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Jesus' Son
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Jesus' Son, the first collection of stories by Denis Johnson, presents a unique, hallucinatory vision of contemporary American life unmatched in power and immediacy and marks a new level of achievement for this acclaimed writer. In their intensity of perception, their neon-lit evocation of a strange world brought uncomfortably close to our own, the stories in Jesus' Son of
...more
Mass Market Paperback, 160 pages
Published
December 15th 1993
by Harper Perennial
(first published 1992)
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I once fell in love with a man just because he recommended this book to me. He had a glass eye and fingernails with with half moons of crust lodged underneath, thick and dark as coffee grounds. He was living covertly and temporarily for about four years in one of those storage units out by the interstate, and I would sometimes go see him when I wanted to get high or feel better about my life. At some point he died when they blew up a bridge to build a dam, and he happened to be sleeping undernea
...more
"I could understand how a drowning man might suddenly feel a deep thirst being quenched."
Magnificent, concise writing. A calm sort of sad, and strangely relaxing. Stories about people living in the corners of society.
It’s like I’m sitting on the porch of a shack in the middle of nowhere, listening to the saddest old man I know tell me misremembered stories about how shitty he was when he was young.
It all feels extremely real, like lives that were lived. The stories are connected, and all share a ...more
Magnificent, concise writing. A calm sort of sad, and strangely relaxing. Stories about people living in the corners of society.
It’s like I’m sitting on the porch of a shack in the middle of nowhere, listening to the saddest old man I know tell me misremembered stories about how shitty he was when he was young.
It all feels extremely real, like lives that were lived. The stories are connected, and all share a ...more
A poetic, disorienting book of short fiction about semi-criminals, heroin addicts and idlers squandering their lives on the fringes of urban northern Idaho.
The narrator is a study in contrasts: irresponsible, irrational . . . and yet gifted with moments of almost mystical clarity.
Posted at Shelf Inflicted
I wasn’t sure if I would like this collection of loosely connected stories about a young guy who is addicted to drugs, sometimes homeless, sometimes employed, and occasionally steals. He’s not an especially likable character, but I enjoyed being a part of his thoughts, his views, and his haphazard journey through life. Maybe it's because I have empathy for addicts and others who live on the edge.
This powerful and gripping collection of stories was troubling, intense, an ...more
I wasn’t sure if I would like this collection of loosely connected stories about a young guy who is addicted to drugs, sometimes homeless, sometimes employed, and occasionally steals. He’s not an especially likable character, but I enjoyed being a part of his thoughts, his views, and his haphazard journey through life. Maybe it's because I have empathy for addicts and others who live on the edge.
This powerful and gripping collection of stories was troubling, intense, an ...more
Jesus' Son: Stories, Denis Johnson
Jesus' Son is a collection of short stories by American author Denis Johnson.
Contents: Car Crash While Hitchhiking; Two Men; Out on Bail; Dundun; Work; Emergency; Dirty Wedding; The Other Man; Happy Hour; Steady Hands at Seattle General; Beverly Home.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و سوم ماه نوامبر سال 2015 میلادی
عنوان: پسر عیسا؛ نویسنده: دنیس جانسون؛ مترجم: پیمان خاکسار؛ تهران، زاوش، 1392، در 115 ص، شابک: 9786006846873؛ چاپ دوم: تهران، نشر چشمه، 1393، در 115 ص، ش ...more
Jesus' Son is a collection of short stories by American author Denis Johnson.
Contents: Car Crash While Hitchhiking; Two Men; Out on Bail; Dundun; Work; Emergency; Dirty Wedding; The Other Man; Happy Hour; Steady Hands at Seattle General; Beverly Home.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و سوم ماه نوامبر سال 2015 میلادی
عنوان: پسر عیسا؛ نویسنده: دنیس جانسون؛ مترجم: پیمان خاکسار؛ تهران، زاوش، 1392، در 115 ص، شابک: 9786006846873؛ چاپ دوم: تهران، نشر چشمه، 1393، در 115 ص، ش ...more
*I'm heartbroken to hear of Denis Johnson's recent passing. The man was a personal hero and great literary influence of mine. I'm floating this review of his quintessential masterpiece as a tip of the hat to the man who brought us some of the finest prose.
Without a doubt, this is one of my favorite works of all time. Denis Johnson is a major influence of mine, and Jesus' Son had a profound effect on me.
This was the book that showed me how far you could stretch your prose and still have it soun ...more
Without a doubt, this is one of my favorite works of all time. Denis Johnson is a major influence of mine, and Jesus' Son had a profound effect on me.
This was the book that showed me how far you could stretch your prose and still have it soun ...more
Jun 16, 2013
Garima
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
s.penkevich
I stayed in the library, crushed breathless by the smoldering power of all those words—many of them unfathomable.
Sometimes I judge and consequently love a book based upon the following points:
- A single, beautiful line I longed to read or hear in the words of some person other than me.
- A completely related character.
- A completely unrelated character.
- The way it makes me laugh.
- The way it makes me cry.
- The way it makes me feel extremely good about the life I’m leading.
- The way it makes me ...more
دنیس جانسون در این کتاب، دنیا رو از زوایایی دیده بود که برام تازگی داشتن. با اینکه همیشه با کمّی کردن کیفیات مخالفت اکید دارم، به این کتاب پنج ستاره میدم. دوست دارم چندبار دیگه هم بخونمش. تلخ بود اما گیرا بود.
نویسنده های زیادی دوست دارن چنین کتاب موجز اما تأثیرگذاری بنویسن اما اکثرشون مجموعهی هنرمندای ناکامی ان که زندگیشون یه خطّ صافه، درست مثل خط دستگاه ضربان قلبِ بعد از مرگِ آدمیزاد. کسایی با افکار بسیار محدود و صد البته افرادی ترسو، کسایی که جرأت ندارن حتا با یه خانم دست بدن یا از ترس بهخطر ا ...more
نویسنده های زیادی دوست دارن چنین کتاب موجز اما تأثیرگذاری بنویسن اما اکثرشون مجموعهی هنرمندای ناکامی ان که زندگیشون یه خطّ صافه، درست مثل خط دستگاه ضربان قلبِ بعد از مرگِ آدمیزاد. کسایی با افکار بسیار محدود و صد البته افرادی ترسو، کسایی که جرأت ندارن حتا با یه خانم دست بدن یا از ترس بهخطر ا ...more
I kind of sort of liked this woozy teensy bouquet of junkie memories but it was just too oh what’s the word even though the very sky above me was heavy with the five stars sluiced over this book by all previous readers in all the seven realms of readerdom.
I got a mean and unworthy thought – that you could take sentences from almost anywhere in any of these stories and put them next to other randomly selected sentences and they would make as much sense, so I took something from page 20, 40, 80, ...more
I got a mean and unworthy thought – that you could take sentences from almost anywhere in any of these stories and put them next to other randomly selected sentences and they would make as much sense, so I took something from page 20, 40, 80, ...more
Junk-sick, Broke and Completely Alone, in a Land of Bad Intentions
I've gone through three copies of ‘Jesus’ Son’, reading it like a prayer-book, though it’s nothing of the kind. There's a sadness living in every sentence, and it doesn't really have any suggestions for better living, beyond a painfully obvious cautionary tale. Drugs are bad, m’kay?
The cautionary tale, however, is one interpreted by the reader. It's the best kind of dangerous, like a manual for poetic self-immolation, on burnin ...more
I've gone through three copies of ‘Jesus’ Son’, reading it like a prayer-book, though it’s nothing of the kind. There's a sadness living in every sentence, and it doesn't really have any suggestions for better living, beyond a painfully obvious cautionary tale. Drugs are bad, m’kay?
The cautionary tale, however, is one interpreted by the reader. It's the best kind of dangerous, like a manual for poetic self-immolation, on burnin ...more
Denis Johnson took the fringe sensibilities of The Beats, added his own raw poetic touches, nicked a line from Lou Reed for the title, and ended up with an intensely unsettling collection of stories that prefigured to a T the drug classic Trainspotting. You may wonder at first if the unnamed narrator of these accounts could really be such an uncaring cad. Well, as a bottom line, maybe so. But the thoughts of murder, the thieving, and the ultra-callous disregard for fellow man were in large part
...more
Excellent prose & a roaming plot to boot. These short stories together describe the grit inherent in modern America. We meet drunks & druggies, victims of crime and a vicious environment. America is rarely portrayed like this-- with so much beauty & ugliness combined. Books like these make me feel bad for hating on The Poets. This is poetic &, despite its brevity, confoundingly major. You want to read more of the narrator's misadventures: it is as addictive to the voracious reade
...more
“All these weirdos, and me getting a little better every day right in the midst of them. I had never known, never even imagined for a heartbeat, that there might be a place for people like us.”
― Denis Johnson, 'Jesus' Son'
Sometimes while reading this I thought I was reading Burroughs (just not so dark), other times J.G. Ballard (just not so cold), sometimes even Palahniuk (but with more of a poet's heart). It was madness, a fever dream, tied together with beauty. It was fragments of insanity st ...more
― Denis Johnson, 'Jesus' Son'
Sometimes while reading this I thought I was reading Burroughs (just not so dark), other times J.G. Ballard (just not so cold), sometimes even Palahniuk (but with more of a poet's heart). It was madness, a fever dream, tied together with beauty. It was fragments of insanity st ...more
Look, I don't know how else to put this. I recognize what Johnson's accomplished here, I acknowledge that he has a gift for phrase-level shine, and I concede that these semi-linked stories evince a remarkably coherent and vividly-depicted worldview that I might call "hopelessly optimistic," or maybe "tending to carry on when there's clearly no good reason to do so," or else, more succinctly, "Conradian" . . . but, I'm sorry, what I couldn't help but think/feel, wading through one after another o
...more
Jul 05, 2016
Pooya Kiani
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
short-stories
هنوز به یک بخش از وجودش اجازه نداده بود متولد شود، چون برای یک چنین جایی زیادی زیبا بود.
نمرهای که این کتاب از ایرانیها گرفته به مراتب پایینتر از نمرهایه که دیگران بهش دادن. این به نظرم چند علت داره.
1. در درجه اول ترجمهی بیوسواسِ پیمان خاکسر، که البته نسبت به کارهای دیگهای که ازش خوندهم بهتر بود .
2. نشناختن این شیوه از روایت توسط مخاطب ایرانی.
3. جدا بودن جو فکری ایرانیها (در دورهی تالیف کتاب) از فضای فکری دنیا، به علت جنگ و قبلترش انقلاب. این باعث میشه ما به ازا و مصداق واضحی از روایت توی ذهن م ...more
نمرهای که این کتاب از ایرانیها گرفته به مراتب پایینتر از نمرهایه که دیگران بهش دادن. این به نظرم چند علت داره.
1. در درجه اول ترجمهی بیوسواسِ پیمان خاکسر، که البته نسبت به کارهای دیگهای که ازش خوندهم بهتر بود .
2. نشناختن این شیوه از روایت توسط مخاطب ایرانی.
3. جدا بودن جو فکری ایرانیها (در دورهی تالیف کتاب) از فضای فکری دنیا، به علت جنگ و قبلترش انقلاب. این باعث میشه ما به ازا و مصداق واضحی از روایت توی ذهن م ...more
This book ruined my reading bone for a long time. I wanted every story I read, every story by every other author, to be just like the stories in Jesus' Son. But of course they weren't and aren't and they stand alone in my mind, even now. Perhaps it's the whiskey talking, but I'd go so far as to call this little book one of the greatest of my generation. Not that such superlatives carry any weight anymore. I just can't get over this book. It was my first true love.
Nov 15, 2007
John Wiswell
rated it
did not like it
Recommends it for:
Literary readers who've read all the good books
I wouldn’t dislike this book so much if professors and literati hadn’t rubbed it in my face so much. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't entertaining, enlightening, intellectually arousing, and it didn't harbor any interesting characters or compelling scenes despite dealing with drugs, physical handicaps and multiple deaths. The narrator was far too pretentious with far too little beautiful writing or insight to pull it off. I was mostly bored or depressed, and occasionally outraged and how poorly wr
...more
What’s the deal with great writers and drugs and/or alcohol? It seems most of my favorite writers start out with amazing talent and then slowly fizzle out under the weight of some form of substance abuse. Patrick Hamilton, Carson McCullers, Richard Yates... (add your own).
In my book, Denis Johnson is turning out to be an inverse exception to the rule. For most of his twenties, Johnson was addicted to drugs and alcohol but he quit drinking alcohol in 1978 and quit recreational drugs in 1983 and t ...more
In my book, Denis Johnson is turning out to be an inverse exception to the rule. For most of his twenties, Johnson was addicted to drugs and alcohol but he quit drinking alcohol in 1978 and quit recreational drugs in 1983 and t ...more
To find Rick Bass's words of praise in the opening pages, speaking about this great 50,000-volt kick thrill of a book, I knew that this would be just the thing to cure my reading inertia. I'd followed a Carson McCullers novel like a dream into the rabbit hole, shrunk and dreamed until This One woke me like a cruel Queen. Consider me awake.
Not unlike characters from the early works of McCarthy, the faces that come in and out of focus in Denis Johnson's fictional world are victims of their own mi ...more
This collection of stories is really short, but don’t let that fool you. Each word releases so much power that an hour spent reading Jesus’ Son carries the same impact as two hours of reading another book. Johnson throws off images like dazzling pieces of shrapnel, and for me, those gorgeous passages are what held the book together more than any actual plot.
The narrator is a junkie with a life so chaotic that you always have the feeling anything could happen at any second. He might see an angel, ...more
The narrator is a junkie with a life so chaotic that you always have the feeling anything could happen at any second. He might see an angel, ...more
دنیس جانسون در پسرِ عیسا از انسانهایی روایت میکند که به نظر زیست منفعلانهای دارند.به حاشیه رانده شدهاند و جانسون هم در بین همین آدمها زیست کرده،و زیبایی همین انسانهای منفعل را ترسیم کرده:
هنوز به یک بخش از وجودش اجازه نداده بود متولد شود چون برای یک چنین جایی زیادی زیبا بود.
دیالوگ ها کوتاه و داستانها اکثرن از زبان اول شخص نوشته شدهاند و طنز بسیار ظریف و درخشانی دارد.
کتابی ساده با آدمهایی ساده و موضوعی ساده،اما بینظیر.
((جزء کتابهایی که بسیار دوستِش داشتم)) ...more
هنوز به یک بخش از وجودش اجازه نداده بود متولد شود چون برای یک چنین جایی زیادی زیبا بود.
دیالوگ ها کوتاه و داستانها اکثرن از زبان اول شخص نوشته شدهاند و طنز بسیار ظریف و درخشانی دارد.
کتابی ساده با آدمهایی ساده و موضوعی ساده،اما بینظیر.
((جزء کتابهایی که بسیار دوستِش داشتم)) ...more
Is there a way of writing the right stories about the right people,telling everything neatly from start to finish. An Uppercase letter starting the story and a full stop waiting at the end. A boy meeting girl on the first page and walking away with her in the last one.
Or are stories like these...snapshots of nightmares which some would call hell, but is home to some. Where beautiful sentences strike you out of the blue, so beautiful that you read them again and again, flashes of lightning in a d ...more
Or are stories like these...snapshots of nightmares which some would call hell, but is home to some. Where beautiful sentences strike you out of the blue, so beautiful that you read them again and again, flashes of lightning in a d ...more
خيلي دوسش داشتم، چقد دنيس جانسون خوب مينويسه.. خوشحالم كه كتاب رو خريدم و ميتونم بازم بخونمش و لذت ببرم.
Dennis Johnson has a good way to describe things and has placed trouble riddled characters amongst some literal beauty.
A collection of stories tied together with a common theme of struggle and drugs.
He brings your eyes into the lives of characters on this earth with problems.
The few stories I mention are...
Car crash while hitchhiking
As the title say a powerful descriptive story where a hitchhiker is involved in an accident with a family including a baby.
Visceral and shows very well all that th ...more
A collection of stories tied together with a common theme of struggle and drugs.
He brings your eyes into the lives of characters on this earth with problems.
The few stories I mention are...
Car crash while hitchhiking
As the title say a powerful descriptive story where a hitchhiker is involved in an accident with a family including a baby.
Visceral and shows very well all that th ...more
بابا چقد خوب بود. چقد ریویوهای اینجا هم خوبه. دیدم هرچی میخواسم من بگم، بهترشو بقیه گفتن. پسرعیسا رو توی یه روز بارونی و تعطیلم خوندم، با هر داستان بیشتر جذبش میشدم. تصویرسازیهای طبیعی و ناب در کنار روایت تکهتکه و تارانتینویی که با هوشمندی لایههای مخفیش رو آروم باز میکرد و دیالوگهای عالی. در دیالوگ عالیه، طوری که اگه فیلمش ساخته بشه هم موفق خواهد بود. دیدم یکی از بچهها گفته بود یکی این کتابو برسونه به دست تارانتینو. آره واقعاً. :))
از کتابهاییه که بازم بهش مراجعه میکنم. خیلی جرئت و خودآگاهی میخوا ...more
براي من كتاب جالبي نبود.باز هم گول پيمان خاكسار و تعاريفش از كتاب هايي كه ترجمه ميكنه رو خوردم.
خريد اين كتاب مثل اينه كه بريد كافي شاپ و از ميان ٢٠ تا عنوانِ متنوع ،فقط آب معدني سفارش بديد.
از يازده داستان كوتاه فقط دو تاي آخر برام جالب بودن.(دستان بي لرزش در تيمارستان عمومي سياتل وخانه بورلي).
اما در كل نويسنده خيلي شجاعانه دست به اعتراف به اعتياد و بدبخت بودنش توي اون زمان ميزنه.
داستان ها سر ته درست و حسابي نداشت و در كل از خواندن كتاب لذت نبردم.
خريد اين كتاب مثل اينه كه بريد كافي شاپ و از ميان ٢٠ تا عنوانِ متنوع ،فقط آب معدني سفارش بديد.
از يازده داستان كوتاه فقط دو تاي آخر برام جالب بودن.(دستان بي لرزش در تيمارستان عمومي سياتل وخانه بورلي).
اما در كل نويسنده خيلي شجاعانه دست به اعتراف به اعتياد و بدبخت بودنش توي اون زمان ميزنه.
داستان ها سر ته درست و حسابي نداشت و در كل از خواندن كتاب لذت نبردم.
Mar 29, 2016
Franco Santos
rated it
liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
libros-en-digital,
antologías-cuentos
Un recorrido, capturando momentos, vidas rotas, desamparo, enajenación y destinos robados. Una colección de sueños e ilusiones, desde el punto solitario de individuos que desean el amor pero son incapaces de tocarlo sin herirlo. Son quemados por la pasión, lo que no entienden y lo que quieren pero no pueden tener.
Nov 19, 2016
Alex
rated it
it was amazing
Recommends it for:
people with shitty nicknames
Shelves:
2016
Last Exit to Brooklyn in the boonies is what Jesus' Son feels like. It's an interconnected series of short stories starring the very down and very out in rural Iowa as they stagger through young adulthood. Its protagonist's name is Fuckhead, so there you go.
There's this great confused quality that's familiar to me from my own experimental days, which were much less dire (not at all dire) but, like, in one story they're all having a sendoff party for a friend who's going to jail, and midway throu ...more
There's this great confused quality that's familiar to me from my own experimental days, which were much less dire (not at all dire) but, like, in one story they're all having a sendoff party for a friend who's going to jail, and midway throu ...more
خوندنش واقعا یکی از تجربه های خوب داستان خوانی ام بود. حتی می تونم بگم ناب. همون قدر که فیلم مرثیه ای برای یک رویای آرنوفسکی توی دوران خودش در سینما کاربرد شیسته ی فرم و محتوا بود این جا هم می شد این رو حس کرد. همونطور که گفتم توی ادبیات روایت های مربوط به افراد معتاد، قرص مصرف کرده، الکلی و متوهم کم داریم و این کتاب که به نظر میاد مجموعه داستان به هم پیوسته است و راوی کل داستان ها یه پسر جوونه. به نظر میاد از این جهت که به خاطر نوع داستانا خیلی سخت می شه به طور قطع این حرف رو زد اما شواهد زیادی
...more
Jul 29, 2015
نعیمه بخشی
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
short-story,
1394
شاید هیچ معتادی توی دنیا بعد از ترک اعتیاد به اندازهی دنیس جانسون از تجربههای زیستهاش اینقدر استفادهی مفید نکرده باشد که همه را بردارد و بگذارد توی یک مجموعه داستان مُدرن، پر از توصیفات امپرسیونیستی. تصویرهایی که در تضاد شدیدی با فضای شلوغ و سیاه آمریکای دههی هشتاد و نود هستند و همین تضاد شکل غریب و بکری به توصیفات داستانها داده و انگار نویسنده آنها را جایی در ماورای واقعیت بیرونی نوشته.
پیشنهاد میکنم داستانهای «تصادف موقع هیچهایک» و «کار» را به شکل ویژهتری بخوانید؛
آب در شیارهای آسفالت با سروصدا ...more
پیشنهاد میکنم داستانهای «تصادف موقع هیچهایک» و «کار» را به شکل ویژهتری بخوانید؛
آب در شیارهای آسفالت با سروصدا ...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Ink to Film B...: Jesus' Son Discussion | 1 | 4 | Feb 14, 2019 10:34AM | |
| Treinar em casa | 1 | 3 | Jan 29, 2018 10:57AM | |
| A Great Collection of Short Stories | 1 | 4 | Oct 15, 2017 10:11PM |
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Poet, playwright and author Denis Johnson was born in Munich, West Germany in 1949 and was raised in Tokyo, Manila and Washington. He earned a masters' degree from the University of Iowa and received many awards for his work, including a Lannan Fellowship in Fiction (1993), a Whiting Writer's Award (1986), the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction from the Paris Review for Train Dreams, and most recently, th
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“I knew every raindrop by its name.”
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“And therefore I looked down into the great pity of a person’s life on this earth. I don’t mean that we all end up dead, that’s not the great pity. I mean that he couldn’t tell me what he was dreaming, and I couldn’t tell him what was real.”
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