book review, Volume 4 number 6, July/August 2002 Dark Insights For more than two decades, novelist and poet Denis Johnson has explored the darker aspects of life, discovering along the way those spiritual awakenings that occur when one hits rock bottom. Sometimes, as in his debut novel Angels or his short story collection Jesus’ Son, his characters’ circumstances are of their own making. Other times, like in the post-apocalyptic Fiskadoro, their world has gotten very far away from them. Such is the case in Johnson’s most recent novel, The Name of the World (Harper Perennial, $12.00), which concerns itself with the spiritual regeneration of a university instructor named Michael Reed. Prior to the story’s opening, Reed’s wife and only child have been killed in a car accident. Feeling empty and, for all intents, dead himself, Reed goes through the motions of his life at a small Midwestern university, failing to invest himself in his surroundings. But his teaching position is soon set to expire, and as he ponders his next move he embarks on a self-destructive course, burning his bridges with colleagues, picking a fight with some local teenagers, and developing a growing obsession with a young, emotionally distant coed given to provocative behavior. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Denis Johnson book without a fair dose of black humor, and in this case Johnson takes most of his jabs at academia. On the other hand, there are none of the junkies, petty thieves, and other subterranean types which generally people his novels. These are solidly middle-class types who’d actually be quite respectable if Johnson didn’t reveal so much about them. His is a dysfunctional universe, and as the book progresses it takes on the increasingly hallucinatory nature that Johnson’s novels always seem to acquire. The genius of Johnson’s writing is his ability to quietly allow his stories to unfold. By employing spare yet evocative language, Johnson sculpts complex moral fables. He’s a master of subtlety and nuance, saving his most muscular language for those times when the story demands it. He makes it seem so simple. Johnson has also recently published a collection of nonfiction essays under the title Seek: Reports from the Edges of America and Beyond (Harper Perennial, $12.95). The pieces cover a broad spectrum of material, from gold mining in Alaska, to a millennial cult in Arizona, to the rabid support of anti-abortion activists for the fugitive doctor slayer Eric Rudolph. Throughout the book is an underlying theme of individuals seeking something greater than themselves, be it glory, freedom, or power over others. An interesting contrast is found between a report on a Bikers for Jesus rally (he declares himself a believer) and a magic mushroom-influenced weekend at a Rainbow Gathering in Oregon. In both instances a vast crowd of castoff individuals seeks salvation from mainstream American culture. The two events share more in common than either crowd would realize. But Johnson, a product of the sixties who has always been uneasy with the legacy of that era, is far more critical of the hippies:
He echoes this theme later in a highly sympathetic response to the militia movement:
Frightened by the power grabs of the Clinton Administration, Johnson realizes that power itself is the danger. With this in mind, Johnson travels overseas to Somalia as American troops conclude their painful withdrawal (and the author accomplishes his goal of being the last Caucasian to leave the country), to Saudi Arabia as the Gulf War commences, and to Kabul under the control of the Taliban. Everywhere, it seems, power is being abused. And violently so. Johnson is no doe-eyed traveler. The best he can say for the Afghans is that they combine tremendous generosity with an unquenchable thirst for vengeance. He doesn’t produce the paeans so many travel writers routinely spew about incorruptible third-world residents, morally perfected by their poverty. His blunt take on human nature is a refreshing change. The book opens and closes with terrifying stories of his two visits to the maelstrom of Liberia. Here anarchy (the supposed ideology of those peace-loving hippies) reigns supreme and everyone walking is in the potential path of a bullet. Seek, like Johnson’s novels, is a disturbing book written by an outstanding author who has spent his life prodding away at the outer edges of experience. The brisk, well-written prose contains a continual stream of insights. Denis Johnson is an author to be admired, both for his talents and for his unerring honesty.
| ||
 | | |
