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Name of the World
by
Denis Johnson
Comment on this title
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ISBN13:
9780060929657
ISBN10:
0060929650
Condition:
Standard
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$10.95
List Price:
$14.99
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Awards
Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award.
A
New York Times
Notable Book for 2000.
Voted one of the Top Five Novels of 2000 by
Salon.com
.
3.5
2
What Our Readers Are Saying
Share your thoughts on this title!
Average customer rating 3.5 (2 comments)
`
OneMansView
, February 08, 2010
(view all comments by OneMansView)
A strange summer indeed (3.5 *s) This very short novel is a reminiscence by now journalist Michael Reed in the early 1990s of an eventful, disjointed, and bizarre summer of a few years before at the age of fifty-three, when he was ending a desultory few years as a history instructor at an obscure mid-Western college. He had been a high school teacher and a high-level political aid to a Washington politician before a devastating tragedy struck his family with both his wife and only daughter being killed in a traffic accident on icy roads. Seldom does one find a character so detached from reality, living life in a perpetual fog, who manages to hold on to sufficient normalcy. But then again, his disengagement does not go unnoticed. In his fourth year at the college, he knows that he will not be retained. For one, he avoids departmental politics, as he usually fails to attend the monthly coffee klatches. In addition, a colleague, nearly crazy, has achieved some notoriety and must therefore be retained at his expense. At the last coffee, which he barely makes, he learns that the gathering is in his honor, celebrating his departure – a heartless manner of dismissal though accepted with equanimity. In his last few weeks in the college town, his behavior tends toward the unpredictable and reckless as he finds himself in new places where he encounters others, mostly academics, in some form of distress. He manages to get himself punched in a gambling casino by a person he met just hours before, and if that were not enough, he invites the repercussions of taunting a carload of boys with nothing better to do than respond. The most interesting person he meets is the mysterious Flower Cannon, a twenty-something, red-head artistic type who seems to turn up wherever Michael goes. She has a strange predilection for going sans-clothing and giving public performances on shaving in nether regions of her body, in addition to her other talents of painting, playing the cello, catering faculty meetings, etc. Michael is both drawn to her and repelled as eerie connections with his departed daughter are suggested when she explains the origin of her name. The book is not without its appeal. There is an unusual combination of bizarreness, starkness, and grittiness that commands attention. And there are any number of astute observations delivered by Michael in his contemplations of his life and surroundings. Yet one does have to contend with a story that is more than a little uneven that largely occurs in a pervasive haze. Michael’s dealings with Flower are a nagging loose end.
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`
rabbitrabbitz
, April 12, 2008
The protagonist & situation may seem somewhat stale initially, but there is something very compelling in Johnson's writing (the beautiful language?) that keeps the reader willing to go on; eventually the premise becomes credible and even mesmerizing.
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Product Details
ISBN:
9780060929657
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
04/14/2001
Publisher:
HarperCollins Publishers
Pages:
144
Height:
.38IN
Width:
5.42IN
Thickness:
.50
Number of Units:
1
Copyright Year:
2001
UPC Code:
2800060929659
Author:
Denis Johnson
Author:
Denis Johnson
Subject:
Loss
Subject:
Widowers
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
Loss (psychology)
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Subject:
Psychological fiction
Subject:
College teachers
Subject:
Middle west
$10.95
List Price:
$14.99
Used Trade Paperback
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Qty
Store
1
Burnside
1
Cedar Hills
This title in other editions
Used, Hardcover, $7.95
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