Johnson is one of my favorite fiction writers and I was happy to learn that his journalism and essays share his absolutely outstanding prose style. Seriously, his skill with description and word choice is almost otherworldly. It becomes more interesting when he is describing events in his own life or news reporting. Fascinating stuff.

This book was absolutely stunning. Denis Johnson's ability to capture a moment is amazing. The accounts of his travels and experiences are insightful and intriguing. The sheer fact that he was able and willing to experience these things is mindblowing.

The language was so bogged down by needless exposition. I was bored with every single story in this collection.

Though publishing for the first time in 1995, nothing since has come close to clocking what's rotten in America like "The Militia in Me."

In case anyone's wondering, the beautiful photograph of color and shadow on the book's cover is taken by Alex Webb of Magnum.

see review for jesus' son. try harder, denis johnson. or not so hard. something. this isn't working.

Denis Johnson has been one of my favorite authors since I first read "Already Dead" over a decade ago. His combination of violent, brutal realism with the sort of hazy, dreamlike imagery that is so often the purview of those who've spent much of their lives self-medicating creates a world where the all-to-real can intersect with the seemingly surreal within a turn of a phrase.

This collection isn't an exception to his oeuvre, except that rather than harsh realism, "Seek" trades in harsh reality. The works compiled display his journalistic side (so often overshadowed by his work as a writer of both short and long fiction, poetry, and theatre works) and take him from Christian biker rallies to Charles Taylor's Liberia, from militia meetings to Rainbow Gatherings, skipping back and forth over vast swaths of normalcy and complacency towards whatever fringe he can lay his hands on.

So many reviews of this book refer to Hunter Thompson and suggest that Johnson's journalism is some heir to a gonzo throne, but I don't think that quite nails it. Though he does eat some mushrooms at a Pacific Northwest hippie gathering and make some references to his counterculture past, the best work in this book revolves around Johnson's exclusion of himself. He plays the invisible eye so well that those sections where he himself is a main character, most notably his forays into (and sympathies with) the militia movement, fall a bit flat. Because the best of his work details the world as it happens rather than the world as it happens to him, the self-referentiality of much of "Seek" compromises many of its strengths.

On the whole, despite my criticisms and moderate rating, I would recommend "Seek". For those interested in the fringes of the Western world, it's an interesting travel document. For fans of Johnson's other work, so many of these segments could have been short stories, with the individuals and situations featured providing striking parallels to some of Johnson's fictional work.

In general, however, I'd suggest reading everything else he's ever written first.

«In questo branco di persone [...] vedo l'epitome della mia generazione; [...] la nostra politica, una confusione di Rosso e Verde all'ombra della bandiera nera dell'Anarchia; sbronzi e benintenzionati, sicuri delle nostre convinzioni, soddisfatti di noi stessi. Ottusi, ipocriti, intolleranti». Denis Johnson, scrittore e giornalista del “New Yorker” è debitore del modus scrivendi di Carver, di Auster e in qualche modo di Fante, ma non solo. In questo Seek, reports from the edges of America and Beyond, tradotto a torto o a ragione, Cronache Anarchiche, Johnson fa tracimare la letteratura nel reportage e viceversa, portandoci per mano attraverso i deserti del globo. Ai fini dell'essere, non fa differenza ritrovarsi sperduti nell'immensità dell'Alaska o immersi negli orrori dei golpisti cannibali liberiani o scoprirsi, con sommo stupore, solidali per un istante con gli integralisti nazianarcoantiabortisti del Montana o con i Talebani della Kabul fumante. Il deserto è sempre lì, ad attenderci, perché è dentro di noi, e anche se ci raffiguriamo il cittadino del XX secolo come un «minatore di informazioni» che viaggia nel cyberspazio e si destreggia con il libero mercato, nella maggior parte del mondo l'uomo non ha altro che fame, un fucile e forse una religione. E Cronache Anarchiche, come un reportage autobiografico avvincente, ci sbatte il deserto in faccia inducendoci a dubitare delle nostre certezze.



http://kingdomofink.wordpress.com/

One of my favorite collections of journalism from one of my favorite authors.

This book kicks some ass. I personally like his depiction of Civil War torn Liberia but Bikers for Jesus was equally unique.

Honestly would've enjoyed it more if I was in a place to read it more attentively. But it was definitely a great collection of weird adventures from around the world.

excellent portrayal of fragmentation in contemporary american life.
it's a trip. it'll do ya good.