's ability with words. He excels at expressing character's responses to life. Below is an example from "The Land of Unlikeness." Clive, the story's protagonist, is a failed artist turned art professor and art appraiser in New York City. Having returned to his boyhood home in rural Michigan for a month, he is rediscovering the artist within him, as evidenced by the fact that he has been painting daily for the simple satisfaction of it, and that he just had an emotional response to gazing upon a painting by Caravaggio:
"What was happening to him, for Christ's sake? He was certainly staring at Caravaggio as a painter and not as a professor. He hadn't felt tears since a summer afternoon in New York so many years ago, when he had received a registered letter of his final notice of divorce. He had been ignoring Mozart's Jupiter on the radio but his sudden raw and vulnerable emotions allowed the music to truly enter his being so that he delaminated, the layers of him falling from each other...
He wondered what a bright young writer struggling with his first work would feel on first reading Hamlet or Dostoyevsky's The Possessed. An explosion that would blow him through the window of his garret... It occurred to him that only purity of intent would save his own sorry soul. If he were to continue to paint he had to do so without the trace of the slumming intellectual toting around his heavy knapsack of ironies. He was well into his own third act and further delay would be infamous."
While not exceptional, both novellas are worth reading. More importantly, for me, they were a sufficient introduction to Harrison's writing---I will definitely be seeking out his more acclaimed works to read in the near future.
Neither novella is exceptional, but both have exceptional passages. Both have moments that make you laugh, and pull at your heart, and marvel at Harrison's ability with words. He excels at expressing character's responses to life. Below is an example from "The Land of Unlikeness." Clive, the story's protagonist, is a failed artist turned art professor and art appraiser in New York City. Having returned to his boyhood home in rural Michigan for a month, he is rediscovering the artist within him, as evidenced by the fact that he has been painting daily for the simple satisfaction of it, and that he just had an emotional response to gazing upon a painting by Caravaggio:
"What was happening to him, for Christ's sake? He was certainly staring at Caravaggio as a painter and not as a professor. He hadn't felt tears since a summer afternoon in New York so many years ago, when he had received a registered letter of his final notice of divorce. He had been ignoring Mozart's Jupiter on the radio but his sudden raw and vulnerable emotions allowed the music to truly enter his being so that he delaminated, the layers of him falling from each other...
He wondered what a bright young writer struggling with his first work would feel on first reading Hamlet or Dostoyevsky's The Possessed. An explosion that would blow him through the window of his garret... It occurred to him that only purity of intent would save his own sorry soul. If he were to continue to paint he had to do so without the trace of the slumming intellectual toting around his heavy knapsack of ironies. He was well into his own third act and further delay would be infamous."
While not exceptional, both novellas are worth reading. More importantly, for me, they were a sufficient introduction to Harrison's writing---I will definitely be seeking out his more acclaimed works to read in the near future.
richardwells's review against another edition
5.0
Some authors write like angels, some like wizards, Philip Roth and Jim Harrison (who are so similar, but seem to be at opposite ends of a class divide,) write like the devil himself. Then there's Cormac, THE Prince of Darkness, but that's a digression I won't get into.
In The River Swimmer, Mr. Harrison gives us two coming of age stories, from two points on the spectrum of age. In the first, "The Land of Unlikeness," we spend time with a 60 year old art critic/professor, not-failed but resigned artist, and bon vivant, as he returns home to spend some time caring for his partially blind mother. It's a story of rediscoveries that lead to discoveries and hope. A resurrection of sorts. It's beautifully handled. I don't know how Jim Harrison does it, but all his stories are a meander that go places they have no place going, and the places become exactly where we should be - and then he gets back to the main road. It's like a blessing to spend time in his creations. Mr. Harrison is a randy guy, and the story is full of the humorously risque. Like I said - he's a devil.
In the second, and possibly less successful, but hugely moving (as befits the current) The River Swimmer we're thrown into the life of a 17 year old boy whose medium is water, and whose talent is swimming. He's intent on swimming the rivers of the world, while supporting himself as a hydrologist. As can be expected, he's an odd duck (no pun intended). His girlfriend's abusive father incites the incidents that get him into the water, swimming from Michigan's Upper Peninsula (U.P.) to Chicago where his life turns in the arms and family of his new friend, Emily. Randy and risque from the perspective of a 17 year old - and as I recall, heat was an organizing principle in those years. Mr. Harrison takes a leap into magical realism, and though it's a bit off, it works ultimately, and the end of the novella literally took my breath away.
Five stars should go to Shakespeare, and etc., but I find Jim Harrison to be so lovable he gets the five cause there's no other way to express my affection, respect, and admiration for his work.
In The River Swimmer, Mr. Harrison gives us two coming of age stories, from two points on the spectrum of age. In the first, "The Land of Unlikeness," we spend time with a 60 year old art critic/professor, not-failed but resigned artist, and bon vivant, as he returns home to spend some time caring for his partially blind mother. It's a story of rediscoveries that lead to discoveries and hope. A resurrection of sorts. It's beautifully handled. I don't know how Jim Harrison does it, but all his stories are a meander that go places they have no place going, and the places become exactly where we should be - and then he gets back to the main road. It's like a blessing to spend time in his creations. Mr. Harrison is a randy guy, and the story is full of the humorously risque. Like I said - he's a devil.
In the second, and possibly less successful, but hugely moving (as befits the current) The River Swimmer we're thrown into the life of a 17 year old boy whose medium is water, and whose talent is swimming. He's intent on swimming the rivers of the world, while supporting himself as a hydrologist. As can be expected, he's an odd duck (no pun intended). His girlfriend's abusive father incites the incidents that get him into the water, swimming from Michigan's Upper Peninsula (U.P.) to Chicago where his life turns in the arms and family of his new friend, Emily. Randy and risque from the perspective of a 17 year old - and as I recall, heat was an organizing principle in those years. Mr. Harrison takes a leap into magical realism, and though it's a bit off, it works ultimately, and the end of the novella literally took my breath away.
Five stars should go to Shakespeare, and etc., but I find Jim Harrison to be so lovable he gets the five cause there's no other way to express my affection, respect, and admiration for his work.