Jesus' Son hooked me on Denis Johnson. I wanted to gobble up another Godiva & this one was almost as good. Excellent reportage on the crazy Liberian regime of Charles Taylor, bikers, & other magazine pieces on fringe American characters written for money. Unfortunately, writers need money to live. Jeez, I thought they subsisted on air and Madeleine cake!

"I’d come to this place and I was not whole enough or real enough to accept its terms. “Save me,” it says and you want to. “Shoot me” it begs and you think, wouldn’t that just be the best and quickest thing? I’d given a statement in English which would be presented to me in French and which I was supposed to sign without any idea what it said. Everyone I’d dealt with, and everyone they had dealt with, had been arrested. The Commissaire de Police wouldn’t speak his own name."

Excellent writing. 'The Small Boys' Unit' is incredibly haunting.

Johnson brought back memories of my own trips to Alaska, flying in float planes in terrible storms, wanting to always fly with the experienced old pilot who had crashed numerous times only because he knew how to survive them, the old Beaver cargo planes, wilderness jaunts, loggers, whiskey, and barges. A story relating to the wilds of Alaska, actually being there and still living to tell about it, is no easy feat.

I was surprised by this book of essays as I did not know Johnson was so involved as a journalist. I wrote a more personal and detailed account of this book here:

http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/5089959...

"I believe the State should be resisted wherever it encroaches. But the bombers of that building [in Oklahoma City] will demonstrate something for us we don’t want demonstrated: There’s no trick to starting a revolution. Simply open fire on the State; the State will oblige by firing back. What’s harder is to win a revolution, and the only victory worthy of the name will be a peaceable one."

Is it possible that a book can happen to you? From Liberia to Somalia via Waco. The warm winter-emergent sun warming my neck through my living room window. A shock of car horns failing to distract me from words failing to explain why I was reading them. And then it was over - but what was it all for?

This review thus far has been written in the style of this wild book that was gifted to me as a part of the most thoughtful wedding reception imaginable. I’d never have found it otherwise. I’m not sure I’ll ever truly understand why I liked it, but I did. And that’s fine.

«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/

Not my favorite from Johnson but still good!

so raw, entertaining, fun, and personal. like Hunter S. Thompson mixed with Kafka. but still its own thing. the Rainbow festival story probably my favorite. stories of his travels in Africa are so insane he clearly had no business being there and no idea what he was doing but he's very aware of that which makes his writing about it entertaining. definitely gives an accurate and honest depiction of what traveling in the third world is like at least based on my own experience

Written before he was Denis Johnson...great collection of "reports"

A must-read, amazing book. These dispatches from Johnson's adventures as a freelancer are entertaining and enlightening.

For his honeymoon, Denis Johnson and his wife went to Alaska to pan for gold so they could forge their own wedding rings.