Off to the Side

In his memoir, Off to the Side (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2002), Jim Harrison tells us "It is amazing how ineffective a mind can be when studying itself. The mind keeps trying to tell itself a linear children's story to cover the life it has watched the body live. The mind keeps trying to be an observer, spectator, rather than the director."
I think Harrison has figured a way to win the battle of mind over mind. In this memoir, and in his novels and poetry, one is struck by the pure honesty of the telling of his story. It's not just linear either. All facet of his or his character's emotional makeup are dissected and lain out. At the risk of sounding maudlin I would offer that Jim Harrison is a philosopher for our age. He is so without being pontifical and wordy. In all of his writing, whether he is being comic or serious, he exposes the bare facts of the human condition in such a way that the reader knows he or she can't not agree even though they might have to do so in the privacy of their own mind.
Apart from being an interesting commentary on one man's life, this memoir is also a worthy chronicle of the literary age of which Harrison is a part of. Most of all I think that here is book that can show us how a mind can be both spectator and director. His mind managed to study itself quite well.