Seek: Reports from the Edges of America & Beyond

Riveting. Revolting. Raucous Denis Johnson delivers again!

Great essays by a great writer. Worth reading for the Africa essays alone

In the fiction of his that I have read Denis Johnson is such a splendid writer, with such a distinctive voice, that I was curious to read his non-fiction -- more properly, perhaps, his "journalism" -- as contained in SEEK. The pieces are somewhat uneven in quality and effect, but here too Johnson's prose is (often) scintillating -- reason in and of itself to read these pieces though most are now about twenty-five years old. There are thirteen pieces. The three best report on insane violence and mayhem in Africa -- two on the Civil War in Liberia (circa early 1990s) and the third on Somalia around the time of the withdrawal of United Nations forces (1995). Other subjects include a Rainbow Gathering in the Ochoco National Forest (mid-1990s); the Eagle Mountain Motorcycle Rally near Fort Worth, catering to "Bikers for Jesus"; the search in the Blue Ridge Mountains for the fugitive terrorist bomber Eric Robert Rudolph; and covering the First Gulf War from Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. I found all but one of the thirteen pieces interesting to at least some degree. The three about Africa were riveting. But, as mentioned, the real reason to read SEEK is for Johnson's writing. Here is the first paragraph of a report from Kabul, shortly after the Taliban had captured it: "The dogs hear the jets before they arrive overhead, so you get the dogs barking, the dogs yammering, every dog in the city of Kabul protesting the violence that approaches, then the shock waves of bomb blasts rubbing the windows, then the lights of the antiaircraft--some like red droplets whipped from a wand, others floating up like orange bubbles and bursting into smoky flares, and blinding, winking muzzle-bursts in the hills like a single light racing madly back and forth, and Stinger missiles rising on crimson tracers--all, for the first several seconds, in absolute silence; and then the distant knocking noises and little pops like ice cubes in a drink, no bigger than that, until nearer positions start up loudly enough to knock a person off a chair." And here is Johnson, known to his two Somalian comrades or escorts as "White Boy" or "Mike from Idaho", looking at the night sky while laying on a mat with those comrades as the three wait for a convoy to leave Mataban, Somalia for the coast: "'We' are me * * * and two Mohameds--Billeh from Mogadishu and the Lion from Lobopar. We're going to Mogadishu with extremely vague notions as to what happens then . . . 'The Lion'--I suppose Billeh's the Tin Man, and we're looking out for the Scarecrow--and naturally I'm Dorothy, and I guarantee you, Africa is as close as you can come to the Land of Oz, or as close as anybody would want to come. In the dark it seems as distant to the horizon as to the sky overhead. No moon tonight, only every star there ever was * * *."

Johnson is one of those authors whose novels I've picked up at bookstores and skimmed the jackets of countless times, but never reached the point of actually buying. However, this collection of eleven essays caught my attention and I figured I could dip into it for a brief taste of his writing. For some reason, the edition I have fail to indicate when they were originally written and/or published. This was incredibly irksome, especially in the travel pieces, in which the knowing the year would be very valuable context. In most cases it is easily deduced via the internet, but I can't fathom why the publishers didn't include this information. Beyond that distraction, the essays are almost uniformly well-written, and almost uniformly lacking in any striking insights. They can more or less be divided into three groups: journeys into the self, journeys into American subcultures, and journeys abroad. The journeys into the self include an account of his honeymoon panning for gold in Alaska, an inauspicious childhood flirtation with the Boy Scouts, and a meandering exploration of his own libertarian streak. The first two are well-told stories which fail to leave any lasting impression, and the last crumbles under the weight of its own overblown language. One stylistic tic that really grates is Johnson's use of the third person in referring to himself within many of the essays. Several times, I was part way through a piece only to realize that the person Johnson was writing about was actually himself -- it really doesn't work. The journeys into the American subculture are somewhat interesting, as pretty much any reasonably well-written account of a subculture will be. However, in them, Johnson seems to be surprised by things that seem like they should be rather obvious. For example, at a massive Christian biker rally, he seems surprised to find nice Christian bikers! And a huge hippie gathering proves to be eerily well-organized, wow, who'd a thunk those hippies could pull that off? Finally, in the North Carolina countryside where fugitive terrorist bomber Eric Rudolph was thought to hiding out, the locals prove to be rather sympathetic toward him. (The sublime epilogue to this essay is that two years after the book was published, Rudolph became the first FBI Top 10 fugitive arrested while dumpster diving.) The journeys abroad all take place in the early to mid-1990s, to countries in the midst of civil war (Liberia, Somalia and Afghanistan). These are vividly written examples of the journalist as subject of cosmic/comic misadventure and bearer of witness to horrible things. Johnson writes engagingly about his experiences, but the experiences themselves are no different than those of any foreign correspondent in a war zone. And since some 15+ years have passed since his experiences, one is left thirsty for an update or epilogue for each of these. On the whole, like a lot of essay collections, this is really of primary interest to those who are already fans of Johnson's writing. Others may find interesting tidbits here and there, but it's a pretty standard essay collection.

This book is well-written and highly entertaining. The imagery is astonishing and unexpected. If you are not familiar with Denis Johnson, you will find you will want to order another of his books to see what else he has to say.

I love D Johnson but only liked this book. What he says is great, always, his style amazing, but I thought he could have used a lot more editing, (which he gets a lot of in his fiction.) The Liberia piece is overlong, so is the Somalia one. But you get D Johnson reacting to..life.. and that's pretty priceless. It's like listening to your crazy uncle who's had a few too many...a treat.

a book of stories that I could thoroughly enjoy as I had stopped reading short stories each one is an adventure because the topics are all new reading Denis Johnson is something that I have done, quit and then w/this series of stories, will definitely start reading him again

These essays are great. I am planning a trip and these are getting me in the mood. If you like DJ, order with confidence.

Some of the stories are boring, but the good ones are fantastic. So it's totally worth it.