a tremendous short story of a refugee from the fall of Saigon hidden in a tone poem about communities surviving fallout decades later in the Keys, waiting for the Cubans or God

2,5.. Δεν πειράζει Ντένις, ήμασταν σε άλλο βαγόνι.. Που να δεις εμένα, στις 4 το απόγευμα..

Not shown; another half-star. This my seventh of the twice-shortlisted for the Pulitzer and National Book-Award-Winner, Denis Johnson's novels. So, yes, he is an accomplished writer of the type whose prose verges at times on the spectacular--an experiential tour de force that can be unnerving--his usually-lurid characters being vividly rendered in the extreme. You'd think he had survived a deployment to Vietnam, returning to struggle with its attendant demons in his mind. Recalling Hellish scenes that only an observer of its nightmarish, evil madness could ascribe to. That Coppolaesque/Kubrickian cinematic pastiche that we called "trippy" in college. Or, if you prefer, hallucinogenic. But you'd be wrong. He didn't serve in that rock 'n' roll, mind-f**ker war. But he was bedeviled, just the same. An alcoholic and a drug addict. That said, of the 400-500 books I've read in a lifetime--and being partial to war stuff, and also a fan of science fiction--am inclined, at least, to peruse their not-too-distant spin-off; post-apocalyptic fiction. And this is, without question, the strangest literature I've ever had the dubious experience of just getting through to the conclusion (to which I would still say is anybody's guess?). That the author can assume the random identities of the story's graphic characters so authentically and diametrically opposed is a testament to--well, to what?--a polyglot of Arabic, Islamic, Biblical, Southeast Asian, Spanglish influences with its mutated syntax that suffices for post-nuclear tribal tongues of illiterate survivors; pagan, multi-racial, self-mutilating, drugged-out, painted, Voodoo clans fending for themselves in the Florida Keys. They attend radioactive contaminated kerosene-fueled public bonfires on the beach listening to Hendrix and Dylan on "Cubaradio" in such bizarre places as Twicetown. So called because an atomic bomb/warhead/missle, whatever you call the doomsday device in question (two of them?) burrowed into the scattered wreckage of a building--courtesy of special delivery via the apocalypse--which was a "dud". But others were not. Attested to by the carnage of uninterrupted shifting miles of sand dunes and "breakwater" created by blackened hulks of autos with their brown-boned inhabitants at the wheel, incinerated from within and without on the evacuation routes trapped in the burning Everglades. When you read the NYT description of the book, it is the unfailing hook of a review that dares one NOT to pick it up. "A modern day Herman Melville." Hmmm. A stretch, obviously, but Fiskadoro--the protagonist's name--translated means "harpooner." The name sticks. Okay. Well, I did pick it up. And I read it cover-to-cover. And am still scratching my head. Say what?! And before my seven days were up for a refund, I just took it back. My own version of Twicetown. For duds. And whatever other mixed reactions may qualify defying all expectation. Or even a reviewable explanation. Like this one. A one-of-a-kind find of a twisted mind.

Φισκαντορο . Δεν ψαρευει απλα. Ειναι αυτος που καμακωνει.

Μια μυσταγωγικη παρασταση του Johnson στο εδω, το χθες, στο τώρα κ στο επεκεινα
Στον κολπο του Μεξικου , σε ολες τις πλευρες του, κυριαρχουν οι παραισθησεις
Εδω , αναμεσα απο τους βάλτους στο Μαιαμι , οι απλοι χωρικοι , αντιμετωπιζουν την φτώχεια κ την αρρωστεια με θαρρος κ τρέλλα
Εχουν την αναγκη να ζησουν κ κατι καλο να περιμενουν για να φυγουν απο τους εφιαλτες του σημερα
Η Θεά γιαγια Ραιτ, το ζωντανο παραδειγμα αναμεσά τους, ξέφυγε απο την κόλαση του Βιετναμ την κολαση του ναυαγιου της
Ακολουθησε με πιστη το φως, γνωριζοντας πως δεν θα μπορουσε να ειναι χειροτερα απο αυτα που επιβαλλει ο ανθροπως σε ανθρωπο
Ο φισκαντορο, ο μαθητης του εγγονου της γιαγιας, αθελα του κάνει το ιδιο, οταν χάνει τον πατερα του
κ εμεις απολαμβανουμε ενα αχρονο παραμυθι , γραφικοτητας , ελπιδας, μαυρης μαγείας, μελωδιας κ παραδοξολογιας

I've read a few of Johnson's books, and they always strike me as pretty good to so-so, but he's so beloved, I find I return to him every now again only to have the same reaction. But this one isn't very good at all. Maybe writing a post-nuclear-apocalypse book--with wacky Caribbean dialect to boot--played better in the '80s. Why I should find this interesting in the present is beyond me. Kinda flipped through the back half and gave up.

This is a daring novel. Denis Johnson is one of my favorite authors. In this book, he takes a lot of chances throughout the book, giving us insight into a post-apocalyptic reality only he could imagine. It's an interesting read, but starts as a slog before exploding into something special about halfway through.

Yep, five. This whole book is like a long fever dream, inventively written and containing vivid scenes that will stay with me a long time.

I really wanted to like this more – after all, this is Denis Johnson - but alas. With three stars, I’m being generous.

Here’s a quote that more or less sums it up for me:

‘It took him a long time to learn these things about these strangers. Even to see them took him a long time, because they weren’t his people. At first they resembled nothing, because he didn’t know this place.’

Fitting words to describe this novel – and Johnson’s style – could be: ‘loose’ or ‘fragmented’. Now in a way this is appropriate, because Fiskadoro is about planet earth after a devastating nuclear war, with various people trying to scrape a life together in a few settlements on beaches in the Florida Keys, apparently the last place left on earth for human habitation. They live in Quonset huts and hovels, surviving mainly on fish and fruit. Everything has fallen apart. The world has ceased to be a reliable, rational place. The people in it seem to wander around aimlessly, without a clear past, motivated by things the reader does not – yet – understand.
And Denis Johnson does not make it easy for us to get to know these people and these places. He offers small bits at a time, shifting erratically from one character to another, letting the story unfold jerkily, with narrative fragments that hardly seem related. A context emerges only very gradually, which for me made it hard to get a grasp on the novel’s events and developments – of which there are few anyway, for Fiskadoro is not exactly plot-driven.

The story take place somewhere halfway during the 21st century; there are references to earlier wars – Vietnam, Nagasaki – but at the same time the past is presented as something vague and distant. Some people feel the need to remember, but on the other hand, daily survival is even more important. Here’s one of the novel’s protagonists, Mr Cheung:

‘I’m giving up on that kind of history,’ he told Maxwell (…).
“I know,” Maxwell said. “I think maybe it just keeps us away from the practical things.”

There are remnants of civilization – a clarinet in a Samsonite briefcase, the music of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley, a ‘Society for Science’ and a ‘Society for Knowledge’… There is electricity, sometimes the radio comes on, with broadcasts in Spanish and English.

All of this adds to the book’s eerie, dreamlike atmosphere. Events are difficult to decipher, it’s hard to make sense of what's going on with these people who seem so aloof, so isolated from one another. You stumble from one episode to another, just like these characters stumble through life, a day at a time. Probably this vagueness is what Johnson intended, but for me it didn't really work out.

The book has a saving grace, however. For Denis Johnson is a fine stylist, and large parts of this novel are very well written. Two episodes in particular - in which one of the main characters, an old woman who escaped from Saigon in the last days of the Vietnam war and who survived a helicopter crash after which she floated for days in the Chinese Sea - are great and impressive.

Well imagined but not fully formed.

A strange and vivid book about a post-nuclear apocalypse Key West, Florida, sometime in the early 21st century. This was Denis Johnson's second novel, and it's a really terrific read. He describes what's like a rebirth of civilization among a group of discarded, likely quarantined people. They go about creating the world all over again, complete with pagan rituals, wide-eyed belief in Gods and ghosts, and community-building akin to the Hunter-Gatherers, with just enough memory of the "old world" to be baffled by it.

I'm very glad I read it and sorry that it took me 33 years after its publication to do so.

I asked a friend what his favorite book was, and he let me borrow it (Fiskadoro). I usually love post-apocalyptic stories, but this one didn't quite do it for me. There were passages that were beautifully written, and it was successful in creating an undercurrent of menace but there wasn't quite enough plot to suck me in. I felt like the characters weren't developed enough for me to truly care about them, although I did find a section about an older woman remembering a traumatic event in her early life extremely compelling.

I can see why some readers would enjoy this book, but I think the same reason I don't care for abstract expressionist art or "art comics" as much as figurative art or narrative-driven comics leaves this novel lacking for me. I'd put it at 3.5 stars if I could.

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

[ review ]

A scattered multicultural community off the coast of what once was Florida attempts pointlessly to reconstruct the pre-nuclear past. Grandmother Wright is the only one who remembers. Young Fiskadoro wanders up and down the coast, slipping between its peoples and its memories.

[ ✮ 4 ✮ ]