What do you think?
Rate this book
Fiskadoro
After the world has been virtually destroyed and the United States consists of only its southernmost reaches, it is the period of the Quarantine, the beginning of a new era for the youth Fiskadoro, Anthony Cheung, and Cheung's one-hundred-year-old grandmother
221 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
About the author
Denis Johnson
63 books2,129 followersPoet, playwright and author Denis Johnson 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).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 178 reviews
May 16, 2022
If there is one thing I can't fault Johnson's Fiskadoro for then that would be its startling originality: A boy taking clarinet lessons in a quarantined community located on the Keys of a post-apocalyptic Florida awash with voodoo cults, whilst also being part of a weird ritual involving the subincision of his genitals.
As it turned out, this was definitely the most ambitious novel I've read by Denis Johnson so far.
Just a shame it didn't materialize in the ways I'd hoped it would.
Mostly because I thought this fictional world was really hard to penetrate, and because of it's problematic dialect - which is a distorted fusion of English, Spanish and local slang.
With it being an end of the world scenario: the atmosphere being one of death, it wouldn't surprise anyone to learn that it's pretty bleak - although nowhere near the same level as something like 'The Road'. It's 60 years after the nuclear destruction, which, as far as I know, was started by the bombing of Nagasaki in 1945. So we're talking about some alternate future after World-War-Two.
A bad one obviously - as it's indicated that the Florida Keys and Cuba are the only inhabited places left on the planet.
There are multi-ethnic tribes that do still engage in basic human experiences - they like to fish, to joke, to drink, to have families, to listen to music, and to indulge in nights of passion. While the book takes it's title Fiskadoro from the boy of the same name, he actually only features in about half of the narrative. Also present here are Mr. Cheung (Fiskadoro's music teacher) the Chinese manager of a band called the Miami Symphony Orchestra; his grandmother, who has flashbacks to the old world and her escape from the fall of Saigon; a group of Israelites who construct a boat to await the coming of Jah; and a cult leader who goes by the name of Cassius Clay Sugar Ray. Of the three or four main characters they each represent a different search for wisdom. And it's the search for wisdom that is certainly another of the novel's key themes.
There is a spiritual/religious/hallucinatory thing going on here too. As Fiskadoro and Mr. Cheung's grandmother both delve to the bottom and brush with near death experiences, from which they bring back a better understanding of reality. Fiskadoro has a nightmarish experience at the hands of the nocturnal swamp people who have abducted him for the purpose of subincision. Through a state of delirium and a vision of annihilation, he emerges with a blank memory, but realizes he has gained deeper knowledge on hos return, and can now play the clarinet with ease.
An unflinching, surrealistic, and haunting coming-of-age/rite of passage story is about as best as I can describe this novel. There were parts of it I really admired, but equally other parts that left me dazed and confused. A pretty good book overall, but I wouldn't class it as one of my Johnson faves.
October 19, 2019
All the greats try it, the post-apocalyptic novel. Margaret Atwood has her Madaddam galaxy. Cormac McCarthy has his Road. Even Cunningham showed us some futuristic love in "Specimen Days." Etc.
But Johnson, an expert of the short story, does something extraordinary. If you didn't know this for the dystopian book it is supposed to be, it could pass for historical fic. The details are so refined, the loss of language is too real. Playing with different forms of existence, stasis, limbo, Fiskadoro takes its rightful place among those aforementioned End of Days literary efforts.
But Johnson, an expert of the short story, does something extraordinary. If you didn't know this for the dystopian book it is supposed to be, it could pass for historical fic. The details are so refined, the loss of language is too real. Playing with different forms of existence, stasis, limbo, Fiskadoro takes its rightful place among those aforementioned End of Days literary efforts.
January 3, 2022
"But we are human. Can we help it if sometimes we like to tell stories that want, as their holiest purpose, to excite us with pictures of danger and chaos?"
I re-read this book as part of my project to read all of Johnson's poetry and novels in publication order (it was his second novel after 3 poetry collections and his debut novel, Angels).
I was going to write a review of it, but I had forgotten I had already written the review that follows, which does a good job of saying what I wanted to say...
This is a book set 60 years after a nuclear holocaust. It is a dystopian view of a future where it seems only Florida Keys and Cuba have survived. As with most dystopian novels, some parts of the world we know carry over: we see a large, empty parking lot, songs by Jimmy Hendrix are played on the radio broadcasts from Cuba, there are Quonset huts decorated with parts from old cars. But the world Johnson creates is dream-like and disjointed. The whole book feels almost like reading a dream sequence. The geography of the area is separated into a number of very distinct locations that add to the feeling of dislocation.
But Fiskadoro isn’t really about the dystopian vision it inhabits. It is about "eternal recurrence" with history repeatedly repeating itself.
"The Cubans will come, the Manager recited to himself, the Quarantine won’t last forever. Everything we have, all we are, will meet its end, will be overcome, taken up, washed away. But everything came to an end before. Now it will happen again. Again and again."
There are elaborate side-plots such as Cassius Clay Sugar Ray who creates a cult by re-telling his adventures, drawing people in. But there are three main characters whose journeys we follow. Mr Cheung clings to his vague memories of the pre-apocalyptic world. He recites the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to himself, he recites the names of the American states, he is part of a society that pores over scraps of written information. He seems to be telling us that history must not be forgotten, even if it can't actually save us. His grandmother is the only survivor of the earlier civilisation and in her senility she lives in a world of memories of her escape from Saigon. The titular Fiskadoro is a young man under the tutelage of Mr. Cheung who has a nightmarish experience with the swamp people that returns him to his "real world" a changed person.
In the midst of these three stories, each character comes to some kind of epiphany or realisation.
All of this happens in the context of Johnson’s mastery of language. It might just be that I respond well to his writing, but he creates passages of prose that paint amazingly atmospheric pictures in my brain as I read:
"The sweat-shiny figures around him, crossed out continually by the shadows of smoke and the silhouettes of other dancers against the light of driftwood bonfires and the blazing kettles of radioactive fuel oil, cried, 'Rapto!' and so did Fiskadoro. 'Rapto! Rapto!'"
I don’t know how visual your reading experience is, but I know mine is more visual when reading Johnson than with any other author I have so far experienced:
"Sometimes, but not all the time, when he read to Mr. Cheung from one the books the teacher brought around, instead of marks on a page Fiskadoro saw images in his mind."
This might not rise to the heights of my favourite works by Johnson (e.g. Jesus' Son, Train Dreams and the recent The Largesse of the Sea Maiden), but it is still intensely poetic and a pleasure to read.
I re-read this book as part of my project to read all of Johnson's poetry and novels in publication order (it was his second novel after 3 poetry collections and his debut novel, Angels).
I was going to write a review of it, but I had forgotten I had already written the review that follows, which does a good job of saying what I wanted to say...
This is a book set 60 years after a nuclear holocaust. It is a dystopian view of a future where it seems only Florida Keys and Cuba have survived. As with most dystopian novels, some parts of the world we know carry over: we see a large, empty parking lot, songs by Jimmy Hendrix are played on the radio broadcasts from Cuba, there are Quonset huts decorated with parts from old cars. But the world Johnson creates is dream-like and disjointed. The whole book feels almost like reading a dream sequence. The geography of the area is separated into a number of very distinct locations that add to the feeling of dislocation.
But Fiskadoro isn’t really about the dystopian vision it inhabits. It is about "eternal recurrence" with history repeatedly repeating itself.
"The Cubans will come, the Manager recited to himself, the Quarantine won’t last forever. Everything we have, all we are, will meet its end, will be overcome, taken up, washed away. But everything came to an end before. Now it will happen again. Again and again."
There are elaborate side-plots such as Cassius Clay Sugar Ray who creates a cult by re-telling his adventures, drawing people in. But there are three main characters whose journeys we follow. Mr Cheung clings to his vague memories of the pre-apocalyptic world. He recites the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to himself, he recites the names of the American states, he is part of a society that pores over scraps of written information. He seems to be telling us that history must not be forgotten, even if it can't actually save us. His grandmother is the only survivor of the earlier civilisation and in her senility she lives in a world of memories of her escape from Saigon. The titular Fiskadoro is a young man under the tutelage of Mr. Cheung who has a nightmarish experience with the swamp people that returns him to his "real world" a changed person.
In the midst of these three stories, each character comes to some kind of epiphany or realisation.
All of this happens in the context of Johnson’s mastery of language. It might just be that I respond well to his writing, but he creates passages of prose that paint amazingly atmospheric pictures in my brain as I read:
"The sweat-shiny figures around him, crossed out continually by the shadows of smoke and the silhouettes of other dancers against the light of driftwood bonfires and the blazing kettles of radioactive fuel oil, cried, 'Rapto!' and so did Fiskadoro. 'Rapto! Rapto!'"
I don’t know how visual your reading experience is, but I know mine is more visual when reading Johnson than with any other author I have so far experienced:
"Sometimes, but not all the time, when he read to Mr. Cheung from one the books the teacher brought around, instead of marks on a page Fiskadoro saw images in his mind."
This might not rise to the heights of my favourite works by Johnson (e.g. Jesus' Son, Train Dreams and the recent The Largesse of the Sea Maiden), but it is still intensely poetic and a pleasure to read.
April 24, 2022
Τέταρτο βιβλίο του Ντένις Τζόνσον που διαβάζω, μετά το "Άγγελοι" και το "Τ' αστέρια του απομεσήμερου" που διάβασα το 2011 (πρέπει να τα ξαναδιαβάσω σύντομα αυτά τα δυο, και ειδικά το πρώτο), καθώς και τη συλλογή διηγημάτων "Η γενναιοδωρία της γοργόνας" που διάβασα το 2019, ήταν και αυτό πολύ καλό και ιδιαίτερο, αν και ίσως το πιο αδύναμο και παράξενο από τα τέσσερα. Κάπου διάβασα ότι τούτο το βιβλίο μπορεί να το έγραφε ο Χέρμαν Μέλβιλ αν ζούσε σήμερα και μελετούσε ανόμοια βιβλία σαν τη Βίβλο, την Έρημη Χώρα, το Φαρενάιτ 451 και το Dog Soldiers, αν είχε δει κάμποσες φορές τον Πόλεμο των Άστρων και το Αποκάλυψη Τώρα, όντας φτιαγμένος με LSD και ακούγοντας ώρες ατελείωτες Τζίμι Χέντριξ και Ρόλινγκ Στόουνς... ε, δύσκολα θα μπορούσε να περιγράψει κανείς καλύτερα το "Φισκαντόρο" -ένα αρκετά παράξενο και περίεργο μετά-αποκαλυπτικό μυθιστόρημα-, καθώς και την αίσθηση που αφήνει στους αναγνώστες όταν τελειώσει. Το βιβλίο έχει πυρετώδη και υποβλητική ατμόσφαιρα, ενώ η γραφή του Τζόνσον είναι πότε ποιητική και παραισθησιακή και πότε σκληρή, σίγουρα όχι για όλα τα γούστα και όλες τις ώρες, αλλά προσωπικά μου άρεσε πολύ, αν μη τι άλλο ο συγγραφέας κατάφερε να δημιουργήσει κάμποσες εικόνες άγριας ομορφιάς. Γενικά, είναι ένα μυθιστόρημα που χάρη στα σκηνικά, την ατμόσφαιρα και φυσικά τη γραφή με κράτησε δέσμιό του από την αρχή μέχρι το τέλος, χωρίς βέβαια να με ενθουσιάσει κιόλας (σίγουρα μπορώ να κατανοήσω όσους το διαβάσουν και δεν ικανοποιηθούν). 7.5/10
April 7, 2019
I'm having trouble understanding what exactly DJ was aiming for with this post-apocalyptic novel. The story itself is just okay. Focusing around a couple of characters, the present day plot is forgettable. The flashbacks to the crisis itself were much more interesting. Mr. Cheung and his grandmother try almost desperately to cling to those memories of life before the apocalyptic event. This suggests that the theme may be associated with memories and our longing to tie our lives to past events. Our desire to be a part of something bigger than ourselves maybe.
The impressive Johnson prose is there though. And I liked the blend of cultures and languages that Johnson uses to make up the surviving society of the South Keys.
Overall, though, this novel is really just okay and is mostly for the DJ completionists out there.
The impressive Johnson prose is there though. And I liked the blend of cultures and languages that Johnson uses to make up the surviving society of the South Keys.
Overall, though, this novel is really just okay and is mostly for the DJ completionists out there.
April 6, 2023
This is an adventurous, and I suspect experimental, novel from Denis Johnson, published in 1985 and set at some time around 2050.
Nuclear destruction has come and gone and left a few grimly primitive communities just about surviving on the Florida Keys. One such community is the focus of the piece, one that is in quarantine.
There are no machines, language is a slang hybrid and Spanish and English, pirates threaten fishing boats, and a form of cancer is common, and is pretty much a death sentence.
One survivor, Cheung, an ex-member of the Miami Symphony Orchestra, hangs on to the vestiges of civilisation and its culture, he has a small library of books now seen as being sacred, he maintains a bunch of musicians, though they have no instruments.
A 13 year old boy, Fiskadoro, arrives at his shack one day, with a clarinet, asking to be taught how to play.
This is a complex fantasy, packed with as many philosophical interpretations as the reader may choose to look for.
It’s best enjoyed by not looking too deeply for them as Johnson’s mind wanders, as to do so is ultimately disappointing. Rather, see it as a daring piece of writing, with some impressive parts that Johnson is renowned for in much of his earlier work.
It has relevance for today also.
Simply summarised, it’s an America with the American Dream taken away. There’s not a lot left.
He said himself of it..
Nuclear destruction has come and gone and left a few grimly primitive communities just about surviving on the Florida Keys. One such community is the focus of the piece, one that is in quarantine.
There are no machines, language is a slang hybrid and Spanish and English, pirates threaten fishing boats, and a form of cancer is common, and is pretty much a death sentence.
One survivor, Cheung, an ex-member of the Miami Symphony Orchestra, hangs on to the vestiges of civilisation and its culture, he has a small library of books now seen as being sacred, he maintains a bunch of musicians, though they have no instruments.
A 13 year old boy, Fiskadoro, arrives at his shack one day, with a clarinet, asking to be taught how to play.
This is a complex fantasy, packed with as many philosophical interpretations as the reader may choose to look for.
It’s best enjoyed by not looking too deeply for them as Johnson’s mind wanders, as to do so is ultimately disappointing. Rather, see it as a daring piece of writing, with some impressive parts that Johnson is renowned for in much of his earlier work.
It has relevance for today also.
Simply summarised, it’s an America with the American Dream taken away. There’s not a lot left.
He said himself of it..
That book is America made bleak. If you take away the TVs, what’ve you got?
May 26, 2017
In an instance of the eerie, uncanny ways of the world, I finished what was either my third or fourth reread of Fiskadoro last night, with no knowledge whatsoever that Denis Johnson had already left us. It is a gutting loss.
Every time I revisit this book, I await breathlessly its final pages, like a child watching a movie he knows the end to but anticipates—and experiences—as though for the first time, every time. Some of the best writing, anywhere, ever. And of every novel I've read in this life, Fiskadoro has, quite possibly, my favorite last line. (Well, last two lines, really, so Woolf still holds the title for closing Mrs. Dalloway so perfectly with, "For there she was.")
The novel ends:
"And in her state of waking, she jerked awake. And from that waking, she woke up."
Grateful to Denis Johnson for waking us up from our waking, and I'm going to start, tomorrow, taking on those books of his I haven't yet gotten around to reading. Because life is unforgivingly short.
Every time I revisit this book, I await breathlessly its final pages, like a child watching a movie he knows the end to but anticipates—and experiences—as though for the first time, every time. Some of the best writing, anywhere, ever. And of every novel I've read in this life, Fiskadoro has, quite possibly, my favorite last line. (Well, last two lines, really, so Woolf still holds the title for closing Mrs. Dalloway so perfectly with, "For there she was.")
The novel ends:
"And in her state of waking, she jerked awake. And from that waking, she woke up."
Grateful to Denis Johnson for waking us up from our waking, and I'm going to start, tomorrow, taking on those books of his I haven't yet gotten around to reading. Because life is unforgivingly short.
December 24, 2014
I first read FISKADORO when it was published nearly 30 years ago. I'd read Johnson's poetry and his first novel, ANGELS, and I was beyond curious about his second novel. I recall being startled, delighted, surprised, and mystified (in a good way). I'm pleased to say FISKADORO holds up very well. It's still energetic and imaginative. It maintains its dystopian "edge" nicely too; Johnson's observations about American culture remain both harsh and revealing. Best of all, we have Johnson's long and remarkable career over the last three decades -- a career that enriches the context for this inventive novel. Despite the post-nuclear tragedy of its setting, there's something about FISKADORO's spirit and language that will keep this book on my "recommended reading" list, especially for other writers, for a long time.
December 23, 2020
The intriguing setting and beautiful language far outstrip the story, which is meager, vague and altogether forgettable. Dreaming, memory and forgetfulness are themes, so it makes sense that the whole book has a vague, impressionistic quality where you're not completely sure what is going on and nothing much seems to happen. Everyone and everything is just sort of floating along in a post-apocalyptic hellscape populated by impoverished, poisoned, and sometimes mutated survivors.
Johnson's prose is beautiful, as you would expect from the guy who wrote the ravishing Jesus' Son. Even in his first full novel he displays the lyricism and rhythm that make his writings a unique and invaluable work of art. In this case I just wish the typically gorgeous prose was in service of a less ephemeral story, one I could better sink my teeth into.
In a nutshell: if you have ever found yourself wondering what it would have been like had Italo Calvino beaten Margaret Atwood to writing Oryx and Crake, you would probably enjoy this book. If not, well. . .
Not Bad Reviews
@pointblaek
Johnson's prose is beautiful, as you would expect from the guy who wrote the ravishing Jesus' Son. Even in his first full novel he displays the lyricism and rhythm that make his writings a unique and invaluable work of art. In this case I just wish the typically gorgeous prose was in service of a less ephemeral story, one I could better sink my teeth into.
In a nutshell: if you have ever found yourself wondering what it would have been like had Italo Calvino beaten Margaret Atwood to writing Oryx and Crake, you would probably enjoy this book. If not, well. . .
Not Bad Reviews
@pointblaek
June 8, 2009
I thought about this for a long time. Well, a week. I still don't really know what to do with this book. Not in the unsatisfied way that By Night in Chile left me, but in a "huh, ok, so what" sort of way. Either something went way over my head or Johnson just really missed the mark with this one.
So, my response to this post-nuclear story set in Key West about people trying to hang on the threads of the culture they've lost while figuring out how to live in a new world is that I don't know what to do with it in a way that I think it will fade fast. HOWEVER the parts about the grandmother in Vietnam were very good, and if you happen upon the book, it's a pretty quick read and worthwhile just for those sections, if any.
So, my response to this post-nuclear story set in Key West about people trying to hang on the threads of the culture they've lost while figuring out how to live in a new world is that I don't know what to do with it in a way that I think it will fade fast. HOWEVER the parts about the grandmother in Vietnam were very good, and if you happen upon the book, it's a pretty quick read and worthwhile just for those sections, if any.
February 4, 2022
storm day meant i got to read this basically in one sitting. not my favourite Johnson but still pretty compelling. my most firmly held belief is that the advent of the atomic bomb heralded the official end of the Enlightenment and now it seems i can add Johnson to the list of luminaries who might agree
May 26, 2024
Parabola di apocalisse e redenzione, questo romanzo onirico, visionario, ambizioso, audace, surreale ma decisamente imperfetto -principalmente perché è un romanzo post-apocalittico che non parla mai dell'apocalisse né contestualizza la società in cui è ambientato-, è una gemma grezza di un giovane Denis Johnson ancora oscillante tra poesia e prosa.
È tutto un trip allucinato, temporale e saetta, di certo non inquadrato bene, senza cornice, senza chiodo, senza muro, tutto anima gravida e scosse elettriche.
Distopia o meglio ucronia sullo sfondo, e in primo piano il rito d'iniziazione di Fiskadoro quattordicenne tra stralci di reminescenze malinqudrate come i fantasmi di Dylan il gran poeta della pioggia scrosciante e Padre Nostro Bob Marley.
Ascoltami, ragazzo. Che io sia il tuo satana Overdoze affogato nel mezcal o Jah incrostato di fango, io Denis lo leggo cotto. Pieno di vino cattivo. Storpiato. Cogli occhi gonfi e rossi. Non lo devo capire. Voglio sentirlo come la botta della droga che scalda il corpo e inaridisce il cuore.
Denis è sempre una sfida, la chiave che sblocca sinapsi incastrate, l'olio che lubrifica ricordi schifosi. Vaghi nel nulla appiccicoso, disordinato e delirante, squarciato da echi di un Castaneda tribale post apocalittico ma anche nella notte della follia disperata, nella pioggia acida più fitta e corrosiva, vedi lampi di luce bianca e pura come un'ostia.
Il Fiskadoro risorto non vuole ricordare quello che sta perdendo. "In questo passato che rimpiango tanto, non ricordo che anche allora rimpiangevo il passato"
Ma senza le parole qual è il significato? Senza la memoria cos'è la conoscenza?
La fine arriva ciclica e la perdita di sé richiama la fame primordiale di un nuovo inizio nell'eterna ruota del samsara.
È tutto un trip allucinato, temporale e saetta, di certo non inquadrato bene, senza cornice, senza chiodo, senza muro, tutto anima gravida e scosse elettriche.
Distopia o meglio ucronia sullo sfondo, e in primo piano il rito d'iniziazione di Fiskadoro quattordicenne tra stralci di reminescenze malinqudrate come i fantasmi di Dylan il gran poeta della pioggia scrosciante e Padre Nostro Bob Marley.
Ascoltami, ragazzo. Che io sia il tuo satana Overdoze affogato nel mezcal o Jah incrostato di fango, io Denis lo leggo cotto. Pieno di vino cattivo. Storpiato. Cogli occhi gonfi e rossi. Non lo devo capire. Voglio sentirlo come la botta della droga che scalda il corpo e inaridisce il cuore.
Denis è sempre una sfida, la chiave che sblocca sinapsi incastrate, l'olio che lubrifica ricordi schifosi. Vaghi nel nulla appiccicoso, disordinato e delirante, squarciato da echi di un Castaneda tribale post apocalittico ma anche nella notte della follia disperata, nella pioggia acida più fitta e corrosiva, vedi lampi di luce bianca e pura come un'ostia.
Il Fiskadoro risorto non vuole ricordare quello che sta perdendo. "In questo passato che rimpiango tanto, non ricordo che anche allora rimpiangevo il passato"
Ma senza le parole qual è il significato? Senza la memoria cos'è la conoscenza?
La fine arriva ciclica e la perdita di sé richiama la fame primordiale di un nuovo inizio nell'eterna ruota del samsara.
May 25, 2022
There is no doubt that Denis Johnson was a brilliant, poetic writer but this didn’t always pan out because his subject matter was so diverse, partly due to a checkered past. He grew up not only a military brat but the son of a liaison officer between the USIA and the CIA, hence “Tree of Smoke”. He also spent his 20’s in a drug and alcohol haze, hence “Angels” and “Jesus’s Son”. Another brilliant and beautiful novel was “Train Dreams.” This was his attempt at a post-apocalyptic novel, something which obviously isn’t from experience, and it was a bit uneven for me (although any post-apocalyptic novel that begins with clarinet lessons already has something going for it!) Of course, the problem with this subject is that there have been a lot and although unfair, it’s hard to read one without comparing it to another.
The story takes place on an island that resembles Cuba after an apparent nuclear event. On the island are several enclaves of different ethnicities and backgrounds who trade and share with another. There are various storylines mostly involving the music professor, his student and the student’s family members. An entire culture has evolved there, with new rituals and customs, messiahs, marijuana, plus terrible stories about the mainland around Miami. It is a very interesting mix and this is done well but aa lot of this is a mix between superstition, myth, legend and fact but it was hard for me to separate them at times. In other hands, this might be called “magical realism” but it can equally be called “reinventing the past” since there are few people who can recall what exactly happened and it becomes a matter for them of combining all of the above to form a narrative.
For me, I may have had problems with the book because I’ve read too many post-apocalyptic stories and may not have been in the mood for something where it was hard to separate the parts and say what was really happening and what was just some poetic riff; I just couldn’t pin this book down. I’d certainly recommend it for the writing, less so for the storylines themselves, as well mixed and developed as they are. (By the way, “Fiskadoro” is an invented word which combines Portuguese and Spanish words for fisherman and harpooner, if I remember. I know, it’s so OBVIOUS…!!!)
The story takes place on an island that resembles Cuba after an apparent nuclear event. On the island are several enclaves of different ethnicities and backgrounds who trade and share with another. There are various storylines mostly involving the music professor, his student and the student’s family members. An entire culture has evolved there, with new rituals and customs, messiahs, marijuana, plus terrible stories about the mainland around Miami. It is a very interesting mix and this is done well but aa lot of this is a mix between superstition, myth, legend and fact but it was hard for me to separate them at times. In other hands, this might be called “magical realism” but it can equally be called “reinventing the past” since there are few people who can recall what exactly happened and it becomes a matter for them of combining all of the above to form a narrative.
For me, I may have had problems with the book because I’ve read too many post-apocalyptic stories and may not have been in the mood for something where it was hard to separate the parts and say what was really happening and what was just some poetic riff; I just couldn’t pin this book down. I’d certainly recommend it for the writing, less so for the storylines themselves, as well mixed and developed as they are. (By the way, “Fiskadoro” is an invented word which combines Portuguese and Spanish words for fisherman and harpooner, if I remember. I know, it’s so OBVIOUS…!!!)
January 7, 2015
OK, denis johnson re-read of 2015 is back on chronological track.
this one steps past my previously imagined limits of the DJ poetic imagination, vivid as it is. it is a sun-fried post-apocalyptic novel with an extended flashback to the fall of vietnam, set in a nuclear wintered key west, and revolving around 1) drowning 2) clarinets 3) chaotic suffering. in terms of raw storytelling materiel, johnson moves past the stark basic shapes of Angels into a much, much richer place. a lot of precise and effective imagery here. but Fiskadoro (named after the mainest character) doesn't have the same charisma, the same propulsiveness as Angels, or Stars at Noon for that matter. Johnson makes a pretty brave move in writing a huge chunk of the dialogue in a broken, atavistic spanglish-rasta patois. when it works the dialect doesn't add that much, when it doesn't it's a legit chore to puzzle out what the hell is going on. since the biggest chunk of the story related in this patois is a weird abduction/fever dream involving DIY adult circumcision with a rock and literally forgetting who you ever were, probably for the best that the intensity was throttled. that's from a readerly perspective. from the POV of a writing choice it makes more sense. this is a novel about the radiation sickness that is memory and being, so for language itself to corrode makes sense. but it does take a toll in terms of the feel of the book.
there is enough here for a more patient, less visionary writer to craft a ten book series of weird parrothead mad max stuff. johnson stops way short of that, turning int a jagged and fragmentary drive-by. still laced with killer one liners and descriptive language, although less than the usual. Train Dreams, one of my faves, comes from a similarly frantic place I think. I did not like reading this book that much, but I think I understand what the author was trying to accomplish. This also makes sense in the artistic heritage of reagan era nightmare fiction (blood meridian, american psycho, what else).
this one steps past my previously imagined limits of the DJ poetic imagination, vivid as it is. it is a sun-fried post-apocalyptic novel with an extended flashback to the fall of vietnam, set in a nuclear wintered key west, and revolving around 1) drowning 2) clarinets 3) chaotic suffering. in terms of raw storytelling materiel, johnson moves past the stark basic shapes of Angels into a much, much richer place. a lot of precise and effective imagery here. but Fiskadoro (named after the mainest character) doesn't have the same charisma, the same propulsiveness as Angels, or Stars at Noon for that matter. Johnson makes a pretty brave move in writing a huge chunk of the dialogue in a broken, atavistic spanglish-rasta patois. when it works the dialect doesn't add that much, when it doesn't it's a legit chore to puzzle out what the hell is going on. since the biggest chunk of the story related in this patois is a weird abduction/fever dream involving DIY adult circumcision with a rock and literally forgetting who you ever were, probably for the best that the intensity was throttled. that's from a readerly perspective. from the POV of a writing choice it makes more sense. this is a novel about the radiation sickness that is memory and being, so for language itself to corrode makes sense. but it does take a toll in terms of the feel of the book.
there is enough here for a more patient, less visionary writer to craft a ten book series of weird parrothead mad max stuff. johnson stops way short of that, turning int a jagged and fragmentary drive-by. still laced with killer one liners and descriptive language, although less than the usual. Train Dreams, one of my faves, comes from a similarly frantic place I think. I did not like reading this book that much, but I think I understand what the author was trying to accomplish. This also makes sense in the artistic heritage of reagan era nightmare fiction (blood meridian, american psycho, what else).
November 19, 2023
An eerie and surrealistic vision of survivors Mr Cheung and Fiskadoro trying to piece their lives together after the apocalypse. Dreamlike with images of water, fragmented memories, Jimi Hendrix, it’s not straightforward as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road; or any of the Ursula K LeGuin that I’ve read, but this novel is one of the strangest ones I’ve encountered, experimental and both exciting in its world building.
Note- read this in the middle of the 2020 Covid pandemic, and it couldn’t have been more timely.
Note- read this in the middle of the 2020 Covid pandemic, and it couldn’t have been more timely.
September 17, 2007
The last sad remnants of humanity cling to civilization in the Florida Keys. Not the most memorable of post-apocalyptic novels, but notable for having been written during the height of my own era of nuclear fears, the mid-1980s.
April 25, 2018
Like a dream you are struggling to remember.
Read
January 29, 2018I get the feeling that with Denis Johnson, I'm chasing the Tree of Smoke dragon.
I read Jesus' Son in college -- didn't much care for it -- and then only read Tree of Smoke because I'd heard such glowing things from people whose taste I respected. And I was floored by it, I really was.
Then I read Train Dreams. Meh.
Then I read Fiskadoro. Meh.
Mediocre post-apocalyptic fiction, designed as a mood-and-set piece, where the mood was fairly interesting, but the set did nothing for me.
I read Jesus' Son in college -- didn't much care for it -- and then only read Tree of Smoke because I'd heard such glowing things from people whose taste I respected. And I was floored by it, I really was.
Then I read Train Dreams. Meh.
Then I read Fiskadoro. Meh.
Mediocre post-apocalyptic fiction, designed as a mood-and-set piece, where the mood was fairly interesting, but the set did nothing for me.
April 23, 2024
Another stunning view of—or maybe from—the bottom of everything.
November 28, 2008
I am notoriously terrible at watching movies - the combination of a contrived story, the dark, siting still, and the hours between 8 and 10 in the evening are the lyre of Orpheus. I usually fall asleep twenty minutes into a movie and wake up twenty minutes before its over and think nothing happened, piecing the two ends of thing together with dream logic. I walk away feeling GOD I hate movies, how can anyone like these stupid things before realizing that I missed all the important parts that make for a compelling story.
I feel like that happened to me with this book, thought I am pretty certain that I bookmarked my spot when I did occasionally fall asleep. This has all the right elements: an author I like, the post-apocalypse, and most importantly, the suggestion of a friend whose tastes I trust. He brought this up during a discussion about The Road --he did not care for and I consider to be one of the most powerful books I've ever read-- saying this was a much more dynamic, interesting and believable traipse through the years after end of the world, citing one particular detail I won't disclose here that made me go "NOOOO WAY DUDE I gotta read that!"
I think dream logic is the mortar with which this thing was put together, but it was not that delicious, heavily perfumed kind that Garcia-Marquez uses; this was the haphazard, loose threads of actual dreams. The garbled patois of the post-apocalyptic inhabitant of the Florida keys and the uneasy interplay of customs that even the characters didn't understand made a believable case for what it would be like for the shell-shocked next generation to rebuild some sort of society out of the scraps, there is little talk of the bomb or what goes down in the Quarantine - they are stumbling through the process of living like people always do.
And maybe that is what is missing here - you don't feel a philosophical resolution here, or at least I didn't. I felt like I was missing something throughout this whole thing, some thread tethering me to the cosmic had been missed. You want this out of apocalyptic literature; the idea that we have learned something about ourselves in the destruction of the world. The truth is, we probably wouldn't learn anything and we would go about the business of rebuilding the absurdity of society in the shadow of the radioactive nightmare, dragging in fishing nets, being scared of other ethnic groups, practicing our weird little religions, wondering what those old silent grandma's are thinking up there on the porch. In that sense, this is likely a more realistic portrait of life after it all goes to shit than in the bleak, magnificent fable of The Road, but that is the kind of thing I tend to sleep right through.
I feel like that happened to me with this book, thought I am pretty certain that I bookmarked my spot when I did occasionally fall asleep. This has all the right elements: an author I like, the post-apocalypse, and most importantly, the suggestion of a friend whose tastes I trust. He brought this up during a discussion about The Road --he did not care for and I consider to be one of the most powerful books I've ever read-- saying this was a much more dynamic, interesting and believable traipse through the years after end of the world, citing one particular detail I won't disclose here that made me go "NOOOO WAY DUDE I gotta read that!"
I think dream logic is the mortar with which this thing was put together, but it was not that delicious, heavily perfumed kind that Garcia-Marquez uses; this was the haphazard, loose threads of actual dreams. The garbled patois of the post-apocalyptic inhabitant of the Florida keys and the uneasy interplay of customs that even the characters didn't understand made a believable case for what it would be like for the shell-shocked next generation to rebuild some sort of society out of the scraps, there is little talk of the bomb or what goes down in the Quarantine - they are stumbling through the process of living like people always do.
And maybe that is what is missing here - you don't feel a philosophical resolution here, or at least I didn't. I felt like I was missing something throughout this whole thing, some thread tethering me to the cosmic had been missed. You want this out of apocalyptic literature; the idea that we have learned something about ourselves in the destruction of the world. The truth is, we probably wouldn't learn anything and we would go about the business of rebuilding the absurdity of society in the shadow of the radioactive nightmare, dragging in fishing nets, being scared of other ethnic groups, practicing our weird little religions, wondering what those old silent grandma's are thinking up there on the porch. In that sense, this is likely a more realistic portrait of life after it all goes to shit than in the bleak, magnificent fable of The Road, but that is the kind of thing I tend to sleep right through.
October 26, 2010
Denis Johnson’s second novel, Fiskadoro, hit shelves in the mid-eighties. It’s a post-nuclear apocalyptic narrative, and the tale might have been especially fitting given the context of the times, the Reagan era of the Cold War.
The story is set in Florida, where the few survivors remain, many years after nuclear Armageddon. The historical memory of people who live on the outskirts of land contaminated by radiation is fuzzy at best, and the novel has a surreal, hallucinatory quality about it. While Cheung, the mentor of young Fiskadoro, and an account of Cheung's grandmother, Marie, carry knowledge of a pre-nuclear past, earth’s inhabitants are generally multi-ethnic tribes without an understanding beyond their immediate needs, swamp people who cling to myth and superstition. It’s a lawless world where signs of civilization have passed beyond the brink of extinction.
I enjoyed Fiskadoro for the most part, although the storyline is mostly patchwork, and characters tended to blend into one another at times without distinction. Nevertheless, Johnson effectively portrays an intriguing, post- apocalyptic world, and reading his carefully crafted lines and wonderful prose is certainly a pleasure.
The story is set in Florida, where the few survivors remain, many years after nuclear Armageddon. The historical memory of people who live on the outskirts of land contaminated by radiation is fuzzy at best, and the novel has a surreal, hallucinatory quality about it. While Cheung, the mentor of young Fiskadoro, and an account of Cheung's grandmother, Marie, carry knowledge of a pre-nuclear past, earth’s inhabitants are generally multi-ethnic tribes without an understanding beyond their immediate needs, swamp people who cling to myth and superstition. It’s a lawless world where signs of civilization have passed beyond the brink of extinction.
I enjoyed Fiskadoro for the most part, although the storyline is mostly patchwork, and characters tended to blend into one another at times without distinction. Nevertheless, Johnson effectively portrays an intriguing, post- apocalyptic world, and reading his carefully crafted lines and wonderful prose is certainly a pleasure.
November 14, 2009
I didn't love this book, although I did sort of like the characters and the world that Johnson created. I think I know where Johnson was trying to go, but he never really got there. The book just fell flat and felt forced. The ending, I think, was the worst part. Just as the plot picked up and I started to really give a damn about any of the characters, the book ended. I will say that the parts about Mr. Cheung's grandmother were fantastic, and the section where Cheung thinks they have found the book with the answers in it had some nice sections. Most of the parts with Fiskadoro were just a little too nonsensical for me. I get that Johnson is being lyrical, but it's just a little too much here.
July 29, 2008
It's sort of a mistake to characterize this as a post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel, and genre fans may well be disappointed. In truth, it's more of a piece with Denis Johnson's other work, a story of marginalized people struggling to survive with limited means, jazzed up with Johnson's typicall dazzling prose. There's not a whole lot of narrative to be found here, so you may not feel terribly engaged at first, but stick with it--by the time you finish the book, you'll feel a deep affection for these bedraggled, soulful characters and their strange quarantined community in the Florida Keys. My only major complaint is that the flashback sections detailing Grandmother Wright's experiences in Vietnam drag on forever, feeling unnecessarily long. Otherwise, an odd, lovely little book.
June 20, 2019
This is a bit like Philip K Dick's Doctor Bloodmoney, but more successful overall. It's an oblique, zany after-the-bomb narrative featuring some memorable characters and interesting settings. Set in and around what used to be Key West (now named Twicetown for the two nuclear bombs that failed to detonate there), the story follows, for the most part, 14-year-old Fiskadoro and his clarinet teacher, Mr Cheung. The whole thing has an elegiac feel that works especially well here, especially in the context of Cheung's 100+ year-old grandmother, the last person alive to remember life before the holocaust.
February 2, 2024
Not shown; another half-star. This my seventh of the twice-shortlisted for the Pulitzer and National Book-Award-Winner, Denis Johnson's novels. So, yes, he is an accomplished writer of the type whose prose verges at times on the spectacular--an experiential tour de force that can be unnerving--his usually-lurid characters being vividly rendered in the extreme. You'd think he had survived a deployment to Vietnam, returning to struggle with its attendant demons in his mind. Recalling Hellish scenes that only an observer of its nightmarish, evil madness could ascribe to. That Coppolaesque/Kubrickian cinematic pastiche that we called "trippy" in college. Or, if you prefer, hallucinogenic. But you'd be wrong. He didn't serve in that rock 'n' roll, mind-f**ker war. But he was bedeviled, just the same. An alcoholic and a drug addict. That said, of the 400-500 books I've read in a lifetime--and being partial to war stuff, and also a fan of science fiction--am inclined, at least, to peruse their not-too-distant spin-off; post-apocalyptic fiction. And this is, without question, the strangest literature I've ever had the dubious experience of just getting through to the conclusion (to which I would still say is anybody's guess?). That the author can assume the random identities of the story's graphic characters so authentically and diametrically opposed is a testament to--well, to what?--a polyglot of Arabic, Islamic, Biblical, Southeast Asian, Spanglish influences with its mutated syntax that suffices for post-nuclear tribal tongues of illiterate survivors; pagan, multi-racial, self-mutilating, drugged-out, painted, Voodoo clans fending for themselves in the Florida Keys. They attend radioactive contaminated kerosene-fueled public bonfires on the beach listening to Hendrix and Dylan on "Cubaradio" in such bizarre places as Twicetown. So called because an atomic bomb/warhead/missle, whatever you call the doomsday device in question (two of them?) burrowed into the scattered wreckage of a building--courtesy of special delivery via the apocalypse--which was a "dud". But others were not. Attested to by the carnage of uninterrupted shifting miles of sand dunes and "breakwater" created by blackened hulks of autos with their brown-boned inhabitants at the wheel, incinerated from within and without on the evacuation routes trapped in the burning Everglades. When you read the NYT description of the book, it is the unfailing hook of a review that dares one NOT to pick it up. "A modern day Herman Melville." Hmmm. A stretch, obviously, but Fiskadoro--the protagonist's name--translated means "harpooner." The name sticks. Okay. Well, I did pick it up. And I read it cover-to-cover. And am still scratching my head. Say what?! And before my seven days were up for a refund, I just took it back. My own version of Twicetown. For duds. And whatever other mixed reactions may qualify defying all expectation. Or even a reviewable explanation. Like this one. A one-of-a-kind find of a twisted mind.
January 13, 2023
Φισκαντορο . Δεν ψαρευει απλα. Ειναι αυτος που καμακωνει.
Μια μυσταγωγικη παρασταση του Johnson στο εδω, το χθες, στο τώρα κ στο επεκεινα
Στον κολπο του Μεξικου , σε ολες τις πλευρες του, κυριαρχουν οι παραισθησεις
Εδω , αναμεσα απο τους βάλτους στο Μαιαμι , οι απλοι χωρικοι , αντιμετωπιζουν την φτώχεια κ την αρρωστεια με θαρρος κ τρέλλα
Εχουν την αναγκη να ζησουν κ κατι καλο να περιμενουν για να φυγουν απο τους εφιαλτες του σημερα
Η Θεά γιαγια Ραιτ, το ζωντανο παραδειγμα αναμεσά τους, ξέφυγε απο την κόλαση του Βιετναμ την κολαση του ναυαγιου της
Ακολουθησε με πιστη το φως, γνωριζοντας πως δεν θα μπορουσε να ειναι χειροτερα απο αυτα που επιβαλλει ο ανθροπως σε ανθρωπο
Ο φισκαντορο, ο μαθητης του εγγονου της γιαγιας, αθελα του κάνει το ιδιο, οταν χάνει τον πατερα του
κ εμεις απολαμβανουμε ενα αχρονο παραμυθι , γραφικοτητας , ελπιδας, μαυρης μαγείας, μελωδιας κ παραδοξολογιας
Μια μυσταγωγικη παρασταση του Johnson στο εδω, το χθες, στο τώρα κ στο επεκεινα
Στον κολπο του Μεξικου , σε ολες τις πλευρες του, κυριαρχουν οι παραισθησεις
Εδω , αναμεσα απο τους βάλτους στο Μαιαμι , οι απλοι χωρικοι , αντιμετωπιζουν την φτώχεια κ την αρρωστεια με θαρρος κ τρέλλα
Εχουν την αναγκη να ζησουν κ κατι καλο να περιμενουν για να φυγουν απο τους εφιαλτες του σημερα
Η Θεά γιαγια Ραιτ, το ζωντανο παραδειγμα αναμεσά τους, ξέφυγε απο την κόλαση του Βιετναμ την κολαση του ναυαγιου της
Ακολουθησε με πιστη το φως, γνωριζοντας πως δεν θα μπορουσε να ειναι χειροτερα απο αυτα που επιβαλλει ο ανθροπως σε ανθρωπο
Ο φισκαντορο, ο μαθητης του εγγονου της γιαγιας, αθελα του κάνει το ιδιο, οταν χάνει τον πατερα του
κ εμεις απολαμβανουμε ενα αχρονο παραμυθι , γραφικοτητας , ελπιδας, μαυρης μαγείας, μελωδιας κ παραδοξολογιας
June 15, 2024
Given the average rating, I’m shocked to find that this DJ is tied with (or possibly better than) Jesus’ Son for me. A post apocalyptic book that is nothing like what you’d expect. The destruction of language, DJ’s spiritual prose, and the episodes of memory and interior life are astonishing. Chapter 3 is an early highlight but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love every page of this ambitious work.
Not trying to say this book should be for everyone but from the moment I picked up my copy in B&N, not even knowing about it, not having read any DJ yet, I was filled with a sense of “I need to read this.” And, though you could call it uneven or wildly unconventional or misguided or anticlimactic. The dreams this book gave me were wonderful and strange. The book has rewired my brain and makes me want to be a better person. A more spiritual person. If I wasn’t all in on Johnson before, I certainly am now.
Not trying to say this book should be for everyone but from the moment I picked up my copy in B&N, not even knowing about it, not having read any DJ yet, I was filled with a sense of “I need to read this.” And, though you could call it uneven or wildly unconventional or misguided or anticlimactic. The dreams this book gave me were wonderful and strange. The book has rewired my brain and makes me want to be a better person. A more spiritual person. If I wasn’t all in on Johnson before, I certainly am now.
November 19, 2020
The survivors of a nuclear apocalypse start building a new life in the Key West area. The characters are charming. The dialogue is creative and fun to read. The author does a nice job of taking you into this small world. Perhaps the most engaging part of the tale is the background of Grandmother, who survived Vietnam and a couple days floating into nothingness, lost at sea. The novel is a slice of life, in a very small world, so it is not an epic.
August 22, 2019
A post-apocalyptic allegory that is so confusing and esoteric it must be literary!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 178 reviews