Reviews

The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson

blaineduncan's review against another edition

4.0

It’s a bit of a fault of mine that I shy away from short story collections, even those by authors I adore. There just is something about not having chapters to create natural pauses and not living with the characters over the course of the two hundred pages. I need something that keeps me coming back. With short story collections, I tend to put the book down for too long after finishing one of the tales. My preference would then lean towards reading short stories individually, outside of a collection. But when I heard that Denis Johnson was getting a posthumous release of short stories less than a year after his death from cancer, I was excited: Johnson’s Jesus’ Son, a renowned volume of stories, were so connected that they could almost be considered a novel. His novella Train Dreams is one of the best works in recent American prose.

The rest of the review here:

https://thealabamatake.wordpress.com/2018/02/07/the-finality-of-the-largesse-of-the-sea-maiden/

caffee's review against another edition

challenging reflective medium-paced

2.75

I liked the last story best but wasn't blown away by any of them.

stevienixit's review against another edition

Had one story left and had to put it down for a while. I’ll come back for the last one when the time is right. Denis Johnson’s particular flavor of beautiful melancholy isn’t quite right for this chapter of my life, but I’m glad I read what I did. Helped me jump out of a reading slump and remember what I loved about writing back when I first read Jesus’ Son all those years ago in college. 

heyep's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

booccmaster's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

megadeathvsbooks's review against another edition

2.0

Eh. I wanted to like these. It was a great cast reading them and I've heard rave reviews. But they just seemed like more stories from old white guys dealing with their mortality. And yes, I know they deal with it, as we all do. But I've read too many of these types of stories during my education. I'm ready for something else.

madif's review against another edition

reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

chillcox15's review against another edition

5.0

I was caught off-guard by how much I loved The Largesse of the Sea Maiden, considering I am only faintly appreciative of Jesus' Son and didn't like Train Dreams. Each of the five stories in this book, though, wowed me in many different ways. In the first story and again in the last two stories, Johnson seems to be wrestling with, and wringing humor out of, his aging and status as an achieved member of the literary/academic elite. The title story has some titillating experimentation with collage style narrative. In the second and third stories, The Starlight on Idaho and Strangler Bob, he's dealing with the hard-edged fiction of Jesus' Son, dealing with men in and out of the carceral state, and they were maybe the most aesthetically similar, but I don't hold that against them. The last story, "Dopplëganger, Poltergeist" was a mindblowingly excellent dissection of the American myth of Elvis, and our national nightmare of 9/11 and it should be put alongside Steve Erickson's Shadowbahn as a companion piece. Overall, a magnificent last collection of fiction from an author I'm eager to return to now and forever.

johnbradley2's review against another edition

5.0

An absolutely amazing collection, especially the final two stories. Well worth a read.

mosmoe's review against another edition

dark funny reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0