Farmer

Short, bittersweet, and simply superb - I "discovered" Jim Harrison while in college thirty-some years ago when I read of his first novel, Wolf: A False Memoir. When he mentioned Reed City in the first line of that book, I was hooked. I never imagined that the little town where I grew up would ever make the pages of good fiction. I shouldn't have been surprised though. Jim Harrison did some growing up in Reed City too. His dad, Win Harrison, was the county agent here. The Harrisons moved away to the Lansing area around 1949, but Jim still credits Reed City as a formative influence in his memoir, Off to the Side. There have been a lot of Harrison books since Wolf, and I've read most of them, but, in re-reading it recently, Farmer still show more holds up well after more than 30 years. In fact, I still think it is his best novel. It is so much more than just a love story, although it certainly is that. It is a tale of lust and longing, but also one of regret and redemption. Joseph Lundgren, the title character, is at once complex and simple. He is Everyman. In Wolf, the protagonist looked for a wolf in the wilderness mountains of Upper Michigan in the sixties - a time when wolves were all but gone from the state. That same theme - chasing a ghost animal of an earlier time - shows up again in Farmer, when Joseph tries to get a glimpse of a coyote. What he finally sees is no more than a blur for "a tenth of a second." What the middle-aged teacher/farmer Joseph wants in his ill-advised affair with a beautiful high school student is nearly as impossible to define as that search for the elsusive and all-but-extinct coyote. "I wanted to be carried away," he says, trying to explain things to his twin sister. And, at least for a little while, he succeeded. And, while I know there is no "political correctness" about this thirty year-old novel, any man today who can still be honest about his real feelings and simply say the hell with propriety and political correctness, will understand Joseph and what he did. Harrison puts you inside Joseph's skin. You feel his despair, his regrets, his longing for something more. Farmer may be a very short book, but it is as nearly perfect as a novel can ever hope to be. show less

read initially in may-June 2011, JH's third novel tells the story of a man needing to make a choice. Joseph never left his comfortable backwater Michigan home but time and events make the choice necessary. Told in Harrison's crisp and understanding style full of northern Michigan and its woods and waters. A hard yet sympathetic story teller flashes looks at the Farmer's past and the Swedes who settled in Michigan and their happenstance ways of making it into the country. An American story from the late 19th and mid-20th centuries. Though the ending left me hanging JH's clean and direct style told a simple story well. A final chapter at home would have brought the book to a 4.5

(2026) beautifully written. It was almost a comfort read. The characters were all loveable and you really wanted the best for them all. There wasn’t much for conflict, just a story that moved with Joseph’s struggle with his mundane life and inability to make a real decision. The ending was pretty anticlimactic, but you know what his choice was going to be from the beginning.

As a long time reader of Jim Harrison, I can say that reading his books is always a pleasure. I still remember seeing him do a reading in San Francisco. He had a bottle of wine on the table as he read from his latest novel. There is just something about the way he can start a thought and have it move into one subject after another and then still come back to the original thought. His main character in this book is complex and I can understand him and the feelings he has. I look forward to reading all the Jim Harrison books that I have not read. Although a short book "Farmer" is written in that narrative style that makes it seem longer. A good slice of life and a helpful insight into lives that are much different from mine. Harrison show more reminds me always about why I love the joy of a good novel. show less

I guess I enjoyed this book. Harrison, though, writes characters that are deeply flawed and hard to like. Outside of the Doctor, I don't think I'd want to have a conversation with any of these people.

I had just started to watch the film ‘Carried Away’ when the title sequence revealed that it was based on this book. I’m at 10% and proceeding cautiously. The writing strong and engaging. It’s the seemingly spoiler filled prologue which scares me. If I know the ending, is it worth reading the middle?

There is something lyrical about Harrison's writing, perhaps because he is also a poet... while his storytelling is interesting, his writing glides the story along. As with most of his books that I've read, his central character is a male going through various life changes -- a male with sex, hunting, and fishing on his mind. As a farmer, I enjoy his tales. This is a simple story focusing mainly on one year in a man's life when he is facing personal and professional change. A nice read.