Denis Johnson is that rare and wonderful thing: a lyrical writer with a brain. This is a collection of non-fiction essays he has published over the last 20 years, and it should win him many new fans who aren't familiar with his acclaimed fiction and poetry. The title, "Seek", is well chosen. Johnson presents himself as a seeker after truth, both physical and metaphysical. He brings with him an open mind, an open heart and genuine humility. "The Civil War in Hell" shows his visit to the heart of darkness of the Liberian civil war, where he views along with other journalists a videotape of the torture of the nations former dictator. The funny "Down Hard Six Times", an account of his honeymoon/gold-prospecting trip to Alaska is both a cautionary tale and a celebration of wilderness. The amazing "Hippies" is an exorciating satire of a drug-addled gathering of aging flower-children over Independence Day. He writes an amazinglyly sympathetic account of a Kenneth Copeland "Bikers for Jesus" rally: Johnson, who defines himself as a Christian, finds genuine religiosity among the weirdness. "Three Deserts" has some of the best writing about the American west I have ever encountered (Johnson lives full-time in northern Idaho.) The high point of the book for me is the stunning "The Militia in Me." Here Johnson gets past the hysteria about "right-wing militias" and, without minimizing their anti-semitism and extremism, sees them as within the well-established tradition of American anti-government, pro-freedom orneriness. In many ways, the West really is a different country and Johnson is well-aware of this, more so than many a provincial Eastern writer. This is a terrific book. Buy it immediately.

As the great author and prophet Copernicus again notes, human beings are pattern-seekers. They opt to give up richness of possibility in trade for predictability and familiarity. Even though none of these patterns ever fits any better than Cinderella's slipper fit her stepsisters. Human beings seek rigid, simple patterns that defy and impoverish their dynamic, multifaceted capacity. The one pattern that human beings have locked themselves into is the simple, rigid pattern of "God," even though there are many other patterns to use, including many that better accommodate their fluid, complexity. What "God" this may be is unclear, since they all seem to talk about the same one and since there have been at least 2,500 Gods concocted and documented during human history. Denis Johnson takes us to some of the margins of human society, where the only common theme is a desperate, fruitless, and vicious seeking -- the harshness and the brutality backed up by this ubiquitous "God." If we want to see the inadequacy of this pattern and start looking for better ones -- more congruent with our design and potential -- Denis Johnson's book might be one that begins to open our eyes.

After the slightness of THE NAME OF THE WORLD, and the somewhat scattered ALREADY DEAD, Johnson returns to the form that made JESUS' SON such a classic in this collection of articles. The standout is hands-down the last piece on his f**cked-up experiences in Liberia. Also good are the glimpses you get into Johnson's personal life, including his marriage and subsequent honeymoon in the wilds of Alaska, where they try to pan for the gold from which they plan to fashion their wedding rings; the highly disorganized hippie festival he goes to; the bikers for Jesus; his short piece on his brief stint as a Boy Scout. If you're already a Johnson fan, SEEK is cause for celebration.

Doubtless, Denis Johnson is an extraordinary writer of fiction: his stories and novels are terrifying, delightful, hilarious, and bleak. But it remains, even in the prose, the quality of the language, the strange otherworldly perceptions he distills to image and figure, that drives the work. JESUS' SON is a great work, as is ANGELS. The other novels and stories would be enough to give him a reputation as a first rate writer. But the poems! That's where he started, and if you want to see how he got where fiction has taken him, go to the poems. It's not like any other poetry. He's a kind of dark, dwarf Rilke, a kind of misbegotten, doesn't-want-to-be-bad-but-can't-help-it Neruda. Denis Johnson is not the sort of poet the Academy of American Poets will celebrate, and that says far more about the Academy than about Johnson. What I wish? Another collection of poems. Soon.

Denis Johnson's collection revives his long out-of-print "Man Among the Seals" and continues Johnson's life-long look at America's disenfranchised and marginalized. These poems have all kinds of surprises, both in subject matter and uses of language. Well worth buying, if you're interested in contemporary poetry.

A loosely connected collection of stories about a drugged-out low-life and his buddies, "Jesus' Son" is not the kind of book I usually read myself to sleep with... but I can't deny that the author is enormously talented. The stories seem random and fragmented, but they do manage to add up to a coherent whole, and this elliptical quality, I think, largely accounts for the book's power. Johnson manages to say a lot about the strange mystery of life in these pages, where comedy and tragedy frequently collide, lightning can strike anyone at any moment, and even the doomed can be saved.

Even so, the author sometimes strains too hard with his prose, which can be pretentiously "poetic." The stories are also a tad uneven in quality. Still, I'd recommend this book to any serious reader of fiction.

Jesus' Son

It's years now since I worked at the company. I can still hear Disch ranting. Two topics, every time we passed: get a Chris Whitley CD; get Jesus' Son. Disch was right, on both counts. I know that now.

Jesus' Son is really no more than a series of short stories about the exploits of one guy schlepping through his life. And the guy is a piece of work. He's a mess. A drug addict. Usually broke. And with a penchant for just bad situations. But I don't know. When you're reading it, it seems perfectly normal that he should be driving around with the equivalent of O'Connor's Misfit, watching the dissection of roadkill and suffocating bunnies. Not just like it could have been you, but that it is you. And that's the magic of Johnson.

... The only problem with the book is that it ends. The main character wanders from bad to worse and back again in a series of vignettes that read like redemptions. And they are. Not just for the character but for literature. Here's the thing: the book is like reading one long, perfect poem. The imagery is obscenely precise. Reading it is like taking a legal ride on a hallucinogenic. I know they say nothing is original. Bull. Johnson is and I'd defy anyone to argue the counterpoint.

Okay, so it isn't a book you give to Grandma. I'll give you that. If you are an avid reader, you'll like it. But if you're a writer, you should be smacked if you haven't read this yet. It's a writer's book. Most writers are masters of technique. Some are masters of art. Johnson is both, and then some. Without sugar, without contrivance and with so much edge you can cut yourself on the words.

If you write and you can put this book down without regret during your read, you should find another profession. Johnson is just that good.

Jesus' Son is a loosely-tied collection of short stories about the underside of the Mid- and Southwest. In most of them, the narrator is a strung-out twenty-something hospital worker who is either always looking for drugs, or hanging out with people who already found them.

Johnson does a great job intermingling beautiful language with tales of drug-addled losers who constantly fail themselves at every turn. His narrator's voice (always first-person) is genuine and engaging, never condescending. Where other authors struggle with matching less-educated narrators with their own writing skills, Johnson thrives, allowing his narrator to use subtly profound images without seeming authorially over-bearing.

Perhaps the book's greatest asset is its originality. No one else is writing about these people, and Johnson writes with the perspective of someone who has lived (grown?) among them. His portraits of hospital orderlies and back-country heroin addicts are windows on a world most readers will never approach, and that is exactly what books like this are for.

You can't really ask for much more in a short story collection -- interesting characters, original plots and settings, and varied explorations of a few themes, all drawn with subtly careful language.

In taking some settings that we all have unquestioned stereotypes about -- the midwest and hospitals, for example -- and scratching the surface, Johnson provides us with stories that almost *have* to be interesting. What happens when you follow someone home on the subway? What happens when you hide in some bushes, and watch a married couple eat dinner, every night? Johnson imagines some great answers to these questions.

In this way, he seems to have something in common with AM Homes, who writes about similar situations involving well-to-do suburbanites. But Johnson trades the soccer moms for people who escape easy type-casting, and thus, are mostly forgotten and ignored.

The book is an incredibly fast read -- you can probably get through the whole thing in about 2 1/2 hours, maybe less.

Like _The Stars At Noon_, which I recently finished, this novel follows its protagonist on a descending spiral. While _The Stars_ was told entirely from the point of view of one of the more unreliable narrators in contemporary American literature, _Hanged Man_ reveals more by having important truths come out in the course of conversations between characters (as compared to _Stars_, where conversations were determinedly non-informative).

Leonard English is haunted by a failed attempt at suicide. He has been left in limbo, feeling closer to god, further from life and not the least bit closer to any kind of truth. You become aware of his descent into paranoid delusion by other people's reactions to him because his own internal dialogue continues to make a sad sort of sense.

He pursues the truth about the Truth Infantry, a missing artist and his girlfriend's sexuality with distracted doggedness. Many of the connections that he makes between the facts are borne out by information that is revealed to the reader and to Lenny, but that Lenny fails to share in any coherent way with anyone else. The consequences are not good.

The prose in this book is unfailingly gorgeous. Denis Johnson has managed to get down on paper all those impressions that we have of the world around us when we are feeling terrible in that way that makes everything vivid, inter-related, menacing and beautiful.

Denis Johnson is one of our most talented writers and poets today. He may be underrated, and younger writers like Rick Moody overrated. Johnson is able to get to the soul of matters, to the loneliness that inflicts his protagonists, to an almost Pynchonesque far-fetched series of events that bring novelty to this work--and all using readable prose, evocative images, and unfailing dailogue that strike me, at least, as authentic. Goobers. This man's for us and generations to come.

It seems unlikely that anyone affluent and successful, or, to use a borrowed phrase, comfortable and powerless, would go in search of anything. Therefore Denis Johnson depicts characters in need, whose only true choices lie in how to fail, and they search endlessly for things, things as disparate as their own souls, meaning in the world, the love of another human being, a sensible ordering of their own thoughts. Their quests bear the taint of madness and of poetry - it is not surprising that they, his protagonists, not least Lenny English in this novel, cultivate ecstatic relationships with their gods, for such relationships blur all to readily into madness.
*
First and foremost Johnson is a poet. He prises moments and emotions from the depths of ordinariness and sets them wet and gleaming before our eyes. He gives us an insight into a human mind, its particular way of seeing (and avoiding) the world. Consequently, plot is of secondary importance, yet nevertheless this tale has twists and surprises enough to carry the reader steadily along, calmly swimming through events while waiting for the next unsettling insight, the next beautiful passage of prose.
*
It's also very funny. The humour can come from absurdity, or just from his ear for smart...conversation. He's read Kerouac and moved a long way on from there. In fact, Johnson is plain better than Kerouac.
*
If you like literature, then this novel is essential, as is Johnson's poetry, collected in "The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations Millenium General Assembly", and his short story collection "Jesus' Son".
*
It's interesting to compare what he's doing with the projects of other, perhaps more feted, contemporary American authors - say, Richard Powers or Don Delillo. For mine, Johnson has fathomed his own soul far deeper than either of these men, and he is not ashamed to expose himself, and he has sharpened his means of so doing. In contrast, Delillo's characters appear soulless, hiding from themselves and his readers; Powers presents people in fractions, their shiny sides open for view, with sneaky peeks at their libidos, and their darker sides miraculously forgotten or rationalised - both these writers of encyclopedic fiction feel almost cowardly when set beside Johnson's work, and neither of them can tell a joke; their prose is often laboured and stupidly erudite, with no hope of attaining the grace of Johnson's, yet their books are without doubt amongst the best being written today. So how good does that make Johnson? Most probably he is a god-forsaken genius. More people need to know about him. For the sake of the world, read his books and spread the word.

The events that occurred on September 11, 2001, changed the history of the United States forever. No longer are Americans fearless of other world powers, no matter how large or small, but now Americans are to some degree living in fear. Terrorist attacks can happen again today, tomorrow, a month from now or a year from now. There is no way to plan for the unexpected, even though cautionary levels are through the roof. The outcome of that fateful day changed American attitudes. The hatred felt toward the U.S. was overwhelming. I believe that if it would have been possible, there would not be a single American man, woman or child alive to tell the frightening tale. The history of the U.S. changed that day, and luckily, there is people left to tell about it and share stories and emotions.
Following Spetember 11, 2001, there has been numerous literary works that have popped up about the issue. One of these works is by William Heyen and is called September 11, 2001 American Writers Respond. This literary work is an anthology of 127 American writers that responded to the tragedy. The anthology is a collection of fiction writings, essays, and poetry and prose. What is amazing to me is that these writers were able to respond at all. Following the events, there was numbness throughout the U.S. Mass confusion and hysteria was going on. No one knew for sure who was involved, who was killed, or what the meaning behind the event was. It was as if, for Americans, the world had stopped moving for days at a time while they watched over and over again the planes crashing and the towers falling.
For months afterwards, news headlines and magazine covers were filled with pictures and stories of people's experiences and thoughts. This is what September 11, 2001 American Writers Respond is all about-experiences and thoughts. The stories and prose included in the anthology are by various writers throughout the U.S. and vary in length, depth, and character. This may be the only downfall of the anthology. If there was some uniformity to the pieces, I believe, the anthology would be much stronger. Nonetheless, the fact that the writers were able to capture their thoughts and emotions during this chaotic and emotionally charged time is all that matters, because these thoughts and emotions are exactly what everyone in the U.S. wanted, and in some ways needed.
Americans couldn't get enough of others thoughts and were also eager to share their own. Most of the pieces in the anthology explore the meaning behind the events, such as what does this say about humanity, what does this say about everyone's sense of well-being and why is the U.S. so hated. Some explore what should be done as a counterattack, and other simplier pieces, recollect what a particular writer was doing at the time of the incident. The reaction of the people to this tragedy is similar to when Kennedy was shot or when the U.S. first landed on the moon. Everyone talks about what they were doing. Curiosity is great but it is more than simple curiosity. A uniting of the nation came to pass, and the people want to feel as though they belong, as though they all shared a common experience and grew as a result of that experience. This also is what the anthology does for the reader.
One piece that particularly grabbed my attention was by Antler, and was taken from Skyscraper Apocalypse. The lines that made me grasp the events in a different light go as follows:

Have the winds blown enough
that by now all of us have breathed
particles of the burned-up corpese?
Sooner of later all of us will inhale
invisible remains of the incinerated victims...

I had never thought of the events in this light. Living in Wisconsin, and not knowing any victims, made me disengage myself from the tragedy in some ways. My life wasn't changed in a drastic manner so I didn't think about it constantly. However, when I read these lines, and I think that at this very moment I could be breathing someone's remains, makes me look and remember the tragedy in an altered way. This is also a major part of the anthology, looking at others perspectives and making them part of the larger picture. The people that lost their lives were live human beings, and even if I didn't know them, their death does make a difference in my life.
Overall the anthology was well put together. The writers all had something intellectual to contribute and did so in a meaningful manner. It is a mixture of works that makes the reader feel the tragedy all over again yet, at the end there is hope, even though nothing has been resolved at the time the anthology was published. The anthology's greater purpose, I believe, is to console and also to share thoughts and emotions, which at a time like this, as any psychologist would say, is very crucial.

We all know where we were on September 11th, 2001. Some of us were headed to work, others to school, some were with families and some were alone. We all know the thoughts that struck our minds as those airplanes struck those towers. Many of us would like to express the pain and emotion that we felt but are unable to find the words. That is why this book comes in handy.

At about 435 pages, September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond is an anthology featuring 120 writers. Loaded with first hand impressions penned only months within the attack on America, the book is a balanced mix of political response, personal reflection and artistic vision of the day that changed the world forever.

The anthology is Editor, William Heyen's effort to reflect the opinions and experiences of the world's people. It is a balanced representation of ideas, but hardly covers a fraction of the opinions and questions of all affected by the attack. And although it will never answer "why?" What it will do is let us express, empathize and identify with one another, not only as writers, not only as Americans, but as human beings.

September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond is a carefully put together anthology dealing with the attacks on the World Trade Center. This compilation contains pieces written by over 100 different authors and its diverse contents allow it to appeal to a variety of people.
Stylistically it is difficult to describe September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond because the genre is so widespread. The anthology includes poems, essays, short stories, fictional stories, non-fictional stories, letters, and poems-the list could continue. Each author has their own style yet the pieces have a way of fitting together and creating an amazing collection of artist's reactions to the events on September 11th. Authors like Daniela Gioseffi makes the reader laugh because she writes about an entertaining (and touching) conversation she has with a nine year old girl while authors like Fred Moramarco makes the reader cry because the contents of his poem include the final conversations of September 11th victim's lives. The different authors attempt to affect the reader in different ways creating an extremely effective anthology.
The pieces in the compilation of writings are arranged in alphabetical order by the author's last name. This unoriginal organization is actually a very effective technique used by the editor, William Heyen, because it leaves the reader in anticipation of what is left to come. Heyen could have organized the anthology by grouping similar pieces together but this option is undoubtedly inferior to his choice of arrangement. Because every author has a different point of view and style, the reader has no idea what to expect when they begin the next piece in the anthology. The reader may find two poems similar in content back to back, or an essay followed by a memoir with contents differing from one extreme to the next. The anticipation that builds within the reader regarding the content of the upcoming pieces makes September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond a book that people do not want to set down.
It is impossible to read September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond without questioning your own view on the attacks. The anthology represents an abundance of different points of view. From Muslims to Christians, Middle Eastern people to American people, presidential supporters to presidential protestors; every view is represented. One of the most amazing things about this collection of writings is the wide range of feelings it produces. There are pieces like "the window, at the moment of flame", by Alicia Ostriker, that produce feelings of anger and disbelief in many readers because it blames the Americans for the tragedy. There are also pieces like Richard Wilbur's "Letter" that produce nationalistic feelings and recreate a true sense of love and pride for America. A person's opinion of the nation and the attacks prior to reading September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond will definitely be challenged because of this book. Pieces such as "America United", by Ishmael Reed, force even the strongest supporter of the government to reevaluate the strength of our leaders and, consequently, take a second look at their own view on the matter. Initially some of the pieces included in the anthology may produce feelings of rage because the point of view of the reader and the author differ greatly. One of the things that make this anthology as effective as it is, however, is that the differing opinions (regardless of who the reader is) will be retaliated by another piece somewhere in the book. The anthology contains such a large variety of pieces that it is impossible for a person to not be able to identify and agree with at least one of the pieces.
It is inevitable that the attacks on September 11th had an affect on every American, but what is not as certain is the effects that it had on people other than Americans. September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond helps prove that the attacks were not simply an American tragedy, but rather a world tragedy. The anthology contains non-fictional stories such as "Sisters", by Karen Blomain, in which two American sisters are spending an ordinary day shopping in a flea market when the attacks occur. In this story the tragedy brings the American sisters together to mourn with Russians, Koreans, Latinos, and Indians. Many of the authors that are included in the anthology come from different cultures. The ability of this one book to cross cultures and force any reader to see the impact the tragedy had on people other than Americans is simply amazing. After reading this book it is impossible for a person to see the attacks as affecting only Americans, but instead the book forces readers to have feelings of empathy and respect for other cultures.
September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond is one of the most moving and motivational anthologies of today. Although the attacks on the World Trade Center occurred almost two years ago, it is still hard for people to cope with the tragedy. Books like this one help people (both Americans and non-Americans) deal with the truths of the attacks and come to the realization that they are not alone in whatever they are feeling. The amazing thing about September 11, 2001: American Writer's Respond is that it has the capabilities of touching every single person's life because of its diverse content. In a time period as dangerous emotional as this, people need to find a place to turn when they feel that there is nowhere left to go. Thankfully this book can be that place for anyone.

Sgt Johnson's book on the tiger stripe camouflague pattern and its variants is an excellent book. Indeed, it is the authoritative reference on the subject for some time. The authour's methodical sysmatization and meticulious research have certainly provided militaria collectors with highly rigourous technical standards.

Although this book is primarly for collectors, modelers and reenactors will find this book equally helpful in their research.

Nevertheless, there are a number of glaring oversights that detract from the book's overall value.
First, there's no index. Given the book's meticulous details and bewildering variety of tiger strip patterns, an index isn't merely useful; it's absolutely essential.
Second, there's no bibliography. Its absence is inexplicable; how is the collector, modeler, historian or reenactor supposed to learn more about this pattern and become more discerning without the primary and secondary sources? Especially since the book is primarily for them.
Third, I found the historical background of the tigerstrips rather too perfunctory.I would've appreciated to know how the French Indochinese lézard pattern evolved into the tiger strips
Fourth, spelling mistakes mar this book and it's unjustifiable considering that the book is sold by a professional publisher and its price tag
Finally, the authour makes cryptic referencs to the 1990 edition of the book. Yet when I looked at the inside page for the publication data, the book was published in 1999.
Despite these glaring oversights, which can be corrected in a subsequent reprint, this book is highly recommended

This is an EXCELLENT book about Vietnam War Tiger dtripe uniforms. THis is a book for experts or for whom wants to be the Tigerstripe uniform expert. If you like to study Vietnam War stuffs. THe last thing you want to miss is this book.

Is it a novel about *the* End of the World, the horrifying vestiges of a nuclear war? Or, is there something else at play, in this master writer's intriguing novel? On the one hand we have a fascinating examination of humanity rebuilding, picking up its own shattered pieces and putting itself back together. On the other hand, Johnson reminds us that The End of the World is, in many ways, both a collective and an individual experience.

One parralel (End of the-) World is the Fall of Saigon in 1975, for a refugee, Maria/Grandmother Wright. Against her experience, the novel is hinged. So too, Fiskadoro's coming of age ritual experience is also his own End of the World--the end of all that he once knew, and his rebirth as a new man.

In the end, Johnson asks us to reflect on memory and existence, and the subjectivity of life's great epochs. He leaves us with a novel not easily forgotten.

A friend gave me copies of Denis Johnson's "Fiskadoro" and "Already Dead," and told me to read "Fiskadoro" second since it was maybe too bizarre an introduction to the author's work. As a lover of the bizarre, I ignored his advice and read "Fiskadoro" first.

As noted by other reviewers, probably Johnson's greatest strength is his poetic and creative use of language. Like Bruno Schulz (as so brilliantly translated by Celina Wieniewski), he gives you sentences and paragraphs that are truly breathtaking, like unexpectedly stumbling across a scene of incredible beauty. Also like Schulz, Johnson is also quite adept at conveying dreamlike states of mind, and can inspire the conviction that delirium is more true than "objective" reality.

"Fiskadoro" can be called a science fiction book only in the most hair-splitting sense. It's not a druggy fantasy like the Carlos Castaneda books. Nor is it a cautionary tale warning us of the effects of nuclear devastation--although it certainly does convey some of those horrors very effectively. This is more of a psychological adventure, a meditation on human consciousness and being, with plenty of entertaining experiences along the way.

Johnson's humor is very sophisticated. It's a sign of his great skill that much of the humor is totally contextual, but nonetheless very amusing. His humor is not the knee-slapping variety, but more the awe-inspiring, thought-provoking variety. But very funny nonetheless.

Some of the imagery is so cinematic, so well described--with fairly ordinary language surrounding precisely the correct word to unlock the door to mysterious imaginings--that I would find myself thinking, "Wow...Can someone really do that with just words?" The guy is truly a gifted writer.

Occasionally, too, Johnson throws in a wise observation or imparts a philosophical nugget of the sort that a serious reader might jot down in a commonplace book, and that's always very rewarding.

The characterizations are less satisfying, for the most part. There are a number of very interesting characters, and we do get to know some of them pretty well, but I sensed a certain distance from most of the characters, except maybe Mr. Cheung. This is less a character-driven story than an idea-driven one. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but some readers may be disappointed by that.

The attempts of Mr. Cheung, gardener, clarinetist, and Manager of the "Miami Symphony Orchestra," to maintain a civilized sensibility in the face of choas and entropy are very touching. He reminded me of Mr. Tagomi in Philip K. Dick's "Man in the High Castle"--thoughtful, dignified, worried, prim, self-critical, conscientious, dogged, earnest. And Johnson does an excellent job of helping us see things through Mr. Cheung's eyes when he's the POV character.

I thought the latter portion of the book, after Fiskadoro himself goes through his transformation, was less satisfying than the earlier sections. (This may be because I embarked on that section the day after seeing the second part of the Ken Burns documentary on Mark Twain. Suddenly "Fiskadoro" seemed trivial in comparison to the monumental works of Clemens.) Even though some very intense things happen, the story became more symbolic and less emotionally involving for me in its concluding stages.

I was also a little put off by the growing feeling that the author regarded black and poor folks as very alien. Maybe that's unfair, but there's sometimes a condescending, patronizing vibe toward some of the characters. I prefer a writer who's in there with the characters to one who could be slumming. (Or is that my own prejudices rearing their hydra heads?)

Overall, though, I highly recommend "Fiskadoro." There is much more going on here than a beautiful writing style. Johnson shows you wonders, he embraces pain and fear and death as integral to life, and he reminds you that despite everything, life is precious and profound, and, yes, worth it--and sometimes strange in ways that are almost impossible to imagine. He gives you much to think about, but he slips the ideas in skillfully, organically, so that they appear in the light-bleached, desolate splendor of the landscape in a way that makes them seem like they always belonged there.

This is a glowing work, rendered in a luminous prose that seamlessly undulates between bright-pale caprice and dimmed, primitive(in tone, not execution) heaviness. Fiskadoro is a tale of the ancient human tribes of the future and Johnson is our masterful archeologist/anthropologist, an amnesiatic clairvoyant of the end of the world. We're presented with a post-apocalyptic glimpse of humanity's persistence in the lush yet devastated area south of the Florida Keys. It's a story about time's confluence, the ghosts of history's wandering presence in the present(our future), the self as a product of culture, the self as an ever dying vessel of forgetting, family, greed, born leaders, born failures, birth, death. To attempt to further encapsulate this novel is to truly do it a disservice for it unfolds magically before the reader's eyes, transports us far away to the here and now... if that makes any sense. Its somber tones(somber in the way a cello seems to lament at the same frequency of the heart) are moving, its compassion mixed with sudden moments of darkness is striking, its thematic, structural, and philosophical complexities are easily savored, devoured, drunk, basked in... for Johnson tells it with a sensitivity and a love and a vision that is both unique and rare(inspiring).

Johnson really is a great writer, and he does have a wonderful imagination, but there is one thing that - in the books of his that I've read - he consistently fails to do: he can never seem to create three-dimensional characters. He either settles for grotesques, or coasts on the beauty of his images and the poetry of his writing.

While this makes for a book that is well worth reading, it also makes Angels something of an unsatisfying read. The ending seems tacked on, the scenes of death and redemption (I won't go into it any more) don't really have any emotional weight, because I never really got to know the characters; they just seemed like random drifters - the traits that they did have were more suited for a movie screenplay, where every person only needs to have one characteristic - e.g. the cowardly brother. Several scenes, in fact, seemed to come straight from the movies - the crime that goes horribly wrong, for example. Sometimes, his prose redeems these rather predictable plot developments, but sometimes it seems like I'm watching a bunch of cardboard cutouts moving across a screen. Just because Johnson writes about drifters and outcasts doesn't mean that he is exempt from having to create real human beings, and a plot that doesn't seem drearily derivative.

That being said, the man does have a way with words - there are phrases that I can still remember, several months after I read the book: the drunks who 'stared out of their faces,' for example. But I would start elsewhere if you want to read Johnson. I think his gift is better suited for fantasy (Fiskadoro) or the short story (Jesus' Son); in both these books, his inability to create original and convincing characters is less of an aesthetic flaw than in Angels, where he has to get the reader to believe his depiction of the real world for several hundred pages.

The tragedy and doom that follows the characters of Johnson's first novel, as well as Johnson's gorgeous prose, make for one of the most compelling of all contemporary novels. This and Resusitation of a Hanged Man prove Johnson as a major writer with a unique literary vision. I've read this book four times, and each time found new elements to appreciate. My favorite contemporary work.

The tragedy and doom that follows the characters of Johnson's first novel, as well as Johnson's gorgeous prose, make for one of the most compelling of all contemporary novels. This and Resusitation of a Hanged Man prove Johnson as a major writer with a unique literary vision. I've read this book four times, and each time found new elements to appreciate. My favorite contemporary work.

P.S. I originally posted this way back in '99, and have since changed my e-address, so I'm reposting it. I have since read many other of Johnson's works - including his poetry - and must admit to being somewhat disappointed in comparison to the achievement and intensity of this book and Resusitation. If you were to read only one of Johnson's works, this - moreso than anything else (including Jesus' Son) - is the one.

This beautiful tome is more an art book cataloging the leaflets used during the Gulf War than it is a true textbook on how to use, create, design and disseminate propoganda. I bought it hoping to learn tricks of the trade, and instead I found precious little information beyond the provided examples.

Very well written with historical information on each leaflet. Intresting reading with translations and notes, and even the weight (stock) of the paper for propaganda leaflets . This is a great reference and educational guide on Psychological Warfare. A must read for all interested in the Gulf War, the military, and the human mind.

I received this beautiul book yesterday as a gift.Today I am ordering another copy to give to a friend. Visually the book is a delight. Messer, the young artist, captures the aging artist's eccentric personality and his stage in life with bold brushstrokes. The combination of fascinating paintings and a lively, engaging narrative make this an exquisite artbook not to be missed.