Much better than the movie. A sweaty, atmospheric tale of an American abroad in a war torn situation they have no right being in.

Like the movie though, the love story part of this book was not as strong as it could have been.

3.5

Short novel that serves almost as a preview of the hallmarks you see in later Johnson novels, most notably Tree of Smoke. Complex and convoluted geopolitical situations featuring complex and convoluted characters, often unreliable. In this case however, the unnamed narrator here displays an almost ignorant and brash naïveté compared to Skip Sands’ more optimistic-tinged innocence. There’s an obvious parallel to the dangers and allure of American imperialism, where Stars at Noon can be seen as a direct allegory: the naive and innocent narrator, stuck in the middle, with the influence of a mysterious foreigner, all with relentless temptation and overreach from an American working for a mysterious consulting agency. Despite the conflicted situation, the narrator (Nicaragua) ultimately sides with the Americans in exchange for protection, a healthy sum of cash, and extradition, while the Americans simply use her as a conduit and pawn to exercise their global hegemony.

Johnson’s writing is nascent, but passionate, and there is certainly the ground floor built for his future masterworks. Ultimately, this is a quick and fast-paced read that is helped greatly by a brilliant writer at the early stages of his journey.

Such utter corruption, secrets, and degradation in war-rotten Nicaragua.

I usually adore Denis Johnson, but this one just wasn't doing it for me. Shows its age (written in '86) in an unfavorable way. Also, one of the least convincing female narrators I've ever read. (Though maybe that was the point...?)

Tree of Smoke author Denis Johnson dies aged 67

https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...

Fantastic.

Loved train dreams.

Preferred this.

Will explore more from the author

Abandoned audiobook but may revisit again in the future with a hard copy.

This was a very mediocre book. The reason I didn't give it one star is because I didn't hate it, I didn't think much of it at all. I don't always need the main character to be likeable, but I wish this provided her backstory it hinted at so that maybe I could empathize. As it was, she was desperately aggravating with vague motivation. The Englishman was also an enigma I would've liked to see fleshed out. I'm still unsure about what exactly it was he said that got him into so much trouble. The trouble that is the entire plot of the book. The setting was promising, but the story was hardly entertaining.

This was a re-read for me as part of my ongoing project to read all of Johnson’s novels and poetry in roughly publication order. I say “roughly” because I got slightly side-tracked by his poetry collections and finished them a bit ahead of schedule. The novels will all come in the right order. “The Stars At Noon” was Johnson’s third novel (after Angels and Fiskadoro), first published in 1986.

This is not a novel to read if you like everything tied up neatly at the end. We are deliberately held at a distance from the characters (who don’t have names) and their stories (which are shrouded in ambiguity - is our narrator a reporter, an employee of an organisation called Eyes For Peace, whatever that might be, or a prostitute, for example?). And yet we are strangely close to their thoughts and emotions. This creates an atmosphere all of its own.

It is 1984 and we are in Nicaragua. It is a grim place to be and it’s a mark of Johnson’s writing that he can always make you feel the dirt and squalor of the places he writes about. The review at themodernnovel.org finishes like this: ”It is all entirely murky, as grim if not more so than Angels and leaves you at the end with a nasty taste in your mouth.” Our narrator wants to leave the country and sees an opportunity when she meets an English man. They set off together for the border, pursued by, possibly, the CIA because of something the English man might or might not have done.

In my original review, I noted that one of my favourite things about Johnson’s novels is his use of language (when we see his early life as a poet come to the fore). Here’s a few phrases that made my me stop in my tracks and go back to re-read them: ”Making love with him was like passing through a patch of fog . . .”, “As soon as the first drop of dawn dilutes the blackness…”, “…where souls were being branded with the shapes of their hope…”, “The sunlight lay like money on the jungle floor”. And, as I’ve already said, he has an uncanny knack of capturing the dirt and grime of both the physical environment and his characters situations.

A fairly depressing story with poetic writing that captures an atmosphere brilliantly.

ORIGINAL REVIEW

More of a novella than a novel, this is a story of intrigue and squalor in Nicaragua in 1984. It is never quite clear why the central character is there or why the English man she meets is there. Or why anyone is where they are! But they are and they go to some other places and it is all a bit strange. But in a good way! The language the author uses is probably the best thing about the book: it is hard to read about the heat and the filth without starting to feel uncomfortable yourself. I have to admit I read Denis Johnson books more for his language than his stories.

This was the rare book where I found the writing style masterful but just couldn't care that much about what was happening.

Denis Johnson does it again.