Denis Johnson was involved in a bit of
controversy, and he didn't seem to care. I saw him speak the day
after he heard (on the radio) that his novella, “Train Dreams,”
was named a Pulitzer finalist. The day after the committee announced
there was no award for fiction.
Johnson said he cared in 2008. He read
the news release congratulating Junot Diaz. He was happy for Diaz,
but when he reached the bottom of the report, he saw his name, listed
as a finalist, and got jealous. After finishing a piece of work,
Johnson thinks he should win every award. What was different this
year? “Train Dreams” was published in 2002 as a long story in The
Paris Review. In 2011 it got
repackaged and renoticed. He was amused.
People who have read Johnson can tell
that he's a writer's writer. Like most writer's writers, he obsesses
over words, language, sentence structure. He said that this obsession
is so bad that he can't read other people's work: he has a constant
urge to turn other peoples' words into his own. He lives one sentence
at a time. He writes one sentence at a time. Like great writing,
his is based in the immediate now.
Johnson's work frustrates me as much as
it fascinates me. I've realized that Johnson lacks direction, in
the best way possible: it's as if his purpose is the absence of
purpose. I'm starting to get used to the current of his writing. I'm
starting to get used to the current of my writing, which has a tendency live around the immediate now, drifting
into the past and future.
A professor once told me a truism: “Writing is difficult.” I am beginning to stop wondering, where is this going??? and starting to imagine where this is.
A professor once told me a truism: “Writing is difficult.” I am beginning to stop wondering, where is this going??? and starting to imagine where this is.
