Rating: 
Summary: a must read!
Review: Johnson has an amazing grasp of language and metaphor. I disagree with those who have said the book it too long. It takes some effort to connect to his characters, but it is well worth it. Reminds me a lot of the works of works of Pynchon and Amis.
Rating: 
Summary: Shame, really...
Review: Johnson's characters were, without exception, deeply misogynistic, two-dimensional and immature. Nothing wrong with having *some* characters be so narrow-minded (such folks exist in real life), but universality of those qualities suggests to me that Johnson himself holds those qualities...this sure doesn't encourage me to read anything else he's written. In fact, I now avoid his books like the plague and gave away this book at a garage sale. (It's a shame I have to give this book even one star to get this review posted.) I am so glad that there *are* men who *are* able to regard women as dynamic, three-dimensional, capable of thought, and *human.* I'll read their books! There's no need to de-humanize another group of people to write well!
Rating: 
Summary: drugs, sex, murder, and johnson's prose
Review: Lately, i've been dreaming about philosophers. a few weeks ago, i dreamt of a small house on a stilt hoisted in space up from some great depth i didn't bother looking down into. in the house, the french existentialist sartre was quietly lecturing a few people out of the many who weren't listening. he spoke with a great deal of charisma and his eyes, beaming through his spectacles into mine, were either those of a crazy loon or a...heh...a crazy loon. his lips moved and i believe i heard him say, "life is a privilege!" at that point, i think i shook my head and whispered to the guy next to me, "no it isn't." he nodded and i woke up. who was this old man, this philosopher in my dream, preaching to a few out of a hundred people who were too busy socializing to even consider responsibility, creation...art. of course, this man was the most interesting person in that dream's room, in the house relying on space stilts. but that didn't mean anything. the rest of the house's occupants were busy chewing the fat, waiting, playing games, playing a waiting game. those crazy enough to listen, including myself, to sartre all looked upon him with admiration and respect; he had done it alone and had come back with something important to tell us, the very thing all the other minglers in the room could not. as johnson says of these people in 'already dead', "for them, the darker alleys of thought had been clearly marked at the entrances." somehow, those of us who were listening to sartre ramble on, had missed those markings. and while the others waited, playing chutes and ladders, we watched countless backsides and heard, as if miles away, the distant warmth of laughter and abandon. and we were all in this house. in space. on stilts.already dead, like other johnson novels, pins your imagination onto the 'ends-of-the-tether' you'll likely find somewhere in the middle of a state, the middle of america. not those hard-working, straight-edge, good folk, rather the hyper-intellectual, drug-addict philosophers on the brink of madness seem more johnson's forte. i don't know of anyone else who breathes such brilliant life into such otherwise dark characters as johnson can. his prose is remarkable here; elaborate and often erotic, and he somehow always comes up with a balanced description of the setting and his character's monologue to create a coastal-california town in all of it's 300 resident glory. bushido, the way of the samurai, the art of removing yourself from your body so as to give fully one's respected physical abilities to a retainer, is mentioned by one of those californians. he contracts his own samurai, deals drugs, and sleeps around with a hippie girl who lives, spiritually, 300 feet above her trailer in the redwood forest, presumably due to drugs. his samurai, an ex-merchant marine who can mentally bore the life right out of one's head, with his love for nietzsche and a creepy handle-bar mustache, makes johnson write, what do we know about truth, "there are enlightened ones all over, taking the form of perfectly-functioning failures." already dead, like jesus' son (which one should prolly read as johnson's first), is a bleak- on-the-outside/love-on-the-inside type story, and although i don't know what that means, i think it has something to do with johnson's ability to bandage his character's despair with compassion, humor, and some sort of weird hybrid of philosophy, metaphysics, psychology, and religion, all piled into one unique voice, which, i believe, is johnson's way of conveying god (if that helps). i hurry through all of johnson's writing, but i was totally absorbed with already dead, so much so i read twice in a row, and like `jesus' son' will probably grab top honors in my head, as i rummage through my thoughts, hoping to bring something to the party...something that will knock `em dead, like johnson has here.
Rating:
Summary: drugs, sex, murder, and johnson's prose
Review: Lately, i've been dreaming about philosophers. a few weeks ago, i dreamt of a small house on a stilt hoisted in space up from some great depth i didn't bother looking down into. in the house, the french existentialist sartre was quietly lecturing a few people out of the many who weren't listening. he spoke with a great deal of charisma and his eyes, beaming through his spectacles into mine, were either those of a crazy loon or a...heh...a crazy loon. his lips moved and i believe i heard him say, "life is a privilege!" at that point, i think i shook my head and whispered to the guy next to me, "no it isn't." he nodded and i woke up. who was this old man, this philosopher in my dream, preaching to a few out of a hundred people who were too busy socializing to even consider responsibility, creation...art. of course, this man was the most interesting person in that dream's room, in the house relying on space stilts. but that didn't mean anything. the rest of the house's occupants were busy chewing the fat, waiting, playing games, playing a waiting game. those crazy enough to listen, including myself, to sartre all looked upon him with admiration and respect; he had done it alone and had come back with something important to tell us, the very thing all the other minglers in the room could not. as johnson says of these people in 'already dead', "for them, the darker alleys of thought had been clearly marked at the entrances." somehow, those of us who were listening to sartre ramble on, had missed those markings. and while the others waited, playing chutes and ladders, we watched countless backsides and heard, as if miles away, the distant warmth of laughter and abandon. and we were all in this house. in space. on stilts. already dead, like other johnson novels, pins your imagination onto the 'ends-of-the-tether' you'll likely find somewhere in the middle of a state, the middle of america. not those hard-working, straight-edge, good folk, rather the hyper-intellectual, drug-addict philosophers on the brink of madness seem more johnson's forte. i don't know of anyone else who breathes such brilliant life into such otherwise dark characters as johnson can. his prose is remarkable here; elaborate and often erotic, and he somehow always comes up with a balanced description of the setting and his character's monologue to create a coastal-california town in all of it's 300 resident glory. bushido, the way of the samurai, the art of removing yourself from your body so as to give fully one's respected physical abilities to a retainer, is mentioned by one of those californians. he contracts his own samurai, deals drugs, and sleeps around with a hippie girl who lives, spiritually, 300 feet above her trailer in the redwood forest, presumably due to drugs. his samurai, an ex-merchant marine who can mentally bore the life right out of one's head, with his love for nietzsche and a creepy handle-bar mustache, makes johnson write, what do we know about truth, "there are enlightened ones all over, taking the form of perfectly-functioning failures." already dead, like jesus' son (which one should prolly read as johnson's first), is a bleak- on-the-outside/love-on-the-inside type story, and although i don't know what that means, i think it has something to do with johnson's ability to bandage his character's despair with compassion, humor, and some sort of weird hybrid of philosophy, metaphysics, psychology, and religion, all piled into one unique voice, which, i believe, is johnson's way of conveying god (if that helps). i hurry through all of johnson's writing, but i was totally absorbed with already dead, so much so i read twice in a row, and like 'jesus' son' will probably grab top honors in my head, as i rummage through my thoughts, hoping to bring something to the party...something that will knock 'em dead, like johnson has here.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic poetry
Review: Not as intriguing as his short stories or even his poetry, but it still is an amazing book, nonetheless. Denis Johnson is an amazingly gifted poet, and this book is the epitome of "a novel written by a poet." The book starts out fairly conventionally, and has the reader hoping for a gothic look at the underbelly of Northern California (where I suspect he has spent little time). But it's not too long before you realize that things are going to get a bit screwy. Demons, possession, channeling are all normal here, and Johnson tries to pull off a story that can combine such fantastical themes with the reality of everyday life in a rural background. He doesn't do that so well. While some of the New Age and demonic passages are truly inspired, most just take away from the amazing language and ideas that Johnson creates throughout the text. "Already Dead" is not equipped with an engrossing plot or developed characters (who knows which demon is really in possession of which character anyway?) The novel's plot is pretty much wrapped up in the first 200 pages or so. But Johnson can do remarkable things with words, and this novel is certainly evident of that. I know that I'll be ridiculed for doing so, but I kinda look at the book as an extended prose poem (I know that the story is based on a song or poem by someone.) And despite the fact that I knew what was going to happen (or what had already happened?), it kept me involved and left me truly breathless. All in all, a inimitable look into the creative imagination and skill of one of today's best poets.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic poetry
Review: Not as intriguing as his short stories or even his poetry, but it still is an amazing book, nonetheless. Denis Johnson is an amazingly gifted poet, and this book is the epitome of "a novel written by a poet." The book starts out fairly conventionally, and has the reader hoping for a gothic look at the underbelly of Northern California (where I suspect he has spent little time). But it's not too long before you realize that things are going to get a bit screwy. Demons, possession, channeling are all normal here, and Johnson tries to pull off a story that can combine such fantastical themes with the reality of everyday life in a rural background. He doesn't do that so well. While some of the New Age and demonic passages are truly inspired, most just take away from the amazing language and ideas that Johnson creates throughout the text. "Already Dead" is not equipped with an engrossing plot or developed characters (who knows which demon is really in possession of which character anyway?) The novel's plot is pretty much wrapped up in the first 200 pages or so. But Johnson can do remarkable things with words, and this novel is certainly evident of that. I know that I'll be ridiculed for doing so, but I kinda look at the book as an extended prose poem (I know that the story is based on a song or poem by someone.) And despite the fact that I knew what was going to happen (or what had already happened?), it kept me involved and left me truly breathless. All in all, a inimitable look into the creative imagination and skill of one of today's best poets.
Rating: 
Summary: Tough Guys
Review: Not sure what Johnston was up to here. The similarities to Mailer's Tough Guys Don't Dance are huge: marijuana patches, seances, spirits, adultry, murder. Paying homage? Except the setting is the west coast instead of the east. The results are the same; is this the point? Really enjoyed it though. Amazing that he took more pages than Mailer!
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, Original
Review: One of the best books I have read in the last year or two. Six stars
Rating:
Summary: Made Road Kill Out of Me...
Review: One of the most tedious, convoluted, energy-sapping reads ever. Don't waste your time.
Rating:
Summary: Edgy....
Review: Some fiction tries to find the universals of what we know, find a path through which to say 'we are none of us alone' and touch the heart. Other fiction seeks out and walks along the edge of the collective human experience. This book falls in that second category. In this book, Johnson is clearly trying to apprehend and distill a particular human (or not so human) understanding of what is real and what is deadly. I'm not sure he succeeds, but the clarity of his wordsmithing and and the poignancy of his characters is achingly evocative to me. Stanislavsky (major theater teacher) used to talk about 'dead theater,' the form of theater in which form overrules communication and kills the heart. From this book, I'd say Johnson thinks there is such a thing as 'dead life' as well, a way of living that is so preoccupied with getting through the day and its challenges that whatever is real and vital about life has no chance of being lived. Johnson describes this by creating characters who live passionless extremes by rote, characters who ache for that vitality but are too afraid to go look for it, and characters who have died and been replaced in their living by some animus of animosity. Parts of the book are chilling in describing these forms of dead. A few other parts are just as successful in describing the sacred, the joyous, the touchingly beautiful. And his characters are complex and well-developed, many of them with a language and a voice all their own. While the wording is well-crafted, the characters multilayered and the thematic content sufficiently transparent without being overbearing, the plot wanders and dodges. Because of this the book fails, in the end, to cohere.
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