WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.824 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:01.824 --> 00:00:08.050 align:middle line:90% 00:00:08.050 --> 00:00:11.950 align:middle line:84% OK, if you spend time among literary people-- 00:00:11.950 --> 00:00:13.110 align:middle line:90% down? 00:00:13.110 --> 00:00:14.260 align:middle line:90% Is that good? 00:00:14.260 --> 00:00:19.090 align:middle line:84% OK, if you spend time among literary people, writers, 00:00:19.090 --> 00:00:22.570 align:middle line:84% writers in training, culture vultures of every feather, 00:00:22.570 --> 00:00:24.910 align:middle line:84% the Amazon users who post all those book reviews-- 00:00:24.910 --> 00:00:25.980 align:middle line:90% God bless them. 00:00:25.980 --> 00:00:27.730 align:middle line:84% If you spend some time among these people, 00:00:27.730 --> 00:00:29.530 align:middle line:84% you'll eventually notice, on the subject 00:00:29.530 --> 00:00:33.250 align:middle line:84% of Denis Johnson's writing, a rare convergence of feeling. 00:00:33.250 --> 00:00:34.960 align:middle line:84% Get together readers who won't budge on, 00:00:34.960 --> 00:00:37.780 align:middle line:84% who would never admit the merits of certain other writers. 00:00:37.780 --> 00:00:39.100 align:middle line:90% And bring up Denis Johnson. 00:00:39.100 --> 00:00:41.470 align:middle line:84% And you'll witness a kind of melting. 00:00:41.470 --> 00:00:43.570 align:middle line:84% Occasionally, it's a grudging melting. 00:00:43.570 --> 00:00:46.160 align:middle line:84% But unmistakably, it is a melting. 00:00:46.160 --> 00:00:48.700 align:middle line:84% This is because so many of us find something to connect to 00:00:48.700 --> 00:00:50.110 align:middle line:90% in Denis Johnson's work. 00:00:50.110 --> 00:00:52.180 align:middle line:84% And the simple thing I'm trying to say 00:00:52.180 --> 00:00:54.040 align:middle line:84% is that his writing means a whole lot 00:00:54.040 --> 00:00:56.530 align:middle line:90% to a whole lot of people. 00:00:56.530 --> 00:00:58.990 align:middle line:84% Now why that is, here I should only speak for myself. 00:00:58.990 --> 00:01:00.490 align:middle line:84% First of all, there's that voice. 00:01:00.490 --> 00:01:03.850 align:middle line:84% Oh my gosh, that voice, strange and necessarily cruel 00:01:03.850 --> 00:01:06.040 align:middle line:84% but beautiful, forgiving, unforgiving 00:01:06.040 --> 00:01:08.710 align:middle line:84% in its terrible understanding of human nature. 00:01:08.710 --> 00:01:12.010 align:middle line:84% Some of my favorite poetry is Denis Johnson prose. 00:01:12.010 --> 00:01:15.010 align:middle line:84% And I know a number of you would say the same. 00:01:15.010 --> 00:01:17.707 align:middle line:84% Denis's voice is actually a multiplicity of voices. 00:01:17.707 --> 00:01:19.540 align:middle line:84% And this is the cause of much of the delight 00:01:19.540 --> 00:01:23.230 align:middle line:84% and satisfaction one feels when reading his work. 00:01:23.230 --> 00:01:25.870 align:middle line:84% Recently, someone sent me the text of a speech by the French 00:01:25.870 --> 00:01:31.120 align:middle line:84% author Jean-Marie le Clézio, which ends with a definition 00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:33.370 align:middle line:84% or maybe just a description of literature. 00:01:33.370 --> 00:01:36.490 align:middle line:84% He says literature is something simple and true, 00:01:36.490 --> 00:01:40.240 align:middle line:84% a charm, sometimes a ruse, a grating dance for long spells 00:01:40.240 --> 00:01:41.260 align:middle line:90% of silence. 00:01:41.260 --> 00:01:43.810 align:middle line:84% The language of mockery, of interjections, 00:01:43.810 --> 00:01:47.020 align:middle line:84% of curses, and then immediately afterwards, 00:01:47.020 --> 00:01:48.910 align:middle line:90% the language of paradise. 00:01:48.910 --> 00:01:52.520 align:middle line:84% That sounds like a Denis Johnson story to me. 00:01:52.520 --> 00:01:54.760 align:middle line:84% Another thing is, no matter what kind of brutal mess 00:01:54.760 --> 00:01:57.850 align:middle line:84% Denis's characters have gotten into, no matter how carelessly 00:01:57.850 --> 00:01:59.380 align:middle line:84% they're chewing through their lives, 00:01:59.380 --> 00:02:02.020 align:middle line:84% there's the desire in them to discover, in the world 00:02:02.020 --> 00:02:05.410 align:middle line:84% if not in themselves, something redeeming and good. 00:02:05.410 --> 00:02:08.380 align:middle line:84% They go looking for it in the unlikeliest corners. 00:02:08.380 --> 00:02:10.030 align:middle line:84% I guess, because sometimes, those 00:02:10.030 --> 00:02:12.790 align:middle line:84% are the only corners available to us. 00:02:12.790 --> 00:02:15.070 align:middle line:84% This hopefulness, this light craving-- 00:02:15.070 --> 00:02:17.950 align:middle line:84% which is a word that the author George Saunders made up-- 00:02:17.950 --> 00:02:19.970 align:middle line:84% may not be obvious at first glance. 00:02:19.970 --> 00:02:22.250 align:middle line:90% But I think it's always there. 00:02:22.250 --> 00:02:22.960 align:middle line:90% It's like this. 00:02:22.960 --> 00:02:25.540 align:middle line:84% Card sharks have different ways of marking the backs of cards 00:02:25.540 --> 00:02:26.950 align:middle line:90% for cheating purposes. 00:02:26.950 --> 00:02:29.980 align:middle line:84% In the early days, they used to put bends and folds in cards. 00:02:29.980 --> 00:02:32.680 align:middle line:84% And later when cards began to be produced with designs 00:02:32.680 --> 00:02:35.260 align:middle line:84% on the adverse side, they altered the designs 00:02:35.260 --> 00:02:37.810 align:middle line:84% by filling in or scratching out little bits. 00:02:37.810 --> 00:02:38.920 align:middle line:90% But these are old tricks. 00:02:38.920 --> 00:02:41.600 align:middle line:84% Now there are new high tech inks and other treatments, 00:02:41.600 --> 00:02:43.690 align:middle line:84% which, after you apply them to the card, 00:02:43.690 --> 00:02:46.330 align:middle line:84% can only be seen with special lenses or video filters. 00:02:46.330 --> 00:02:49.400 align:middle line:90% 00:02:49.400 --> 00:02:52.520 align:middle line:84% One of these technologies is called luminous shade marking. 00:02:52.520 --> 00:02:56.360 align:middle line:84% And cards marked this way are called luminous marked. 00:02:56.360 --> 00:02:59.293 align:middle line:84% I think Denis's stories are luminous marked. 00:02:59.293 --> 00:03:00.710 align:middle line:84% If you look at them the right way, 00:03:00.710 --> 00:03:03.290 align:middle line:84% you'll see, under the chaos and suffering, 00:03:03.290 --> 00:03:05.150 align:middle line:84% this persistent desire for what is 00:03:05.150 --> 00:03:08.960 align:middle line:84% good and meaningful and beautiful, plain as day. 00:03:08.960 --> 00:03:11.480 align:middle line:84% Denis Johnson has written novels, short stories, plays, 00:03:11.480 --> 00:03:12.650 align:middle line:90% nonfiction and poetry. 00:03:12.650 --> 00:03:15.260 align:middle line:84% His books include The Incognito Lounge, Angels, 00:03:15.260 --> 00:03:18.080 align:middle line:84% Jesus' Son, and Tree of Smoke, for which he 00:03:18.080 --> 00:03:21.470 align:middle line:84% won the 2007 National Book Award for fiction. 00:03:21.470 --> 00:03:23.600 align:middle line:84% Denis, thank you so much for coming to Tucson. 00:03:23.600 --> 00:03:26.270 align:middle line:84% Your writing means a whole lot to a whole lot of us. 00:03:26.270 --> 00:03:29.800 align:middle line:84% Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Denis Johnson.