The Beast God Forgot to Invent: Novellas [Paperback]

Jim Harrison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 6, 2001

Jim Harrison is an American master.The Beast God Forgot to Inventoffers stories of culture and wildness, of men and beasts and where they overlap. A wealthy man retired to the Michigan woods narrates the tale of a younger man decivilized by brain damage. A Michigan Indian wanders Los Angeles, hobnobbing with starlets and screenwriters while he tracks an ersatz Native-American activist who stole his bearskin. An aging "alpha canine," the author of three dozen throwaway biographies, eats dinner with the ex-wife of his overheated youth, and must confront the man he used to be.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

At 67, Norman Arnz is well aware of his narrative limitations: "I dare say that no one understands more than the part of the story that is directly contiguous to them." Yet the conjunction of placement and perception is crucial to both him and his tale. The title novella in Jim Harrison's The Beast God Forgot to Invent takes the form of Arnz's written report explaining the death by drowning of a lifetime resident of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Slow, different, backward--Joe Lacort had been labeled all these and more since a car accident illustrated "the Newtonian principle that an object in motion (your head) tends to remain in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced or unequal force (in Joe's case, a massive gray beech tree)."

What Arnz realizes, to his dismay and envy, is that this man "had crossed over a line into an otherness of perception that was unavailable to the rest of us," that his "sense of time has become hopelessly round while ours is linear." Joe's story, told as Arnz circles back and back, questing for original cause, is the story of mapping oneself and one's place in a profoundly captivating--and dislocating--universe. "Maybe," he ponders, "the world really doesn't look like the one I've been seeing all along. That was one of the questions Joe offered." These questions, and answers, are relayed by an astonishing voice: Harrison gives his narrator an oddly intoxicating blend of E.B. White's wry irony and perfectly matter-of-fact precision and Humbert Humbert's solipsistic bravura and edgy suspiciousness.

And the other two novellas are equally engaging. In "Westward Ho," a Michigan Native American finds himself on a quixotic quest through Los Angeles in pursuit of a stolen bearskin. An assortment of jaded Sancho Panzas aid (I use the term loosely) Brown Dog in his search. Sentimental without being trite, the story soars easily above potential "small-town Indian, big city" limitations. "I Forgot to Go to Spain" returns to a first-person narrator, a glib biographer suspicious that "the language I was using to describe myself to myself might be radically askew."

Harrison is a rare beast, an author whose ideas are at once grand and simple. His prose is so tantalizingly right that you might be tempted to gather his sentences and fling yourself into their midst, just for the sheer pleasure of it all. --Kelly Flynn --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Poet, essayist and novelist Harrison (Dalva, etc.) has long been acclaimed for his portrayal of human appetitesAsexual, artisticAand his descriptions of Michigan's wilderness. In this collection of three witty novellas, he dissects two high-strung, slightly lecherous intellectuals, men who cannot tear themselves away from their books or work, who drink and gourmandize to blunt the sense of waste that taints their silver years. Harrison treats these characters with empathy but, as always, he contrasts them unfavorably to more instinctual, thus happier, men. The title novella, which begins slowly but is the most affecting of the trio, is narrated by Norman Arnz, a wealthy 67-year-old book dealer who lives in a cabin in northern Michigan. Norman's peaceful retirement is disturbed when his friendship with a virile, brain-damaged man exacerbates the feeling that he has lived his life too timidly. Similarly, the protagonist of "I Forgot to Go to Spain" is a 55-year-old pulp biographer who has left behind the romantic ideals of his graduate school days and gone on to earn millions compiling the sort of books that "fairly litter bookstores, newsstands [and] novelty counters at airports." When he recognizes that compulsive work habits have deprived him of his dreams, he hopelessly tries to reignite an old flame (only to find she prefers her gardener). Sandwiched between these two novellas comes "Westward Ho," finally starring a man who is content in his own skin: Brown Dog, an easygoing woodsman who has appeared in two of Harrison's previous tales. This time the Native American from Michigan brings "real emotion" to Hollywood when he maneuvers his way among movie insiders in order to recover a stolen bear rug. Throughout the volume, Harrison's intricate symbolism and scathing observations of urban foibles, his sly humor and vibrant language remind readers that he is one of our most talented chroniclers of the masculine psyche, intellectual or not. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (November 6, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802138365
• ISBN-13: 978-0802138361
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #140,881 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Great Male Voice Returns., September 23, 2000

By 

TLK (Commonwealth Of Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Beast God Forgot to Invent (Hardcover)

Jim Harrison exhausts me. In two of his three superb novellas, I had to pause after every other paragraph to allow my mind to catch up. Reading Harrison is like drinking from a fire hose. Harrison's writing has the conceptual connectivity of a Dennis Miller rant, but it is more serious, more profound, longer and always within an odd story line. Does anyone else write like this? Harrison defines the solitary, cranky, intelligent, old man. Thank goodness for another Brown Dog story sandwiched neatly in between for relief. One imagines the Farley Brothers could make quite a movie about old B.D.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought-provoking from start to finish, October 3, 2001

By 

T. L. Davis (Oak Grove, MN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Beast God Forgot to Invent (Hardcover)

I read the first sentence of the title novella five or ten times before I could go on. (I won't tell you what it is... get the book and read it yourself.) Then I read it to my brother-in-law, my wife and a potter friend. I memorized it and now feel strongly compelled to scratch it on subway wall. It's that good. There are many such profound sentences throughout these three simply plotted but canyon-deep novellas. Witty and thoughful sentences and paragraphs abound yielding fuel for prolonged sessions of enjoyment and pondering. Thank you, Jim Harrison!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ~It's as if you were having a conversation with the author ~, July 15, 2002

By 

*Q* "rusty spurs" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Beast God Forgot to Invent (Hardcover)

I have just found a new obsession and it's Jim Harrison! Not the man, but his books of course. I am always open to a new discovery and in this case, what a pleasant surprise. Jim Harrison has an impressive command of words that keep his story(s), in this case 3 of them, flowing without being bogged down with excessive descriptions. It's as if you were having a conversation with him rather than reading a book.

After doing some research I found that he had written "Legends of the Fall", and that is one of my all time favorite movies. I just can't understand why he doesn't get more press. I have mentioned his books to several people and none of them were aware of him at all. He difinitely is a talent not to be missed. I have already ordered "A Woman Lit by Fireflies" and looking forward to his upcoming Memoir!

One more thing,if you are not familiar with his writing take a peak inside one of his books, you might just like what you see.