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Jesus' Son

Denis Johnson

4.14 · Rating details · 26,436 ratings · 1,967 reviews

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

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Mass Market Paperback, 160 pages

Published December 15th 1993 by Harper Perennial (first published 1992)

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· 26,436 ratings · 1,967 reviews

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Aug 24, 2008 Ellen rated it it was amazing

Recommended to Ellen by: Bob

Shelves: alltimefaves

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

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Feb 27, 2016 Kevin Kelsey rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: _library, favorites, read-2016, read-it-again

"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

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Apr 09, 2008 Bill Kerwin rated it really liked it

Shelves: short-stories

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.

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Feb 13, 2010 Nancy rated it really liked it

Recommended to Nancy by: Evan

Shelves: addiction, fiction, short-stories, homelessness, library-books, shelf-inflicted

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

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Jun 06, 2014 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, collection, short-stories, fiction

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

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Apr 14, 2014 J. Kent Messum rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classic, dangerous-writing, eye-opening, great-read, gritty, hard-hitting, masterful-stuff, masterpiece, must-read, one-of-the-greats

*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 *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 sound dynamite. A drug-addled mix of loosely interconnected stories, reading it is like navigating a string of dreams, both blissful and bad. The spectrum of themes is considerably wide, and the narrative draws you into worlds where you can feel as uncomfortable and out of place as the characters themselves. This is a book that actually makes you feel 'high' in some spots. The shifting line between chemical-fueled fantasy and uneasy reality isn't just blurred, it's burned down to almost nothing.

Jesus' Son features everyday kind of people who have slipped down notch or two into the gutter and lost their grip on normality. Much of the time they have nothing to do, nothing to be, and little to live for. It's bleak and beautiful at the same time, a trip through the entangled emotions of folks living simple lives complicated by poor choices.

Everything from love and loss to happiness and sheer horror is covered in this book. One moment the writing is slick as oil, the next it is jagged as broken glass. It’s downright chaotic in places where the mental states of the storytellers are in question. You know the main characters in this book are all unreliable narrators, but you still believe every word they say, because the stories Johnson tells are just that convincing. He's a master writer, balancing poetic passages with crisp, visual prose. This book is nothing short of a masterpiece.

If you haven't read it yet, read is ASAP.

*This book was one of my selections for my '5 Books That Made Me A Better Writer' piece. See which others I picked:

http://jkentmessum.com/the-5-books-th...

On a side note.... if you have a chance to get the audiobook version, definitely do so. Actor Will Patton narrates the stories, and does an incredible job of bringing Johnson's prose to perfection. ...more

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Jun 16, 2013 Garima rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: s.penkevich

Shelves: short-stories, short-wonders, to-re-read, funny-funsome-sarcasome, my-2-cents

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

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Jan 20, 2018 باقر هاشمی rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

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

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Apr 29, 2013 EisNinE rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites-artbooks-and-comics, ficgenre-mystery-police-procedurals, favorites-lit-historical-fiction

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 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 burning yourself down to the foundation-stones and finding one beautiful thing in the ashes. Even if it's something cheap and common, it assumes a spiritual density simply by escaping the flames, and a malleability that allows it to be shaped and worked into something vaguely redemptive.

description

The power of Denis Johnson's prose is inestimable, with sentences & imagery that will orbit the readers consciousness for decades. It's that kind of book: one that moves into your head and makes itself comfortable. His writing has the hard-eyed toughness of Chandler, but with a kind of unabashed sensitivity that Chandler would never expose... imagine Dashiell Hammett writing poetry, and imagine yourself liking it. It's Bogart in drag, or a concert pianist with the broken hands of a boxer.

“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.”

See? That sort of thing. In case you're not familiar with The Velvet Underground, the title comes from one of Lou Reed's classic lines in 'Heroin'. It's about heroin. ;-)

Denis Johnson’s skills as a short story writer, poet, and novelist all coalesced with ‘Jesus’ Son’, to produce a sad, funny and frightening little masterpiece. It’s not really even a novella; more of a collection of short stories that add up to something related to a novella. Loosely inspired by Johnson's own experiences, the main character – Fuckhead - introduces himself with a story of hitch-hiking in the rain. He’s feeling burnt out and edgy after taking mystery pills from a travelling salesman... never a good idea, but his name is Fuckhead. He doesn’t do anything the right way. When a family is nice enough to stop and let a drenched stranger into their car, he knows that it's going to end in tragedy, but he gets in anyway...'They said they'd take me all the way.'

description

Fuckhead's wanderings through the USA of the 1970's are always told from the anamorphic perspectives of a compromised mind, pleasantly poisoned with all manner of chemical. Junkies finding love in motel rooms. Drug-dealers half-heartedly murdering each other in a Midwestern farmhouse. A hospital clerk and orderly way too high for anything that comes through the Emergency Room doors. Rehab. Johnson presents skewed characters and situations that seem to operate according to the inscrutable mechanisms of dream and nightmare. Like Dundun, for instance, about whom I can say little. The narrator can say a few words, though, because narrators do that shit. It's their thing:

“Will you believe me when I tell you there was kindness in his heart? His left hand didn't know what his right hand was doing. It was only that certain important connections had been burned through. If I opened up your head and ran a hot soldering iron around in your brain, I might turn you into someone like that.”

Yeah, that's Dundun. That's also perfect casting.

Alison Maclean's adaptation of 'Jesus' Son' is one of the best novel-to-film translations I've seen, along with 'No Country For Old Men' and the big screen incarnations of the aforementioned Chandler and Hammett. The performances are thoroughly fucking brilliant, but Michael Shannon's portrayal of Dundun was unforgettable.

Other writers could work a decade, write a thousand pages, and not create a fraction of the intensity and emotional dissonance that Johnson scribbles into being. And his characters... they crawl off the paper and bury themselves in the soft grey folds of your brain, like memories that you've bought and paid for by living them. Jesus, that sounds absolutely fucking horrid... but it’s actually a good thing. You can trust me... I'm not a doctor OR a politician

description

“Talk into my bullet hole. Tell me I'm fine.”
― Denis Johnson, Jesus' Son

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A Mysterious Review That Might Be Related to the Book in Question, But Written By Someone Else Entirely ...more

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Oct 22, 2017 Paul Bryant rated it liked it

Shelves: short-modern-americans

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

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Sep 12, 2013 Steve rated it really liked it

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 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 a function of the skag, the booze, and the stolen pharmaceuticals. This does not excuse the insensitivity and messed up behavior so much as it explains the eeriness, fragmentation, and reflexive anger. But amidst the distortions, bits of clarity stand out. And in contrast to the alienation in dull shades of gray, a kindness of any tint will catch the eye.

Has it ever been proposed as an exercise in creative writing to imagine being (if not actually being) high as a kite? What am I saying? Of course it has. And abstract, luminous words have come from such otherworldly mindsets, I’m sure. In fact, I would argue that this short book set in the psychedelic 70’s is a prime case in point. It figures, with Johnson also being a poet, that the writing would be taut and expressive. He captures the sentiments of the down-and-out so well, too. For example, he describes how the “tears of false fellowship dripped on the bar” and how a gunshot victim should be happy he’s getting “Haldol pumped by the quart.” The drug scene is the backdrop, but the fallout is the real focus.

” I'd been staying at the Holiday Inn with my with my girlfriend, honestly the most beautiful woman I'd ever known, for three days under a phony name, shooting heroin. We made love in the bed, ate steaks in the restaurant, shot up in the john, puked, cried, accused one another, begged of one another, forgave, promised, and carried one another to heaven.”

My favorite parts were when little hints of what it means to be human snuck into the stories. It didn’t always put the narrator in a favorable light, but usually pointed to something redeemable within him. He appreciated co-worker and co-addict Georgie for telling a friend of a friend who was seriously AWOL that he’d help get him to Canada. Georgie also wanted to save the baby rabbits of the mother he ran over with his car. Another story described the narrator’s best day ever, one where he and a friend made $28 each from honest labors stripping copper wire out of the friend’s abandoned house and then celebrating with their favorite bartender pouring them double shots but charging them only for singles.

The last story was set at Beverly Home, a place for senile, disabled, and disfigured adults where the narrator was given a part-time job as the newsletter writer and a point of human contact for those rarely touched. He was off drugs and sober at this point, and regaining his health. His straight and narrow path was still a little skewed, though, when he discovered a Mennonite woman who happened to time her shower every day as he passed by her place after work. As immoral as his actions were, though, there was a sense that he’d turned the corner (view spoiler)

A book like this is an eye-opener. It’s a hard look at addiction, it’s an artistic peek at altered perceptions, and it’s a clever way to highlight humanity when set against the stuporous default settings. Oh, and since it matters, the writing was really good, too.
...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Fabian rated it really liked it

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

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Feb 15, 2013 Darwin8u rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2015, fiction

“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'

description

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

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Aug 20, 2007 Jonathan rated it it was ok

Recommends it for: sigh...

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

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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

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Mar 15, 2008 Brent Legault rated it it was amazing

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.

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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 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 written sections were, and even handed it to other students just to see if I’d gone insane – only to find they were equally unimpressed. But when you get someone like Yale’s Harold Bloom fondling it like a new-age Bible, I tend to lose it. This is a collection of short stories just tragically hip enough, just sad and bleak enough, just pretentious enough to be cuddled by literary-types. When Johnson isn’t failing on sentence-by-sentence level, he utterly fails to deliver story, compelling characters or satisfactory conclusions. Oh no. That’s below literary fiction, or drug fiction, or whatever this was supposed to be. Instead he strings together a few events, doing his best to steer things to negative conclusions, providing a little optimism and saccharine literary flourishes along the way. You can tell the depth of his fiction from the quote before the stories start, where Johnson reveals he didn’t get the title from the Bible or any of the slews of philosophical prose it spawned, but from “Heroin,” a Velvet Underground song. There is so little even vaguely allegorical or referential to a messiah, holiness, religion, or even a substantive search for greater meaning is a part of this collection that it becomes paintfully obvious Jesus was a sales ploy for the book and you have to make up a reason for the title to fit, or you're dumb. I’m not a Christian. I’m a reader and a thinking person, and both identities were insulted as I tried to delude myself into believing this had the deeper levels of an O’Connor or Kesey book. It didn't. ...more

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Feb 04, 2017 Doug H rated it liked it

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

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Apr 01, 2012 Melanie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favourites

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

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Dec 06, 2015 Erika rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-read-in-2015

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

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Jan 24, 2019 Narjes Dorzade rated it liked it · review of another edition

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

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Aug 08, 2014 rahul rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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

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May 14, 2012 Lou rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery-thriller, short-stories

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

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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.

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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

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Jan 07, 2016 Hossein rated it it was ok · review of another edition

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.

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Dec 14, 2018 Gypsy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: داستان-كوتاه, بازم-باید-بخونم, دوسشون-دارم, هزار-و-یک-کتاب-پیش-از-مرگ, کاش-اینطوری-بنویسم

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

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Jan 20, 2016 Fateme Beygi rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: مجموعه-داستان

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 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 هست بر این که راوی یک نفر باشه اول از همه لحنش و به تبع اون نوع تفکرات و احساساتش. دوم اسم افراد و مکان هایی که تکرار می شن به خصوص اون کافه و اون دختر که آنجلیکا بود. سوم هم علاقه ی عجیب شخصیت به روزهای آفتابی یا نور خورشید که توی بیشتر داستان ها تکرار شده.
به شخصه نوع تحلیل های این پسر از دنیا و وقایعش که یه نوعی من رو یاد نوع تفکر شخصیت اصلی کتاب عامه پسند بوکفسکی می انداخت، برام دلنشین بود. یه جور ویژه ی خودش به دنیا می کرد که برای ما جذابیت داره. بعد هم نوع توصیفات به شدت بکر و جالب از دیدگاه اون رو دوست داشتم و مدام به این فکر می کردم که خیلی سخته که بشه یک توهم رو با کلمات توصیف کرد یا نوع نگاه یک آدم معتاد رو به یه پدیده ی ساده ی طبیعت نشون داد. همه ی ما مثلا به غروب خورشید روی دریا نگاه می کنیم اما اون طور دیگه ای این پدیده رو تعبیر می کنه

دیالوگای پینگ پنگی فصل " دستان بی لرزش..." عالی، صریح و به شدت بانمکن. من رو به یاد کارای مک دونا و تارنتینو می انداخت.

این قسمت ممکنه باعث اسپویل بشه:

وقتی به داستان های آخر رسیدم متوجه شدم که کتاب بیشتر از این که یه مجموعه داستان باشه یه رمان کوتاهه. داستان اول با تصادف پسر شروع می شه و در انتهاش ما متوجه می شیم که اون رو توی بیمارستان نگه می دارن و دچار توهم شده. بعد هر کدوم از داستان ها تکه هایی از خاطرات پسرن قبل و بعد از این اتفاق. به خصوص هر چه به سمت انتهایی کتاب می رسیم، متوجه می شیم که نویسنده به نوعی خودنگاری کرده و چیزی شبیه به جریان زندگی و ترک اعتیاد خودش رو نوشته. حتی در فصل یکی مونده به آخر اذعان می کنه که من نویسنده ام و هر چی بگی همون رو جزء به جزء می نویسم. و پاراف انتهایی کار "در میان این همه آدم عجیب و غریب، هر روز حالم بهتر می شد. هیچ وقت نمی دانستم، حتی یک لحظه هم به ذهنم نرسیده بود که شاید برای امثال ما هم جایی باشد."

...more

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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

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Jan 24, 2017 Reza Mardani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

کتاب انقدر تشبیهات و استعاره های ناب داره که حتی ترجمه بد خاکسار هم نمی تونه خرابش کنه
خط سیر داستان ها هم خیلی جالبه، داستان ها مثل یه سری عکس از لحظه های مختلف زندگی نویسنده ان که از اعتیاد شدید به الکل و انواع مواد شروع میشه، هی از شدت مصرف مواد کم میشه و دو داستان آخر مربوط به ترک و بعد از ترکه الکل و هرویینه
شکل و ساختار و فضای داستان ها هم با شدت اعتیاد نویسنده هماهنگه
ولی در کل کتاب با همه صحنه های وحشتناکی که داره، امید به زندگی رو داد میزنه
"وقتی در آن اتاق کوچک آفتابگیر دراز می کشیدیم، نسب ...more

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About Denis Johnson

Denis Johnson

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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 ...more