And Jim Harrison created Dalva
- David Moreno
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
About ten years after Legends of the Fall, Jim Harrison published Dalva in 1988. With this choral, lyrical, and humanist novel, translated into 23 languages, the American author (who died three years ago) achieved cult status: Dalva is now a classic of contemporary literature. It is also, along with Little Big Man , the 1970 film by Arthur Penn, a masterpiece of the Native American cause .
A life marked by tragedy
Before introducing the book, let's get to know the author. Jim Harrison was born on December 11, 1937, in Grayling, Michigan. His father, an agricultural engineer, and his mother, of Norwegian descent, were both avid readers of fiction. He grew up close to nature and enjoyed a happy childhood until the age of seven, when a little girl accidentally gouged out his left eye. "She held a shard of glass to my face, and my sight fled in a flood of blood." He then fell into a deep depression.
As a teenager, he found refuge in literature, devouring Apollinaire, Stendhal, and Rimbaud, but also Dostoevsky and Pushkin. At sixteen, he decided to become a writer, driven by "romantic convictions and the profound boredom he felt with the bourgeois and middle-class lifestyle." His father gave him a typewriter. But when he was just a young adult, his father and sister were killed in a car accident caused by a drunk driver: "He crashed head-on into the car that was taking my father and sister deer hunting. They were killed instantly."
In 1959, at the age of 22, he married Linda King. She would remain his wife for life. They had two daughters: Jamie and Anna. After years of financial hardship and unsuccessful attempts to write the novel that would make him famous, Jim met Jack Nicholson. The Hollywood actor and the novelist quickly became friends. Confident in his talent, Jack Nicholson lent him fifteen thousand dollars. Free from all financial worries, Jim Harrison wrote the famous Legends of the Fall in a burst of creative energy, published in 1979. The success was immediate.
The sudden fame and subsequent financial wealth proved difficult for Jim to handle. His pronounced fondness for alcohol didn't help matters, nor did his attraction to beautiful women... In short, it was a period of great chaos! Nevertheless, he wrote two literary masterpieces. First, a collection of poems: Rivers: Theory and Practice (1985) , melancholic prose drawn from the very source of nature. Then, the novel he himself considered the most accomplished of his career: Dalva.
Dalva, or the quest for the "snatched" son
The book opens in the mid-1980s in Santa Monica, California. After spending the night with her lover Michael, 45-year-old Dalva gazes out at the ocean from her balcony. She reflects on the events that have shaped her life, the moments that wounded her and then rebuilt her… her tumultuous romance with Duane Cheval de Pierre, a half-Sioux cowboy hired to work on her family's Nebraska ranch in the mid-1950s. Her thoughts then turn to the baby, the product of this forbidden relationship, whom she was forced to give up. Because she was only fifteen, and above all, because of a family secret. A son taken from her, whom she now feels compelled to find…
Through the evocation of the past, we discover the entire history of Dalva's family. It begins with the mission of her great-grandfather, John Wesley Northridge, to the Sioux, where he adopted their customs by marrying the Native American woman, Little Bird. Northridge recorded the entire history of the Sioux people at the end of the 19th century in a journal.
This diary is a real boon for Michael, a research historian, who sees in studying these archives an opportunity to boost his academic career and alleviate his manic-depressive symptoms. Then there's the grandfather, also a John Wesley. A colorful character like all the Northridges, he is the central figure of the family. He will take care of Dalva after the death of her father, who fell during the Korean War: "With my sons, and perhaps even more than them, you have been the sweetest part of my life," he will write in a posthumous letter.
The novel unfolds within a narrative framework that subtly navigates from the late 19th century to 1986, through the voices of Dalva, her great-grandfather, and Michael. These three perspectives recount the violence of American history and its impact on the Northridge family.
A tribute to the Native Americans
These stories subtly explore a taboo subject: the atavistic need for men to kill each other on the battlefield. The entire male line of the Northridge family seems to be tainted by this curse: Dalva's great-grandfather survived the horrific end of the Civil War. Her grandfather spent the last year of World War I in the hell of the French trenches. Her father, Wesley, fought in World War II as a pilot before perishing in Korea. Duane served in Vietnam, returning from which he was utterly broken. "He had punished himself and been punished to the very limits of what anyone could bear to remain alive. One could even wonder what parts of his body and soul were still alive, and to what extent," Dalva writes.
While it gives voice to all these war victims, this novel is primarily recognized as a great tribute to Native Americans. In four centuries, since Christopher Columbus's discovery of the New World, the white man's desire for unchecked expansion caused the death of tens of millions of Native Americans, along with their cultures, beliefs, and languages. A protracted holocaust perpetrated across the entire American continent with complete impunity.
Michael's character evokes in this regard the Wounded Knee massacre in December 1890, cited by the historian among the worst atrocities committed by the American army against the Indians: "Three hundred Sioux, mostly women and children, were massacred at Wounded Knee while in the Midwest Henry Ford was developing the manufacture of his first automobile from spare parts."
A free woman who radiates femininity
Despite everything, Jim Harrison shows us the vital energy that allows one to overcome the traumas of war, illness, and hardship. Dalva herself is an ode to hope: ultimately, nothing seems to hinder her zest for life. The pleasure of galloping with her chestnut mare through the Nebraska countryside, of camping by a canyon to contemplate the Milky Way, of feeling beautiful in a cotton skirt and a light sky-blue blouse on a summer evening, of savoring a Cabernet Sauvignon, of making love with her lover... Dalva is a magnificent portrait of a free, feminist woman who loves men and is constantly on the move. Many passages are devoted to her car journeys along breathtaking routes, such as the race she undertakes against a menacing black cloud in her grandfather's Ford Mustang.
A grand historical panorama and a chiaroscuro social portrait, Dalva is also a wonderful coming-of-age novel that invites us to be what we love, learn, and do. For Jim, being in the world is achieved through creative action: work and writing are an obsession.
He also encourages us to approach difficult situations with humor. A sentence taken from another book ( Adventures of a Wandering Gourmet – 2002) sums up his mischievous side – and his love of wine: "The elementary physical act of opening a bottle of wine has brought more happiness to humanity than all the governments in the history of the planet."
End of the road
Jim Harrison was working on a poem when he died of a heart attack on March 26, 2016, at the age of 78 in Patagonia, Arizona. Thus passed one of the last giants of American literature. He fought—to the very end—against the world's turmoil, armed only with his love of words and his passion for humanity.
That day, in the surrounding forests, some hikers claimed to have spotted a majestic white-necked raven, unusually large, with glossy wings. Perched on the branches of the tall oaks, the bird observed nature playfully and from afar. It trembled at times, while at others it seemed calm. As night fell, the mournful cry of a coyote pierced the silence of the woods. The raven spread its wings and took flight for the Sierra Madre.
This text is the result of an automated translation. The first version of this text (in French) is available at the following address:
Sources :
Dalva – Jim Harrison Traduction Brice Matthieussent - Langue d'origine : Anglais (états-unis) 10/18 Domaine Etranger. ISBN : 978-2-264-01612-6
En Marge – Jim Harrison (autobiographie) Traduction Brice Matthieussent - Langue d'origine : Anglais (états-unis) 10/18 Domaine Etranger. ISBN : 978-2-264-03919-4
La thèse du "génocide indien" : guerre de position entre science et mémoire de Frédéric Dorel. Amnis - Revue d'études des sociétés et cultures contemporaines Europe-Amérique
L'Express - Jim Harrison : "La littérature peut faire mûrir l'esprit", interview réalisée par François Busnel
Le Monde - Jim Harrison lu par Maylis de Kerangal
Les Inrockuptibles - Jim Harrison, monument majeur de l'Amérique littéraire, est mort
