Cliff, the hero of The English Major, is a 60-something former English teacher who became a farmer. His wife has just left him for Fred, a high school classmate with an Italian sports car. Cliff sells his farm and decides to go on a road trip through all 50 states.

The book is Cliff’s first-person account of his journey, and it’s written in a free-flowing stream-of-consciousness style, filled with run-on sentences and odd non sequiturs. I’ll admit right off that a stream-of-consciousness style doesn’t generally work for me. I can see the art in it, but I rarely enjoy it much. So the writing was a pretty big obstacle for me here. Plus, this rather antic sort of style didn’t seem to fit a guy who listens to NPR and reads Thoreau. Cliff seems like a quiet, contemplative sort of guy, even if he is a bit of an odd duck, but the writing feels entirely different.

The road trip itself had its amusing moments, and for the most part, I liked Cliff as a character. I liked his independence and his unwillingness to give in to modern pressures. He was likably eccentric in his plans and dreams—the main one being to rename all the U.S. states and birds—and he seemed comfortable in his own skin, if not in his current situation. I did get annoyed about his ogling of every woman who came along and describing the attendant physical responses, but that could have to do with the fact that I’m a woman.

Of course, I don’t have to approve of everything about a character to enjoy reading about the character. And I did like plenty about Cliff. But on the whole, this book never quite pulled me in. It’s short—just 254 pages—and it reads pretty quickly, so I never considered giving up on it, but I doubt I’ll remember it six months from now.

See my complete review at my blog. ( )

Jim Harrison chronicles the road trip of a 60 year old farmer, English major and former teacher. The main character, Cliff, has just gone through a divorce after a long marriage, lost his farm and his dog Lola. Cliff embarks on journey throught several states eventually visiting his son in San Francisco before returning to Michigan. His trip is fuelled with memories of teaching, fishing, sex and of course of his dog Lola. At the end of the book Cliff ends up in the one place he is bound to return to, Home. Although is slightly different circumstances. I found the book a bit light but enjoyable and I did root for him at the end of the book, although I thought his method for renaming the states wasn’t very creative. ( )

I picked this book strictly for the title and the cover. I never heard of Jim Harrison, despite the fact that he has written over 25 books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. He has also won a Guggenhiem and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Conspicuously absent are a Pulitzer, a PEN/Faulkner Award, and a National Book Award.

The story he tells holds a lot of interest for me, even though this is my third recent read involving aging teachers undergoing a mid/late-life crisis. Cliff’s wife Viv has left him for a high-school flame. As part of the divorce, she has sold their farm out from under him and turned him out. He takes his share of the divorce money, and hits the road. Along the way (from Michigan to Washington, down through California, Arizona, New Mexico, then back up to Montana and home to Michigan) he meets a variety of characters from his past and some new ones. While it is not riotously funny, it does have its moments with some sassy, snappy prose.

One thing that annoyed me was Harrison penchant for parenthetically explaining some pretty ordinary things. For example, he writes, “I had been a chaperone and driver for a bunch of 4-H (Head, Heart, Health, and Hands) kids going to a big meeting” (6). Later he provides the same service for “ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)” (28). Maybe his teacherly hat fell down while he was typing.

A pretty decent road novel worth a couple of lazy afternoons. 4 stars

--Jim, 9/3/09 ( )

Came highly recommended at the NPR site but was a total waste of time for me. Vapid; uninteresting characters. Did not finish it. ( )