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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/271074.Tree_of_Smoke_A_Novel?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Tree of Smoke: A Novel" border="0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/photo.goodreads.com/books/1184531580m/271074.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/271074.Tree_of_Smoke_A_Novel?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Tree of Smoke: A Novel</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6468.Denis_Johnson">Denis Johnson</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/16125264?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 3 of 5 stars<br/>Reading this book is a little like reading Don Delillo novel; it is so full of descriptive passages and internal mind-scapes that one could get lost reading a page after page, or lost, needing to go back wondering the thematic importance of the last excerpt. I sometimes can't bring myself to put it down and go to much needed sleep late at night, or cannot bring myself to pick it up because the enormity of it leaves me bewildered. I am beginning to think that this is, in part, due to the format of the book, and the how of my own reading style. I can't seem to not try to make a movie version of every book I pick up lately. The style, both episodic and focussed on minutia, makes this perfect fodder for me, yet I have difficulty with the internal editing I seem to go through once I put it down. The characters are well drawn, and intriguing. The description of place and mindset quite revealing and precise. I can't find fault with it, yet I still get perturbed somehow. I think I want it over. I want to place it inside a frame, and look at it as a still. But, as a movie, it is more verite than thriller, despite the almost multi-travelogue nature of the format. The overall feeling of this book is of solitude. In almost every "scene", people don't quite embrace each other fully. Even the land is often cursed, and made unfamiliar, wheter it is a Vietnam war scene, a country house in Phoenix, a bedroom where a couple is making love, or a solitude man reading a book, drinking whiskey. Maybe this solitude is the reason I have such trouble with time and reading in terms of this book. I think the book's feeling of anomie is at times overwhelming. Perhaps this overlaps or coincides with my own similar state of mind. I will add more after I have finished. I will say this: Tree of Smoke is as hypnotising as it is exhausting. I find myself not able to be objective. That is something rare in a reading experience.
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  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/750828?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Michael's review
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bookshelves: currently-reading

Reading this book is a little like reading Don Delillo novel; it is so full of descriptive passages and internal mind-scapes that one could get lost reading a page after page, or lost, needing to go back wondering the thematic importance of the last excerpt. I sometimes can't bring myself to put it down and go to much needed sleep late at night, or cannot bring myself to pick it up because the enormity of it leaves me bewildered. I am beginning to think that this is, in part, due to the format of the book, and the how of my own reading style. I can't seem to not try to make a movie version of every book I pick up lately. The style, both episodic and focussed on minutia, makes this perfect fodder for me, yet I have difficulty with the internal editing I seem to go through once I put it down. The characters are well drawn, and intriguing. The description of place and mindset quite revealing and precise. I can't find fault with it, yet I still get perturbed somehow. I think I want it over...more

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