#528 Dundun- Denis Johnson

#528 Dundun- Denis Johnson

There is no honor among thieves…or drug addicts. Dundun has just accidentally shot McInness. It’s Dunduns birthday, he’s been smoking opium to honor the occasion and now he’s just shot someone. The narrator is the driver, and is doing this to curry favor in the group. They drive past endless fields of dying crops, in a futile attempt for salvation.

“It was a long straight road through dry fields as far as a person could see. You’d think the sky didn’t have any air in it, and the earth was made of paper. Rather than moving, we were just getting smaller and smaller.”

Unfortunately, sometimes there is no salvation to be had. McInnes dies in route and they dump the body. “Most of the farmers didn’t even plant anymore.”

Rating: 7-6-5-5 Total= 23

#363 Self-Design Faults in the Volvo 760 Turbo: A Manual

#363 Self-Design Faults in the Volvo 760 Turbo: A Manual

There are many different kinds of humor, but for the sake of this story, lets say there are only two. There is the kind of humor where something is funny and you laugh, physically, verbally, noticeably, etc. Then there is the type of humor where you cerebrally recognize something is funny, don’t actually laugh and say something like: “Hey, that clever.” Will Self writes this second type of humor. I sometimes find it clever, but never actually laugh out loud.

This is written as a car safety manual, containing sections headed: “instruments and Controls,” “Body and Interior,” “Starting and Driving,” “Wheel and Tyres.” What it really is a manifesto for urban adultery. Bill is trying to rationalize his infidelity and like the ego/id-driven male archetype, he connects sex with automobiles. See? Clever!

Rating: 7-8-6-6 Total= 27

#195 Jesus is Waiting- Amy Hempel

#195 Jesus is Waiting- Amy Hempel

A life of driving is a lonely thing. The narrator calls the act of driving a mediation or a drone. The same could be said about this story. The running thoughts get funny, and a little loopy but not too deep, and rarely meaningful, at least not to the reader. Just random brain dropping like:

“It is the day before Thanksgiving. According to the radio, people travel to their destination by car. One hundred percent if you count just me.”

“A good feeling when I see traffic cones. They weigh next to nothing and cannot hurt a car. That’s not why I mow them down.”

We don’t learn much about the driver, or the purpose of the driving. We are just riding along, watching through the passenger side window. The Title references an Al Green song.

Notable Passage: “The drive is determinedly a drive. Mostly it is just about the sounds of the car, or driving, of the fade-in and fade-out of the radio, the removal from everything but the moving body in a vehicle, of the is-ness of passing from here to there, of not being where you were, of Jesus waiting. Call it a meditation. Call it a drone. How else to approach Jesus that without history, without reason, without restraint?”

Rating 8-7-7-7 Total=29