Rating: 
Summary: Pure Genius
Review: Everything Johnson writes about sounds like he lived it (which he probably did, as all his other works have a decidedly different voice), and yet like the best drug stories you could ever make up.
And once it's over the brilliant imagery of who the character is begins to shine through. The jesus references portray the fabled messiah in a more human light than anything i've EVER read.
Imagine if Jesus was God's gift of himself to Humanit in the form of a human, then Jesus' Son would be even MORE human, no?
The title comes from a Lou Reed penned tune called Heroin (which also frames some of the tragedy in this book) and specifically the line, "When I'm rushing on my run, and feel just like Hesus' Son" and i can't help but think that the song was moe that in inspiration for simply the title.
There was also a brilliant movie adaptation of this incredible group of stories that reads as well as one novel as each story does independently.
Rating: 
Summary: Junkies in Dreamland
Review: The eleven short stories in Jesus' Son hold together as characters appear in more than one story and all the stories appear to have a common narrator. They are minimally written and appear to be influenced by the Beat writers. Johnson is also a poet and his beautiful use of language sparks up the stories of drug binges and car accidents.
I worked in a methadone program for 9 years and many of the hair-raising stories told to me by addicts are reflected in similar stories in this book. Drug addicts trying to function in the world while intoxicated and hallucinating; make love; fight; double cross each other; run from the law; and exhibit reckless life with little regard for consequences. Yes, these are full blown sociopaths! Yet, throughout the book, Johnson rewards us with his minimal style and his poetic imagery. Despite the accidental deaths, drug overdoses, double-crosses, and despiration; the beauty of the world continues to haunt the characters, like a ghost, that enters the world as a smoky dream. The text moves from stark objective narration, to dream-like states, to drug induced hallucination. There was one scene where two drug addicts who work in an emergency room are caught in a snow storm. They see a graveyard with all the markers the same size and then realize they are car-mikes in a drive in theater. The film is playing through a snow storm to an empty parking lot. The description Johnson evokes is haunting and beautiful. The story "emergency" is frigtening and funny and sounds only all too true regarding health care in America.
The film Trainspotting reminds me of this book. The death of the baby in Trainspotting while all the junkies were getting high is very similar to what you will read here.
The narrator's search for the beatiful in deformed or crippled women reminds me of the photography of Diane Arbus. While photographing the deformed, retarded, disabled; Arbus found the beauty of the person and tried to capture this beauty in her photographs. She reportedly had sex with many of her models. Johnson follows a similar pattern as he describes a dwarf woman with beautiful eyes or a spastic paralyzed woman who raises her twitching arms and curses out of the side of her mouth when she has orgasm.
I think the book was entertaining and jolting. I find the lives of people on the edges of sanity, society, and sobriety as fascinating because I think how my own life would have been if I had become a dope addict or alcoholic or professional thief. At some point, some of the characters have had enough of the low-life, but they are the exception and are very few and far between. They are usually persons who love dope addicts and finally have had enough. Even the narrator tries to come out of the dreamy world of crisis in the final story. He describes the sober world as silly yet healing; boring yet ultimately beautiful.
Rating:
Summary: A Compelling Classic
Review: The beauty of Johnson's prose is evident in every one of these stories. The subject matter is dark, depressing, hallucinegenic, and yet the collection's overall feel is uplifting. Johnson could have written some cliched grotesqueries about the drug life, could have piled on the filth and dirt of it all, but he doesn't. The down-and-out characters, most of them junkies and criminals, are given a healthy dose of humanity, where a lesser writer would have turned them into abominable caricatures. Unlike most post modern writers, Johnson cares deeply about his characters and this comes out in every story. He doesn't follow the pomo aesthetic by declaring that life is inherently meaningless or hopeless, far from it. What we come to find in this amazing collection is the presence of hope in all things, no matter how low or degraded things might appear. And that is precisely what Denis Johnson shows us. There is beauty in everything, and if we can't see that, then we are not fully human.
Rating: 
Summary: Lost in A Drug-like World
Review: This was seen on a recommended list by a somewhat famous author. I was sadly disappointed. The book had a number of short stories of which NONE inspired me. One of the stories mentions how one can't just sit on the bus as 'you've got to have a destination'. It's too bad the author of this book had no true destination. I was simply lost in nonsense. Don't give this your time--it's a waste of time. I felt the same way the author did on the last page of the book when he wrote 'Sometimes I heard voices muttering in my head, and a lot of the time the world seemed to smolder around its edges'. That's for sure...what a shame.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and Tragic
Review: This slim book can easily be read in a few hours. The short stories are all vignettes out of the lives of the addicted and the desperate.What this book does, better than any other book I've read, is capture the beauty and tragedy of these lost lives. Johnson is great at imagery, whether the misty, sunlit dive bar on a rickety pier, or the deserted drive-in in the snow. He's also great at writing from the inside of these characters-- their tragic worldview makes sense through their eyes. The hallucinatory beauty of these "prose-poems" goes hand-in-hand with the altered perceptions of the characters-- these people live as if in a dream state. If you're ready to write off people on the fringes of society, then you probably won't appreciate this book. Like he did in "Angels," Johnson takes these forgotten people, and makes them live and breathe on the page. Many times, his characters seem more truly alive than those who would write them off or forget about them.
|
