‘Legends of the Fall’

 Jim Harrison’s famous novella is supposed to be about three brothers who leave their home in Montana to fight in World War I.

I think it’s about what grief can do — and what it does do to Tristan, the middle brother. Tristan is capable in many ways, but he’s powerless to do anything about death. The story is about what a person of a certain personality can become in his grief: a person who spreads pain everywhere without intending to, without trying, without understanding why.

Here’s Tristan as a boy:

 

So perhaps Tristan in a genetic lapse had become his own father and would like Cain never take an order from anyone but would build his own fate with gestures so personal that no one in the family ever knew what was on his seemingly thankless mind.

 

And after he is struck by grief:

 

And God knows what Tristan wanted other than to revive the dead: his brain was the remnant of carnage, a burned city or forest, cold scar tissue.

 

Grief is the powerful force least understood by humanity.

• Source: Jim Harrison, Legends of the Fall; New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1980, pp. 209 and 245.