Reading as a Writer: "Emergency" by Denis Johnson

I admire the craft of writing shown in Denis Johnson's "Emergency." Johnson demonstrates a clear command of language without ever becoming convoluted. He brings a story that is as fresh as it is erratic -- patchy, even -- but all in aims at conveying a few themes and a wild, trippy tale that seems to have sprung out from the drug-luvin' counterculture of the late 60s.

Abstraction or Reality

To me, this story is really about abstraction and reality (in a literary sense), and as an extension, fantasy versus reality (in a symbolic sense). What we want may rarely be what we get, and we see that in this story. For example, Georgie is a character who, at heart it seems, really cares for others and wants to save them. This can be seen from his work in the hospital, as well as when he and Fuckhead run over a mother rabbit and cut the babies from inside her. Georgie desperately wants to feed them sugar and milk to save them. This, however, never becomes a reality -- mainly due to the characters' drug use and consequential negligence. This is one of the core elements of the story that dominates throughout: the fantasy/abstraction is that Georgie wants to be a savior, a healer, but the reality is that he is addicted to drugs and cannot actualize his desires.

Abstraction and reality can be seen in Johnson's writing as well. Where does the author draw the line between fantasy and reality? The story begins in relative abstraction: Georgie is mopping up the floor, which he sees as being stained with blood. To our narrator, appropriately christened "Fuckhead," the floor appears clean. Immediately, Johnson brings us into this world of what is real and what is not real, based on the perception of the characters and their hallucinations. It was a different time. Doing drugs was totally cool if you worked in a hospital.

The erratic writing style employed by Johnson helps to convey the sense of being stoned on whatever pharmaceutical cocktail the two main characters swallowed. Short sections dominate the first part of the story, shifting perspectives and introducing us to the lives of the characters. I really liked the disjointed nature of the different scenes. It threw me into the story.

When a man walks into the ER with a hunting knife lodged in his eye, the scene is relatively calm. One would expect that there would be some kind of panic, but the calm nature of all the characters is what really stuck out to me. This surprising feature of the scene made the story more memorable for me.

Surprising Language

On a closing note, I wanted to mention that Johnson's surprising language was something that I took away from this story. Throughout reading this short story, I found myself in awe of a few lines because of their bizarre-ness or because they made me laugh and were done well. Here are a couple of gold-star winners:

• "We'll get some milk and sugar and all that, and we'll raise them ourselves. They'll get as big as gorillas." (page 52) Whaaaaat?!! Rabbits as big as gorillas? I want some of what these guys are having.
• "A bull elk stood still in the pasture beyond the fence, giving off an air of authority and stupidity." (page 54) I just love the contrast here of "authority" and "stupidity." Somehow, this makes sense.