I really liked this collection of stories by Denis Johnson, but I am having a really hard time writing about it. Long time readers will probably have noticed my disdain for literary
works that I don’t understand. I don’t have the literary theory background to intelligently get much out of them, and consequently these works are often just confusing to me. In many respects, I’m just a schmo. Those with a good theory background will probably have a lot more to say about Johnson’s work than I will, and some of my gleanings may very well be wrong. Literary
work often just makes me feel stupid for not getting things, and there’s a niggling suspicion in my mind that this holds true for Jesus’ Son. Nevertheless, I’m going to spew forth my non-English major opinions anyway!
In Jesus’ Son, the stories drew me in to a world that seems very much like that of the students I mentor in the local high school. The characters are drug-addled, but unlike some portraits of drug-users, these people feel. Everything is immediate. Everything is raw. I didn’t just read the text, I experienced the words. Johnson’s language is powerful. I’ll give a quick example. I just opened the book at random and picked a few sentences, resulting in this:
Georgie and I had a terrific time driving around. For a while the day was clear and peaceful. It was one of the moments you stay in, to hell with all the troubles before and after. The sky is blue and the dead are coming back. Later in the afternoon, with sad resignation, the county fair bares its breasts.
The writing isn’t confusing. Sometimes it’s very jarring. And sometimes it’s hard to follow the jumps. Dreams and drug visions and different scenes from the narrator life blend together. But Johnson gives the reader time to catch up. For some reason, I was able to stop myself from trying to figure out what was going on and and slide smoothly along with the emotional current. That’s a tribute to Johnson’s writing.
I don’t really know how to characterize the stories themselves, so I’ll quote the review by Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times: The narrator of these interlinked stories is a young man, reeling from his addiction to heroin and alcohol, his mind at once clouded and made gorgeously lucid by these drugs.
The stories themselves are vignettes, more sketches than anything else. Most of them have a couple of scenes which blur together, most without conclusion, like a hazy memory of something that happened while high. The first few occur in the midwest, Chicago and Iowa. Later stories take place in the Northwest and Arizona. The storyteller has attempted to go clean and sober in these later ones, though it’s hard to say how successful he is at it.
And for search engines’ sake, here’s a list of the stories. I’m not going to review them individually like I usually do for story collections. The plots aren’t the strong part, and the writing is pretty equally impressive from my point of view.
- Car Crash While Hitchhiking
- Two Men
- Out on Bail
- Dundun
- Work
- Emergency
- Dirty Wedding
- The Other Man
- Happy Hour
- Steady Hands at Seattle General
- Beverly Home
Title: Jesus’ Son
Author: Denis Johnson
Imprint / publisher: HarperPerennial / HarperCollins
Format: Mass marker paperback
Length: 160 p.
Publication date: 1993
ISBN-10: 0-06-097577-6
LC classification: PS3560.O3745 J47 1992
