Fantastiška knyga, maloniai nustebino. Tie, kas patyrė ar matė gatvinį dugną, turėtų pajusti, kad autorius supranta, apie ką rašo.

Tai –trumpų istorijų rinkinys, pasakojantis apie gyvenimą Amerikos gatvėse, baruose, narkotikus, alkoholizmą, nusikaltimus. Tačiau Bukowskio nesitikėkite.

Johnsono sukurtus personažus judėti verčia instinktai. Jie – priešingai nei Bukowskio personažai – nesimėgauja savo gyvenimo būdu, ir girtuoklystė jiems nėra nepriklausomybės išraiška. Man atrodo, kad Johnsono personažai išvis nemąsto tokiomis kategorijomis, jie tiesiog daro tai, kas konkrečią akimirką padeda išlikti ilgiau.

O ir pats rašymo stilius labai patiko. Vienas iš tų atvejų, kai knygą skaičiau sulėtintai, kad nesibaigtų.

داستان‌های این کتاب دردناکن؛ بعضی بیشتر بعضی کمتر ولی دوستش داشتم!

قسمتی از متن:

یک مرد دیگه‌م بود اسمش فرانک بود. هر دو تا پاش از بالای زانو قطع شده بودند. هربار منو می‌دید به ادامه پاچه‌های پیژامه‌ش زل می‌زد و سلام می‌کرد.
به خاطر پاهاش اینجا نبود به خاطر غمش آورده بودنش. غم وحشتناک‌تر از پا نداشتنه.

These stories are not for devoutly religious readers...

The book takes its title from the Velvet Underground song, “Heroin”.
The setting is in America... Iowa, Chicago, Arizona, California, Seattle...

There are several addicts, a hitchhiker, bus riding, train riding, rush hour and commuters, nurses
and people running around in an emergency room, a mute man, beautiful women, phony women, puking women, a belly dancer, making love in hotels, eating steak in restaurants, a black-eyed, slit-eyed guy, a Jamaican woman, little children in the home of a cocaine dealer, girlfriends, boyfriends, strangers, lovers, Happy Hour, a visit to a laundromat, men drugged out and knocked out, a Greek nightclub, a fake brother, college girls, a writer, foreigners, drug use, upset crying women, Twaiwanese pot, psychedelic mushrooms, petty crime, rape, murder, every kind of smoking, a peeking Tom/ lurker,
souls who were brought together who had wronged each other, old men, gray-haired men, young men, muscular men, shirtless men, yucky-men, a man with a congenital bone ailment that had turned him into a seven-foot-tall monster, a man with multiple sclerosis, an amputee above both knees, Mennonites, a bible college near by, a local alcoholic center nearby, AA meetings in an Episcopal church’s basement, a woman with a paralyzed arm,
brain foggy people, unfortunate lonely, dreary, loss, sad people.

In one story a rapist met its victim. The child meets its mother.

We are weird people: God’s children...
We meet life—as it actually is—all around us—when we step outside our immediate bubble—
in our face realism...
people like you and me.

Eleven stories: (loosely linked together), riveting, raunchy, gritty, grimy, jolting....
insanely-brilliantly written deadpan prose.

This collection of stories is really short, but don’t let that fool you. Each word releases so much power that an hour spent reading Jesus’ Son carries the same impact as two hours of reading another book. Johnson throws off images like dazzling pieces of shrapnel, and for me, those gorgeous passages are what held the book together more than any actual plot.
The narrator is a junkie with a life so chaotic that you always have the feeling anything could happen at any second. He might see an angel, or he might see a man with a knife buried in his eye. Both occur and both are completely plausible.
All that said, I don’t believe Jesus’ Son is 100 percent deserving of its accolades. It’s a beautifully written portrait of particular people living in a particular time and place, but that’s about the extent of what I got from it. I was left wanting more…I don’t know…more to think about maybe.

So well written it hurts. Just sheer talent pouring through.

Since Johnson has just died, I found an article that ends with his three rules of writing and what he told somebody writing a novel was like.

Three rules of writing:

Write naked. That means to write what you would never say.
Write in blood. As if ink is so precious you can't waste it.
Write in exile, as if you are never going to get home again, and you have to call back every detail.

And as for writing a novel, his friend mentioned to him that he wasn't sure what direction his new novel was going to go. And this is what Johnson said:

"You get in your teacup and take your oar and strike off for Australia, and if you wind up in Japan, you're ecstatic."

R.I.P.

Posted at Shelf Inflicted

I wasn’t sure if I would like this collection of loosely connected stories about a young guy who is addicted to drugs, sometimes homeless, sometimes employed, and occasionally steals. He’s not an especially likable character, but I enjoyed being a part of his thoughts, his views, and his haphazard journey through life. Maybe it's because I have empathy for addicts and others who live on the edge.

This powerful and gripping collection of stories was troubling, intense, and humane. I was overwhelmed by its beautiful language and poignant passages.

One of my favorite stories in this collection is Dirty Wedding, a sad and unsettling little story about abortion, loneliness, heroin addiction, and death.

n  “The wheels screamed, and all I saw suddenly was everybody’s big ugly shoes. The sound stopped. We passed solitary, wrenching scenes. Through the neighborhoods and past the platforms, I felt the cancelled life dreaming after me. Yes, a ghost. A vestige. Something remaining.”n

Beverly Home was sad, a little humorous, and very hopeful. The young narrator finds a part-time job in a nursing home, spies on a Mennonite couple in their bedroom, and begins a life of sobriety.

n  

“All these weirdos, and me getting a little better every day right in the midst of them. I had never known, never even imagined for a heartbeat, that there might be a place for people like us.”

n

God I loved this. A perfect collection of short stories. Fuckhead is in his early twenties and he's a drug addict and alcoholic. And no, a series of stories about drug-fuelled craziness narrated by this kind of man, wouldn't normally interest me, either. But the free-wheeling mind-altered narratives are so fresh and scary, and sometimes even funny. Don't be put off by the subject matter, just read it.

I once fell in love with a man just because he recommended this book to me. He had a glass eye and fingernails with with half moons of crust lodged underneath, thick and dark as coffee grounds. He was living covertly and temporarily for about four years in one of those storage units out by the interstate, and I would sometimes go see him when I wanted to get high or feel better about my life. At some point he died when they blew up a bridge to build a dam, and he happened to be sleeping underneath it. Or maybe that was someone else. Maybe it was some kids from the high school found him sleeping under the bridge. It was late and they were drunk and had just lifted a stop sign off the road and, proud of it, they thought they might try to break it over his head. In any event, he died of some head trauma of the most religious sort, that much I know.

_

کتاب مجموعه ای از داستانهای کوتاه بعضا به هم مرتبط راجع به مصرف مواد مخدر، روانگردان، مشروبات الکلیه. شخصیت های موجود در داستانها همگی یا سربازان از جنگ برگشته یا افرادی که زندگی مشترک خوبی ندارن و از همسر جدا شدن یا افرادی از قشر ضعیف جامعه هستن که به عقیده نویسنده این قشر از جامعه قابلیت بیشتری برای جذب به سمت مواد مخدر و امثالهم رو دارا هستند.
افرادی متوهم، بی احساس و جامعه گریز توی داستانها خیلی نمود دارن، یجورایی با خوندن کتاب یاد فیلم مرثیه ای برای یک رویا و همینطور کتاب ترانه ی برف خاموش افتادم.
_
دیالوگی از کتاب انتخاب نکردم که بزارم چون بیشتر دیالوگهای دو طرفه است. بهترین داستان به نظر نن " اورژانس" بود. زیاد پیگیر داستان کوتاه نیستم ولی دو مجموعه داستان کوتاه هایی که پیمان خاکسار ترجمه کرد رو پسندیدم، ممنون از حسن سلیقه در انتخابهاش برای ترجمه هرچند این کتاب خیلی نادیده گرفته شده هم از طرف مخاطبان و هم از طرف ناشر، امیدوارم بهتر دیده بشه.

Ragazzi non ce la faccio più a vedere Piranesi nella Home, ve lo giuro. Vi giuro che tra poco lo leggo, anche se non mi piace che ormai la roba che ho in lista finisce sempre più giù.
«Pietro, guarda che non ti costringe nessuno eh...»
Certo, per cui ho letto qualcos'altro.

Sono contento che molti l'abbiano messo in lista, un po’ meno vedendo che lo abbiamo letto in pochi. In pratica formalmente sarebbero dei racconti, praticamente sono degli sprazzi di coscienza narrati in prima persona. Sempre dallo stesso protagonista che ha il vizietto delle donne e degli stupefacenti.

Come se noi, in un periodo come questo, potessimo biasimarlo.

Lo stile mi è piaciuto molto, misantropo al punto giusto e con una punta di ironia estremamente black. Praticamente la versione ben riuscita di quello che cerco di fare io scrivendo ste robe.

La narrazione si mischia spesso alle percezioni distorte del protagonista offuscate dalla droga. Si fa fatica a capire cosa sia reale e cosa no, e il caratteraccio di “Testadicazzo” - si chiama così il protagonista, non me ne vogliate - è disegnato bene. Un po' saggio, un po' coglione.

Senza dubbio non privo di difetti, ma ci sono alcuni passaggi che da soli valgono quanto tutto il libro. Vi lascio il mio preferito:

«Passavo sempre a trovare un uomo di nome Frank, con le gambe amputate sopra il ginocchio, che mi salutava con una tristezza solenne e un cenno ai pantaloni del pigiama vuoti. Stava tutto il giorno a letto a guardare la televisione. Non erano le sue condizioni fisiche a tenerlo lí, ma la sua tristezza.»

Consigliatissimo a tutti, persino ai più casti (lo so che siete lì a criticarmi, tranquilli che c'è la fila) anche se è senza dubbio un libro che va riletto più e più volte perché pur facendo molta attenzione in alcuni passaggi non si capisce granché. Ma magari sono io, ormai dovreste aver capito che non sono un cervellone.

Che abbiate voglia o meno di leggervi una raccolta a tema droghe/sballo/donne, consiglio vivamente a tutti anche un altro libro sulla stessa lunghezza d’onda, ma più tarato ed elegante, con un'attenzione maniacale al linguaggio usato. Fidatevi, non ve ne pentirete.

E adesso mi metto a legger Piranesi che se lo vedo comparire un'altra volta nella home mi scoppia un’arteria.

Ciao belli, peace off.

اصلا فكر نميكردم كتابي با اين سبك انقدر برام جذاب باشه
هيچ موضوع يا اتفاق خاص و با هدفي رو دنبال نميكرد صرفا مجموعه داستان هاي كوتاه كه تقريبا بهم مرتبط بودن .

با قلم جذاب و شوكه كننده ي دنيس جانسون ، چقدر خوب و جذاب نوشته بود
پر از حس پوچي بود بعضي جاهاش نوع روايتش من و ياد نوشته هاي بوكوفسكي مي انداخت


در كل عالي بود و جزو متفاوت ترين كتابهايي بود كه تا به حال خوندم

Dennis Johnson has a good way to describe things and has placed trouble riddled characters amongst some literal beauty.
A collection of stories tied together with a common theme of struggle and drugs.
He brings your eyes into the lives of characters on this earth with problems.

The few stories I mention are...

n  Car crash while hitchhikingn
As the title say a powerful descriptive story where a hitchhiker is involved in an accident with a family including a baby.
Visceral and shows very well all that the character experiences.

n  Out on bailn
A friend is out of bail on an armed robbery charge. They drift around town locate a usual drink place and talk. Time passes places is gone they drift more into heroine and stealing they live a dangerous life one of them the two friends doesn't make it through life safely.
Good tight story.

n  Dundunn
You cant help thinking the narrator is a sociopath. He mentions possibly he doesn't know what he does and may still have heart due to him not knowing what his left hand to his right hand is doing.
Your given a glimpse again of some drug users and violent characters, with death also contain within.

n  Emergencyn
Story of two hospital workers, a nurse and a orderly. They steal drugs from the hospital they work at and get high frequently. While off duty they go for a wild ride, they stop at a fun fair, they knock down a rabbit under the influence of drugs and they find themselves also lost. That one rabbit had many baby rabbits alive nearby so Georgie decides to take care of them but he can't even help himself too high and tired.
Your taken through a wild day in the life of these two characters.

n  Beverley homen
Maybe the better story of the collection along with emergency.
The main character has taken a job at a home for the terminally ill and sick. He's a drug addict on therapy and trying to quit, he also has a tendency to be a voyeur a peeping tom on a religious couple, Mennonites and from near their window he sees all, their prayer, their religious readings and their love.
In the home he finds a sense of belonging, people with a struggle.

Some lines I noted

n  n    "The downpour raked the asphalt and gurgled in the ruts."n  n  
n  
n  n    "Under Midwestern clouds like great grey brains."n  n  
n  
n  n    "We took our passenger to a residential street where the buds were forcing themselves out of the tips of branches and the seeds were moaning in the gardens."n  n  
n  
n  n    "This situation had been a secret until now, like a terminal disease."n  n  
n  
n  n    "There moments in the Vine like that one--where you might think today was yesterday, and yesterday was tomorrow, and so on. Because we all believed we were tragic, and we drank. We had that helpless, destined feeling. We would die with handcuffs on. We would be put a stop to, and it wouldn't be our fault. So we imagined. And yet we were always being found innocent for ridiculous reasons."n  n  
n  
n  n    "..,it burbled like a machine that polishes stones all night."n  n

Review along with the movie trailer available @http://more2read.com/review/jesus-son-by-denis-johnson/