The Name of the World Pdf Summary
Michael Reed is a man going through the motions, numbed by the death of his wife and child. But when events force him to act as if he cares, he begins to find people who – against all expectation – help him through his private labyrinth.
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The Name of the World Review
3.0 out of 5 stars Mediocre by comparison with flashes of brilliance
Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2013
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If you haven’t experienced Johnson, stop reading this review right now and go find Jesus’ Son. It is arguably his best work–a nuanced, bitter, darkly hilarious short story collection, rivaled only perhaps by his most recent book, Train Dreams, an eloquent journey through early nineteenth century America. Both of these books are sparse and essentially perfect. The Name of the World, however, is less than perfect, in fact it pales in comparison to Jesus’ Son or Train Dreams. Absolutely and utterly pales.
Perhaps it is best to judge the book objectively, on its own spirited merits. Even with this thought in mind, however, The Name of the World is still a bit of a failure. The plot is languid (even at 127 pages), cold, and the narrator is entirely detached, the result of his wife and daughter’s death from a car accident some years earlier. The reader doesn’t really get to know the wife or daughter. Nor, really, the narrator himself. He mumbles and moves, ghost-like, through a college campus, often digressing, often asking the reader if his doomed vision makes any kind of lasting sense. The book truly falters around the halfway point with the introduction of a poorly-drawn manic pixie dream girl who plays the cello and shaves her private parts as a kind of performance art that the narrator tangentially connects to his own misfortune. There is nothing really to endear the reader to this girl, other than her alleged uniqueness that doesn’t exactly translate as anything too deep or affecting or, well, original. In fact, the entire novel–save a few gritty and beautiful passages which recall the bleak majesty of Jesus’ Son–is more or less unoriginal. It reads like it was written by an undergraduate honing his craft, not by the master of form and expression Johnson proved himself to be with the aforementioned collection. To readers of that book, this one will feel like a crippling disappointment. There are lines that sting and that ought to be savored, surely, particularly the last paragraph, and some sensory descriptions of farmland that Johnson does so well, but on the whole, the author seems to be essentially sleepwalking.
About Denis Johnson Author Of The Name of the World pdf Book
Poet, playwright and author Denis Johnson Author Of The Name of the World pdf Book 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, the National Book Award for Fiction (2007).
The Name of the World pdf, Paperback, Hardcover Book Information
- Publisher ‏ : ‎ Methuen Publishing Ltd; First Printing edition (January 1, 2001)
- Language ‏ : ‎ English
- ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0413771601
- ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0413771605
- Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.8 ounces
- Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.8 x 0.63 x 5.12 inches
- Customer Reviews: 4.0 out of 5 stars    74 ratings
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