The man owns and explores his appetites. Somewhat repetitive read straight through, should be sampled and savored in small bites. Like the author, instead I devoured the whole thing in a sitting or two... ( )

Just like a nice meal or a walk outdoors, this is a book to savor in small pieces. I wasn't sure about the book in the beginning, but I had really enjoyed " Winter morning walks: one hundred postcards to Jim Harrison" by Ted Kooser - so I was willing to give this very personal book a chance.
I'm glad that I read it. Interesting stories, wacky, unconventional, and a peek inside the soul and life of a man that lived life in his own way. ( )

I am so sad that tis is the last new work of JH. The guys life and philosophy, no matter how cobbled together, was inspiration as well as entertaining as told through his stories and non-fictionand poetry. He lived life well though his doubt and fury and writing about well. If we could all be so lucky.

Good-bye Jim ( )

https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/157352621033/a-really-big-lunch-meditations-on-fo...

…Hundreds warned me I was going to die young from smoking and drinking but I disappointed them…

I was thirty-one when I first discovered Harrison’s best writer friend [a:Thomas McGuane|29066|Thomas McGuane|http://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1335586633p2/29066.jpg] back in 1984. There was an article in the Detroit Free Press magazine that dealt with McGuane’s recovery from alcohol addiction and the publication of his new book [b:Something to Be Desired|497111|Something to Be Desired|Thomas McGuane|http://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320404008s/497111.jpg|1966090]. The next year would find me as well beginning my own recovery from addiction. Religious and obsessive reading of Thomas McGuane led me to naturally segue into Harrison. Both writers were from Michigan which also piqued my interest.

…Then again, I’ve always been a Luddite, much saddened by the invention of the auto. Many people think a Ferrari is beautiful, but it isn’t if you compare it to a horse.

Regardless of Jim Harrison’s periodic poetic dirges of drivel, he is an American treasure. An iconic figure cut of gluttonous gourmet and storytelling of the first rank. That is, when his writing centers on food, friends, hunting, and fishing. A sad day indeed when it was reported he had died. But we who read him for over forty years knew it was coming. He drank too much and lived too heartily to have lasted even as long as he did. And this fascinating and rewarding book proves it.

…A number of doctors have been amazed that I am still alive…

Developing Type II diabetes is no laughing matter. But for Harrison to continue his gouty ways, and in spite of his unhealthy dietetic preponderance, only furthered his quickened demise. But I am not so sure he would have had it any other way. Seems his eating and drinking habits started at a very young age and were modeled religiously beginning in northern Michigan, a land of excess too evolved to attempt an honest explanation on this page. Suffice to say I grew up there as well, and as luck would have it I escaped with my life by chasing a more healthy and vacationing filly down and into the bluegrass of Kentucky.

…When he reached the gate to Paloma Canyon on a friend’s ranch it was a few minutes before he could remember the lock’s combination because his mind had drifted back to a girl he had seen in a Key West dress shop exactly twenty-seven years before. She had been stooping before shelves of blouses in her white shorts and her butt was a perfect Anjou pear.

The last quarter of this amazing book presents the most humble and loving mind and heart to be found in such a grizzled veteran who squandered the vast majority of his lifetime on the word. And predictably, the penning of all of his work in fiction and nonfiction was based on personal experience. Harrison’s pleasures in his life alone could fill several volumes of autobiography. But these essays provide enough occasion to know the man in sufficient measure to recognize his quality of being, especially as he writes about nearing the end of his long and fruitful life.

…A friend, the novelist Tom McGuane, once said to me, “You can lecture a group of us on nutritional health while chain smoking and drinking a couple bottles of…

In his many resulting infirmities, severely wracked by pain, his sadness seeping through his writing feels in some ways like an apology or an act of forgiveness for not being a better man than most of us generally perceive ourselves. Harrison certainly knows who he is and what he is. And makes no bones about it. Even in his immense and punishing pain he never once complains and accepts his last trial as his personal and distinct cross to bear. And maybe it is my own sadness coming through his writing, but I have watched previously strong and robust individuals slowly lose their vitality and witnessed first hand their sad acceptance of it.

Camus maintained that the critical decision was whether or not to commit suicide and that once you assent to your own survival you must commit to life...

Harrison has always interested me. He is cut from a rougher cloth, but his mind and tastes are refined in ways unimaginable upon first look and rare sighting of this menacing man. And his words are often bitingly direct and presented as tease in order to entertain us as he gooses the less inquisitive minds who live among us. Harrison’s readers being somewhat a sort of privileged society looking down on the powers actually controlling our world these days. I liken Harrison’s work (his fiction and essays) as a treatise against stupidity, even in light of the disparaging of himself and his own mistakes in the process. In other words, Harrison makes reading fun, and for me at least, extremely rewarding and satisfying.

…Everywhere we are witness to the extreme confidence some people have in their stupidities…

Mr. Harrison was definitely a gifted writer. In this book he religiously celebrates the indulgences of over-eating and drinking too much. He not only makes his anecdotal bouts of gluttony interesting but actually champions it. And though his work is interesting to read there is a more responsible and informed part of me who believes his excesses not only killed him, but were sadly used as a way to cover up something. In my own case the villain would have been my many disappointments throughout my life. My frustrations as well as my not getting what I wanted. But learning to deal with these harsh realities has actually been quite freeing for me. Knowing that a richer life is made of frustration and the not getting of what I want has enabled me to learn more about accepting what is. John Steinbeck and his pal Ricketts called this non-teleological thinking. But perhaps I am wrong about Jim Harrison. Maybe over-eating and drinking exorbitant bottles of good wine is the way to true happiness and satisfaction. And living a life of moderation is something I am not expert in either. But I do follow my doctor’s orders and attempt to eat right and exercise to stay healthy. In contrast, Harrison’s explicit reason for taking a two hour walk was so he could drink an entire bottle of wine. For him, perhaps, there was no other way. And because of seemingly undying conviction we have here a pretty fantastic book about food, drink, and friends that only Jim Harrison himself could have written.

…My prodigious napping is caused more by my love of unconsciousness than fatigue… ( )

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A Really Big Lunch is different from any book I've read. Even though Harrison writes well and I found myself turning the pages rather than taking a break, the menu was most unusual and even seemed disgusting at times. I'm not into eating snake, but I still enjoyed reading about his food adventures.

Harrison's belief is simple. Quality of life is more important that quantity and food is the ultimate pleasure.

Life's short, so better start eating now!

Oh, and don't forget the wine!

4****

Thanks to Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review. ( )