by Jim Harrison
2. Early in the novella “Brown Dog,” the main character, B.D., states “I don’t amount to much, and you can’t get more ordinary, but no one ever called me stupid.” (p. 4) How far would you agree with his self-assessment? Did your opinion change as you read further into his story? Consider the extent of his knowledge that lies beyond the sphere of books, that is only gained through life experience, and compare him to the university anthropology students who drive 350 miles because they have “a great deal of admiration for Native Americans.” (p. 6)
3. Talk about B.D.’s relationship with Shelley, a relationship “based on a fib, a lie” (p. 4). Who is lying to whom, or is the dishonesty mutual? At what point does B.D. realize that Shelley might be using him? Why does he consider her dishonesty regarding the burial mounds to be such a betrayal? Is this surprising when you take into account that neither he nor Shelley are faithful, sexually, to each other? Consider his comment on their relationship: “Shelley and me have a fine time together but my future is more of the same which I don’t mind, and she’s bent on making her mark.” (p. 37) How accurate would you say this description is, and how does it illuminate B.D.’s character? Would you consider him a realist, or a pessimist? What about Shelley?
4. B.D. explains that he is writing down his life story on the advice of Shelley who believes that “an honest ‘confrontation’ with the past” (p. 8) will clarify his recent actions. What is B.D.’s attitude toward the past? Does he think that an understanding of it will help him going forward? Does his opinion change at all as he trawls his childhood and coming-of-age? Why do you think Shelley is so fascinated by B.D.’s history? Does she truly believe that she can effect change in him? Does she ever really understand him? Talk about B.D.’s attitude toward the future.
5. As B.D. combs his past he considers the relevance of being an orphan: “Having parents would give you an anchor on earth, but when you’re an orphan you’re always dreaming about how you came to be, and you could well pass your life dreaming. Or walking around in the woods.” (p. 47) How was B.D. raised, and how much do you think it shaped him? Discuss Shelley’s relationship with her father, and the ways in which it manifests itself in her and in her relationship with B.D.
6. The harsh climate and natural wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula shapes its inhabitants in many ways, and B.D. is no exception. Examine his affinity for nature and his need for solitude and the simple basics of life in his cabin. How does his relationship with the natural world differ from that of city dwellers who come to experience the wild? Think about the sporty Brad and his forays into the woods, and the graduate students with their desire to dig up the past.
7. Given B.D.’s shortcomings and his run-ins with the law how much are you able to respect him? Did your feelings change as the novella progressed? Consider all the characters in the story and think about who garnered your admiration and why. Would it be fair to state that B.D. has integrity, a personal moral code, that doesn’t always follow the ways of the law? Find examples. Discuss the escapade with the corpse in the ice truck in the light of this question as well as his sworn secrecy over the burial mounds.
8. How do you see B.D.’s life continuing? Has his experience with Shelley changed him in any way?
9. At the beginning of the novella “Sunset Unlimited,” Gwen is jolted out of her day-to-day existence by the need to help a college friend. What reasons might she have for undertaking this mission? Is she really acting out of compassion for Zip or is she seizing an opportunity to break free of her life? And if she is genuine in her desire to rescue Zip, is it present-day Zip or the Zip of the past who inspires her? When she describes her life to Stuart during her train journey, “it was as if she had described the daytime but not the night.” What does she mean by this and, by the end of the novella, where is the irony in her omission of facts?
10. At the core of this novella lies the theme of friendship as something solid that stretches across the years tying the present to the past. At one point Gwen asks “I’m not sure when a friend stops being a friend, are you?” Is it possible to answer such a question? Is it fair for Zip to reach out to Gwen after twenty years, and for Gwen, in turn, to reach out to the others, to Patty, Billy and Sam? Consider the statement “To give up, to abandon Ted Frazer, aka Zip, finally would be to abandon their own pasts, to say that the vibrancy of the time they spent together, no matter that it ended badly, meant nothing, or meant an insufficient amount to divert the courses of their lives for a few days.” (p.131)Could this be at the heart of their desire to help Zip, or is it something more mundane than that?
11. What does Patty, the movie exec, mean by “success is an abstraction”? (p.107) How does it apply to her, to Billy? Do you think either of them feels they have attained success? And what about Gwen and Sam, and their choices to move away from the mainstream (with its specific views of what success means)—have they found success on their own terms? Consider the role that wealth plays throughout the novella, and the different attitudes toward it. Discuss Patty’s long-held grudge against Billy.
12. Find examples of loneliness in the characters’ lives, either as they seek solitude or as it finds them despite their busy schedules. What might this say about their lives? What does Sam represent?
13. Toward the end of this novella, the narrator steps in and states “It’s time to pause a moment at the beginning of the last and longest chapter of our fable.” (p. 130) What do you understand by the word “fable”? How can this novella be viewed as a fable? Does this change your reading of it, your emotional reactions toward the characters?
14. How realistic did you find the ending of the novella with Billy’s death as the ultimate repayment for his earlier betrayal?
15. Reread the first paragraph of “The Woman Lit by Fireflies” (p. 171) and talk about the image of Donald conjured up there. What are your first impressions of him? Do they change in anyway as the novella moves forward and we learn more about Clare’s life and her marriage? Does Donald possess any redeeming features? Why did Clare marry him? To her daughter’s imagined question “why did you hold on so long?” (p. 195) Clare responds “why does a husband have to be the absolute center of a married woman’s life?” (p. 195) What is your response to her statement? What finally prompts Clare to leave Donald?
16. The image of Clare running away from her life and spending the night in an Iowan cornfield, reflecting upon her past, is especially evocative. How does her proximity to nature transform her? What makes it different from past trips into nature that she has taken? Think about her statement “for the first time in her life she did not know where her next shower was coming from” (p. 180) and discuss the volumes that such a simple line speaks to the life she has lived. As she steps into this new life there is also a sense that she is returning to something more simple, more honest, a “returning to earth.” What might this mean to her?
17. Examine the importance of her friendship with Zilpha, and her love for her dog, and compare the true expressions of selfless emotion portrayed in these relationships with the bloodless charade played out with Donald.
18. Consider the place that literature and books have always held for Clare, and the relevance of her “piths and gists” (p. 185)—passages from literature that seemed especially pertinent to life. How seriously do you think Clare took the statement that “literature was so rich with possibility that I could safely ignore life itself”? How does she envision her life in the light of Camus’ “terrible freedom”—the decision to not commit mental or physical suicide? Has she reached that point where she must decide what to do next, her senses fully awakened? What role does Dr. Roth play in the novella, in Clare’s life?
19. Talk about “the evil potential of inherited wealth” (p. 223) as it plays out in this novella. How different would Clare’s life have been without the money from her parents? Look back on the other novellas and examine the theme of money, the idle rich and the value of hard work, especially physical work. Remember B.D.’s l
ove of the simplicity of chopping wood?
20. Beginning with “The Woman Lit by Fireflies” but considering all three novellas together, talk about the way that people change over time. Consider Donald, for example. What happened to him over the years—how did he change from a working-class radical to a man obsessed with money? Was the change inevitable? Talk about the ways that the characters in “Sunset Unlimited” moved away from the people they used to be. Has Gwen managed to hold on to her past self by living away from the world? And what about Zip? How do the others view his radicalism now—as admirable, still inspiring or sad? How much has B.D. changed over the years, or has he stayed close to his authentic self? Why?
21. The protagonists in each novella are given a chance to look back over their lives, and to evaluate the past. What do they do with this knowledge? Will their self-assessments become turning points in their lives?
22. Discuss the narrative structure of the novellas, the use of flashbacks and forward, interior monologues and authorial commentaries. How does this nonlinear form of narrative affect the telling of the stories? Is it more successful in some cases than others?
23. How do these works fit into Jim Harrison’s literary landscape? Were you surprised by any of his characters, his locales? Which themes are present that run throughout his body of work? What is it that makes his characters so essentially human and universal?
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING:
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver; The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich; The Cadence of Grass by Thomas McGuane; Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje; In the Fall by Jeffrey Lent; Lost Man’s River by Peter Matthiessen; A Childhood by Harry Crews