Customer Reviews

Legends of the Fall

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Like most of the people I know who read this book, I picked it up after seeing the movie. While I enjoyed both in their own right, they are so different that going from one to the other adds nothing to either.

While the movie's most notable qualities are a breath of story and an epic scope, the book is beautiful for its economy of words and distant style. Written in the third person, as opposed to the film's heavy handed first person, the perspective is all knowing, yet reveals few details. The author brings the characters to life to some degree, but what is amazing is that they are interesting given their one dimensionality. The story, short as it is, contains much less of the deep intertwined relations of the movie, but I believe that makes it much improved over the screen version.

While everyone focuses on the title story, the other two that are included are also enjoyable. As a read, each of the stories is quite quick and complete. If you are taking a trip in several staggered stints, this is a good book to take along and pass the time.

That two of the three novellas in this book have been produced as motion pictures should tell you something. In fact, when I first read this collection I thought each of the three stories sounded like fleshed-out Hollywood 'treatments'. The writing is tight and concise, yet stunningly poignant. Harrison's true calling is as a poet, and he uses that training to full effect, creating crystal-clear images in the turn of a phrase. The result is never abstract, however; Harrison is also an outdoorsman whose knowledge of nature is equaled by his uncanny ability to portray his characters' surroundings in lucid, even beautiful prose. Read this book. You may become a Harrison adict.

Upon watching the film for the first time, I wanted to know more about the characters. The film, although well casted (Pitt,Hopkins,Quin and Ormond),does not do much for the book. The book is a timeless work of art. When reading a book, I tend to feel the pain and suroundings of each chatacter. You can only do this to a point in a film. With the book I was lost in the life, and death of the Ludlow family. It was so wounderful to get inside Tristin and the others and experience what their life was all about. Mr. Harrison has done wounderful works of art. I hope to find more!

I was in the Navy in 1983 when I discovered this book lying around the shop. Having nothing else to read on watch at the time I picked it up and became instantly hooked.

A prior reviewer made the analogy that Harrison runs a thread of choices: No matter what we decide to do in life we can never be certain of the outcomes. What is important is that we are able to live with the options we choose for ourselves. All three short stories contained in this book explore this theme and the character they exhibit when faced with challenges. It seldom works out how we, the reader, want it to end but like the protaganist we are able to make peace with it.

I seldom if ever read a book more than once, but I have read this one at minimum seven times. As a very young man trying to find himself in a huge cold world when I discovered Jim Harrison's work, Legends Of The Fall (And Other Short Stories) became a sort of blueprint for what would follow in my life and how would I meet the challenges: Alcoholism, divorce, death, even my spitituality.

The movie follows the story line very closely and for that we can be grateful. The tale is beautiful on its own and punching it up to make the transition would have been a fruitless exercise. That said, the vivid picture Harrison paints throughout while utilizing an economy of words causes the film to pale in comparrison.

Initially upon reading Harrison's novella, I was disappointed since I wanted so much for it to completely parallel the movie. However, after picking up the story for a second time, my opinions have altered. I found Harrison's straightforward writing to be completely appropriate and rather distinctive. I discovered new depth to several characters who were slighted in the movie. The read was enjoyable and the story is so very memorable.

The book is interesting in that two of the three novellas in it have been made into movies, Revenge, and Legends of the Fall.

I'll go on record saying that although I enjoyed the movie, I thought the book was better, although it's not really that long a book. Still, even in a work this short, there are depths that can't really be explored in a 2-hour movie, so if you liked the movie, I would strongly recommend you read the book.

Harrison has a direct but poetic style, and his male characters are well-drawn and believable. The women don't have much of a role in his books, but I don't mind that really. Harrison is a writer about old-fashioned masculine virtues and ideals of the sort that perhaps don't exist in our society anymore. But if you want equally well-developed women characters, you'll need to look elsewhere.

I thoroughly enjoyed all three novellas, particularly the Man Who Gave up His Name. Jim Harrison's writing through out this book is fantastic and very original. I highly recommend this book. It should be noted that this book is NOT the movie, and attempts to compare or critique the book by comparison with the movie is pointless. The movie was based on only one of the stories, and only bits of the story for that matter.

The three novellas by Jim Harrison collected in Legends of the Fall took my breath away when I read them, and made me wonder why in the world it took so long for me to discover Harrison. His language is sparse and clean--reminiscent to a certain extent of Cormac McCarthy's--but it has a musical/poetic rhythm to it that is uniquely his own. His ability to create images, plots, and characters that keep the reader riveted is profound, especially given the fact that he uses (at least in the last two of the three novellas collected here) almost no character dialogue.

The publisher's blurb for Legends of the Fall say that the three stories all deal with the theme of revenge, but this strikes me as a paltry characterization of their richness. What the stories do have in common is that the protagonists in each of them suffer a fall from "innocence." In Revenge, the main character discovers that the "innocence" of honest and passionate romantic love can exact a horrific price. In The Man Who Gave Up His Name, the main character loses a sense of who he is after his "innocence" is shattered by the break-up of a nearly twenty-year marriage. In Legends of the Fall, the main character, an "innocent" child of the Montana plains, is traumatized by the violence of the world.

Yet the fall from innocence in each of these "legends" isn't hopeless. Life lessons are learned in each case, even if the lesson hurts terribly. This is especially evident in the middle novella. Norstrom, the main character, loses his old identity. But in the losing of it, he acquires a more sensitive appreciation of the everyday. It's as if his loss of self leaves an open, receptive space that wasn't there before.

Having said that, though, I think it's a mistake to try to reduce these novellas to a single, overarching theme. They're honest narratives of the complexities of what it means to be human. The characters behave admirably at times, reprehensibly at others. Nothing is cookie-cutter, nothing inauthentically simple. Harrison's faithfulness to the tangled web of human relationships, plus his mastery of his craft, makes these novellas minor masterpieces. I look forward to reading more from him.

Harrison puts on paper many of the feelings and thoughts that we have all had. Our world is violent and beautiful and dreary all at the same time. He is at times harsh, but always honest with himself and his reader.

THis is a classic novela. Among the best I have ever read. Harrison masters symbolism to represent the division of traditional family values and the modern age of the industrial century. By going "over the mountains" the characters are leaving safety. THis anti war book is brilliant. A masterpiece that even a soldier like myself can enjoy.