PULPHEAD PDF, EPUB, EBOOK

John Jeremiah Sullivan | 369 pages | 26 Oct 2012 | Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc | 9780374532901 | English | New York, United States BulbHead® The Home of Bright Ideas

There is no magic rod that comes down three hundred thousand years ago and divides our essence from the material world that produced us. If we are conscious, as our species seems to have become, then nature is conscious. Nature became conscious in us, perhaps in order to observe itself. It may be holding us out and turning us around like a crab does its eyeball. Whatever the reason, that thing out there, with the black holes and the nebulae and whatnot, is conscious. One cannot look in the mirror and rationally deny this. It experiences love and desire, or thinks it does. The idea is enough to render the Judeo- Christian cosmos sort of quaint. As far as Rafinesque was concerned, it was just hard science. That part is mysterious. Or whatever it is you picture. Forget the Epistles, forget all the bullying stuff that came later. Look at what He said. Read the Jefferson Bible. Or better yet, read The Logia of Yeshua, by Guy Davenport and Benjamin Urrutia, an unadorned translation of all the sayings ascribed to Jesus that modern scholars deem authentic. His breakthrough was the aestheticization of weakness. And salvation. He walked toward us with stalking, cartoonish pugnaciousness. I feel like all anybody talks about with Axl anymore is his strange new appearance, but it is hard to get past the unusual impression he makes. To me he looks like he's wearing an Axl Rose mask. He looks like a man I saw eating by himself at a truck stop in Monteagle, Tennessee, at two o'clock in the morning about twelve years ago. He looks increasingly like the albino reggae legend Yellowman. His mane evokes a gathering of strawberry red intricately braided hempen fibers, the sharply twisted ends of which have been punched, individually, a half inch into his scalp. His chest hair is the color of a new penny. With the wasp-man sunglasses and the braids and the goatee, he reminds one of the monster in Predator, or of that monster's wife on its home planet. When he first came onto the scene, he often looked, in photographs, like a beautiful, slender, redheaded year-old girl. I hope the magazine will run a picture of him from about so the foregoing will seem a slightly less creepy observation and the fundamental spade- called-spade exactitude of it will be laid bare. But if not, I stand by it. Now he has thickened through the middle—muscly thickness, not the lard- ass thickness of some years back. He grabs his package tightly, and his package is huge. Only reporting. Availability Sold out. Star Shower Motion. On Sale. Night Hero Binoculars by Atomic Beam. Desk Call Phone Mount. Air Police Air Purifier. BattleVisor by Atomic Beam - Set of 2. Hurricane Windshield Wizard. Cop Cam by Atomic Beam. Full Moon Lamp. Hurricane Spin Mop. Egg Sitter Support Cushion. Backward Brella. Atomic Beam Lantern. View All. Cup Call. Lizard Cam by Atomic Beam. TV Free-Way Gold. PediVac Electric Foot File. Slim Cycle. Hempvana Arrow Posture. Hempvana Cold As Ice. Relieve Pain Fast with Cold Therapy! Hempvana Heel Tastic. Pets Your pet is family and their wellbeing is a priority. Explore the latest additions to our Pets Collection. Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan, Paperback | Barnes & Noble®

View all 12 comments. Shelves: non-fiction. I thought I'd better read something American, and this has been on my to read list for two years and finally came in at the library. One measure of a non-fiction book could be what it makes you go and do. The book is full of fascinating e one for the plane going over to the States. It was the perfect book to read while in America, written with style, skill, knowledge, generosity and enthusiasm. The essay on the cave paintings was breathtakingly good, you felt his awe as he entered the caves to see some that were 8, years old. Different races were passing through it, through the cast of his features — black, white, Asian, Indian, the whole transnational slosh that produced the West Indies. You the reader go with the flow as he signs breasts and dances grinds with fans. He is surprised at how much he enjoys a Christian rock festival OK not so much the bands as a bunch of guys he stays with. I made up Marc Livengood a major character in the essay. I made up the trip to Nairobi. Then there was the bit where Bunny Wailer distances himself from the author. There were about 30 of them, doing the military style chanting, as we sat in the Hirshhorn Sculpture garden. One, a former policeman, showed me the scars from his surgeries for the bone disease he had. OK, they might be scamming me, an obvious tourist. A teacher and a policeman! Thank God for the NHS. Feb 19, Elaine rated it really liked it Shelves: John Jeremiah Sullivan can write. Really well. About almost anything. So, already, that makes this compilation of long form essays worth exploring. I was at that Axl Rose show at Hammerstein Ballroom that night he made his come back! But, unlike many Goodreads reviewers, those were not the essays that captivated me the most. I was most fascinated by the essays that featured Sullivan the Southern boy, very localized in a part of the mid-Southeast, and very focused on Southern history and culture that is always already — JUST - beyond our grasp. Unknown Caves introduces us me, at least to an entire world of cave art in the Southeastern US ranging in age from 8, no typos to years old, in other words, pre-Columbian elaborate artifacts of an intensely intricate and incredibly ancient succession of cultures that will always be pretty mysterious because they had no written language. The same for Unknown Bards, about the obscure early roots of blues, about the attempts to understand , to follow, to preserve some year old recordings that glimpse at a culture almost as impossible to reach as the Woodlands cave artists of the Unknown Cave. So too, Mr. Lytle, where Sullivan serves a very particular internship at the feet of a 92 year old Southern writer who knew Penn Warren and had one foot in the Confederacy. I even loved the essay about the barmy genius French-Sicilian polymath naturalist of the 19th century, which no one else on GR seemed to like. Sullivan will remind you that, even though we might only be a handful of generations from the Civil War on the one hand, on the other, we will never know what a blues singer a scant century ago — of whom perhaps a single copy of her song survives — meant by one slurred word. At one point, in one of his many meditations on time, Sullivan notes that you can be certain that there are a few big bloopers in currency right now, ideas that in a few hundred years will seem obviously, demonstrably, scientifically wrong — and that we can have no idea what those are. Love it. So why not a 5? Because there are a few duds in here, and a few off moments. I found American Grotesque, where he tries to get in the heads of the Tea Party, flat, and there were other off moments as well. But this was awfully close to a 5. View 1 comment. Nov 10, Patrick Brown rated it it was amazing. This book, without going overboard, exploded my brain. In one of my progress updates, I said it was like an album where every song is perfect and the sequencing is exactly right. And that's still how I feel about it. The scope of this collection kept telescoping out as I was reading it. At first, it seemed like a book about the American South, and the role it plays in both the author's life and that of America today, but as I read on, it expanded. It was about America, really--where it's at now This book, without going overboard, exploded my brain. It was about America, really--where it's at now and where it had been and a little bit of where it might be headed. Every essay in the book is a marvel on its own. While I wasn't as fascinated by the Rafinesque piece in the middle of the book If this were an album, that piece would be the 20 minute long epic that anchors it , but I admired the style. My favorite essays were "Feet in Smoke," about Sullivan's brother after a near-death experience, and "Getting Down to What's Really Real," about the surreal ha! I once wrote an essay of my own about reality TV , and I was absolutely humbled by Sullivan's take on it. Though mine is still pretty funny, I think. And I didn't interview anyone for it, so, you know If you haven't read Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter's Son , this is a great introduction to an immensely talented author, one with incredible range. If you have read Blood Horses, then there's no introduction needed. You already know what a badass Sullivan is. Feb 05, David rated it really liked it Shelves: read-in This winter I've been reading a lot of nonfiction collections, hitting a lot of "big names" along the way - Updike, Hitchens, Schama, Didion. John Jeremiah Sullivan was someone I had never heard of until I stumbled across this collection in the bookstore, but I'm happy to report that his writing has an idiosyncratic charm that puts him right up there with the big guys. As with any collection of essays, there are a few duds in this collection. Sullivan's pieces on Axl Rose and on Michael Jackson s This winter I've been reading a lot of nonfiction collections, hitting a lot of "big names" along the way - Updike, Hitchens, Schama, Didion. Sullivan's pieces on Axl Rose and on Michael Jackson seemed meandering, a little self- indulgent, with no obvious point. But these are the exceptions. They are more than offset by the essays "Upon This Rock", "Lahwineski: Career of an Eccentric Naturalist", "Mr Lytle", in each of which Sullivan takes a topic about which I had no prior knowledge or interest and writes about it in a way that is spellbinding. Besides a fluid, unassuming writing style, Sullivan's gift is to write about obscure topics in a way that engages the reader's interest and sympathy. This seems partially correct to me -- Sullivan has the same ability to take the most unlikely subject and make it fascinating to the reader, and like DFW, he writes with great empathy and without condescension. He does not, however, display the self-consciousness that plagued DFW, nor does his writing suffer from the kind of stylistic tic that can result when an author worries too much about the impression he may be making. He does not match Foster Wallace's brilliance, but he is definitely smart and compassionate enough to merit your attention. John Jeremiah Sullivan is an author worth looking out for. This is an excellent collection. Feb 03, Oriana rated it really liked it Shelves: read Why haven't I read this already?? Well, because I forgot all about it. I wrote the above in , when the book came out, and since I didn't rush out to buy it right away, it vanished entirely from my brain. So much so that when I was at a friend's house scanning her shelves for something to read on a flight and she suggested this one, I said, "What, isn't Spied twice in one week on CoverSpy , called a badass by an FSG staffer, and listed on Flavorpill's 25 Greatest Essay Collections of All Time. So much so that when I was at a friend's house scanning her shelves for something to read on a flight and she suggested this one, I said, "What, isn't that a memoir about a soldier at war?? I am certainly very late to the party in saying that John Jeremiah is a stellar writer, but oh la he surely is — sharp and piercing and incisive and shivery, whether his sights are sets on an obscure-to-the-point-of-veritable-nonexistence blues caterwauler, his older brother's near-death experience, or the history of a Native American death cult as told through cave drawings. And yet this book, not even 10 years old, already feels like a sweet lovely relic of a more innocent but less enlightened time, when it was a given that everyone used AOL, when the word "trannie" was tossed about willy-nilly, when bitter old closeted white Southern literary titans took in rugged young white Southern literary mentees to groom and possibly prey upon sexually, when a writer could spend weeks or months and a very healthy travel stipend on just one longform magazine article that probably wouldn't even be the cover story. I wonder what John Jeremiah is writing now, and for whom, and whether he is still talking so casually about being groped by his old gay mentor "like a chambermaid," with all the sexism and cultural blindness and obliviousness to power that a metaphor like that suggests. I hope he's a little more enlightened now, has been able to adjust with the times, because he's a crushingly stunning tale-teller. He can describe a YouTube clip of Michael Jackson or a live performance by Axl Rose so thoroughly and with such attendant emotional depth that you wouldn't dream of hunting it down to watch because you've pretty much already seen it. He explains a geological plateau and a sharecropper's dancehall and the streets of Trench Town with such precision that you'd never think to Google, because you already know it all, basically as if you'd experienced it yourself. I loved this so much, is what I'm saying. This is a great moment for essays and these essays are great for really any moment. Now to find and figure out how to gently stalk John Jeremiah so I can keep reading whatever bursts forth next from his splendid imagination. View all 7 comments. Jan 11, Todd rated it really liked it. I wanted to give this guy five stars, but the two stories in the middle were snoozers and a few of the endings were rushed and, accordingly, awful. Of the latter, the ending to the essay about Axl Rose—such a good essay—was so disappointingly bad that I almost didn't like the essay. What I like most about this guy is that he isn't a sarcastic, cynical prick. After having just read a few stories by George Saunders, I appreciate this fact and Sullivan even more. Three things: From the first essay I wanted to give this guy five stars, but the two stories in the middle were snoozers and a few of the endings were rushed and, accordingly, awful. Three things: From the first essay, about Creation " I've been to a lot of huge public events in this country during the past five years, writing about sports or whatever, and one thing they all had in common was this weird implicit enmity that American males, in particular, seem to carry around with them much of the time. Call it a laughable generalization, fine, but spend enough late afternoons in stadium concourses, you feel it, something darker than machismo. Something a little wounded, and a little sneering, and just plain ready for bad things to happen" In Manhattan and Brooklyn, I felt this at nearly every bar. In Michigan, I can sometimes feel it at the supermarkets. It's bad and it's spreading, and Sullivan was right on the money about it being a wounded, dark feeling. From the essay "Lytle: An Essay" "Confusion to the enemy" This has nothing to do with Sullivan because it was Lytle's toast, but what a perfect toast it is. If I could, I would be doing that as I walk to the store" A great writer; fun to read; makes the bizarre, mundane, and already-written-about into fresh and exciting stories. Mar 12, Tuck rated it really liked it Shelves: essays. It never is boring, stupid or offensive. It's just that is starts with such a bang and awed me with the profound and moving vision John Jeremiah Sullivan has of America, so when the collection abruptly stops doing that a little bit past halfway through and start talking about 19th century botanists and cave paintings, I've gradually lost interest. Not that these subjects are not interesting, but they don't have an anchoring point for the contemporary reader that is not already interested in these subjects. It doesn't connect the dots anymore like Sullivan brilliantly does in the first half. I believe I know why that is. There was probably not enough material for someone's taste and extra essays that didn't belong to the project were attached. This is a rich, thoughtful immersion in a choice spread of subjects including pop culture, history, politics, environment and music. Oh, and one sort of very promising semi-SF riff. Think of them as smart documentaries. Neither is it redneck-neo-con freak show erotica for Guardian readers. Oh, were more writers to do that. Very enjoyable. Jun 03, Hank Stuever rated it liked it. No need to add much of a review, since Goodreaders have already done such a fine job of articulating the same thoughts I had while reading "Pulphead": There IS an uneven-ness here. There IS a desire to reach for a red pen and help John Jeremiah's prose find a quicker way to get at what John Jeremiah is trying to say. I wonder: Does he really go by John Jeremiah? Do friends leave phone messages for "John Jeremiah"? Do baristas call out "John Jeremiah" when his coffee is ready? And, most notably No need to add much of a review, since Goodreaders have already done such a fine job of articulating the same thoughts I had while reading "Pulphead": There IS an uneven-ness here. And, most notably, there is a brilliance here, evident in at least one section or passage in every essay in this book and his essays elsewhere. It loops and loops and loops, one digression after another, circling and circling, looking for a clear patch on which to land. He's not the first nonfiction essayist to come at things this way, not the last, but certainly doing it much, much better than most. I wish I could enjoy his work as much as others have. It certainly gives readers and writers plenty to think about. View 2 comments. Mar 12, Chad rated it it was amazing. They weren't lying re: all the kudos and hype draped all over this book when it came out last fall. This is interesting, engaging, even at times amazing stuff. All over the map subject-wise, Sullivan seems well-equipped to fill the gaping hole left in the non-fiction essay world when David Foster Wallace died a few years ago. I can't wait to read whatever he writes next Jul 17, Jamie rated it really liked it Shelves: the-dirty-south , non-fiction. This is really as good as everybody says. Really, really. Apr 21, M. Sarki rated it liked it Recommends it for: DFW fans. This morning on the CBS Morning Show Charlie Rose was reporting on an exotic animal compound in Oklahoma City and how dangerous to humans it could be since it is situated in the heart of the country's Tornado Alley. There are over one hundred lions and tigers fenced in together in this so-called largest rescue reserve in the nation. The compound's owner expressed his displeasure in the government's possible cracking down and limiting of these types of operations, and he threatened another Waco of unprecedented proportion if he is restricted in any way. Given that just yesterday I had read the second-to-last essay titled Violence of the Lambs in this John Jeremiah Sullivan book, Pulphead , I was left with a confused feeling over which animal to be most afraid of. And I do include humans in my category of animals. Even though Sullivan admits to having "made up" the people quoted in this essay, his examples of animal attacks on humans are accurately documented. Add to this the video I was directed to watch today on Yahoo. Augustine, Florida and almost did great bodily harm to the two men in it. So now I am thinking that maybe Sullivan just might be on to something. The bottom line message in the Lamb essay is for everybody who hasn't visited lately with a loved-one, relative, or friend should get right to it posthaste, or at least within the year, as it is possible that the new Armageddon will be "on" and going strong. The people behind this idea say this will be a war between humans and all others not like them. That means your little dog Benji could be choosing to partner up with the wolves over you and your tasty jerky biscuits. Of course, all this may or may not be true, just like global warming, but there have been violent attacks and icebergs melting at discouraging levels lately in degrees not ever seen or recorded ever before. As I was reading this Violence of the Lambs essay I was anxiously commenting to my wife the many "facts" and concerns these "made up" people were having. I did not know at the time that these people were made up and I learned at the end of the essay that disclaimers had been made. Nonetheless the essay gave me cause to consider these speculated outcomes. My own dog, a loving ten-month old English Retriever pup tries repeatedly to lick me to death so I attempted to imagine young Robert Earl ultimately turning on me. I suppose if I for recreation still ingested LSD I could get somewhat close to these wild ideas with my thinking and believing, but so far it just doesn't make sense that R. But the essay was quite interesting, as the majority of the other essays in the book proved to be captivating as well. It is quite hard for me to understand any outside negativity about this book as a whole. The Axl Rose essay and the one about that fellow Miz and The Real World were of no interest whatsoever to me, but not enough to discount the entire book. I merely skipped over them. I would think my disinterest in these two similarly juvenile subjects has something to do with my advanced age though if Sullivan really were as good as David Foster Wallace then he could have won me over anyhow. But still, not bad reading here. I made my way through the first nine of the total of fourteen essays in the book until I got sidetracked by Sullivan's masterpiece memoir Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter's Son. I picked up a copy of this book from my local library purely based on the strength of his Pulphead essays figuring I could take a peak and then send it right back if it was a bore or poorly written. It was not. I started reading it and discovered I could not stop. Three days later I was writing about the memoir and would soon be back to reading the remaining five essays in Pulphead. For sake of clarity allow me a brief remark or two over each collected piece in Sullivan's latest book. Though I have had my own run-ins with the Lord and his servants, I exercise extreme caution when dealing with even ex-"born again" Christians. Portions of the essay were interesting but I could have done without it. Much of it hits too close to the bone, especially when it rubs me the wrong way about our land of the free. There are a lot of kooks following and worshiping Jesus these days. Not exactly a supposedly fun thing I will never do again. Many critics have named this essay their favorite, but not I. Feet in Smoke : This is a short essay relating a story about his older brother Elsworth's near death from electrocution via a microphone. If not my favorite essay in the book, it has to be close. I found this essay to be the very best, and the most enlightened and interesting of all of them. There is plenty of dialogue and Sullivan does a great job of telling his tale. I can't even think of anything worthwhile to say about it. Nothing of note at all for me here and I mostly skimmed the pages looking for something that might grab my attention. Keep in mind I am an addict, therefore I am inherently always looking feverishly for something to read that is worthy of my time. I always want the writer to succeed in making me happy. This one failed miserably. Michael : I was hoping for an essay on Michael Jackson that would make my teacher and friend Gordon Lish excited about reading it. Lish has always wanted Don DeLillo to write a biography on Michael Jackson and when I saw this I was thinking perhaps he wouldn't need to. But I found the piece a bore and could not even finish it. I do think it is somewhat possible that David Foster Wallace could have won me over and made me read it if he himself had written it. Sullivan did not do this for me. Sulivan made me feel deeply for Sparkman's son and it is too bad how things worked out for him. I already hate the Tea Party, so I was indifferent to all that silly and outrageously pathetic stuff in total, but the census taker tramping around the hollers of Kentucky kept my attention honorably. Sullivan shows his own knack for research and digging up remnants enough to make an essay readable and extremely worthwhile, if not important. Unnamed Caves : This is a very good essay dealing with the long history of our American Indian in Tennessee. Sullivan goes subterranean along with other professional spelunkers and visits with grave robbers still stealing what little remains to be found of the ancient Mound Builders. The reported cave drawings of birds, spears, stick figures, and human heads give us a fresh new history many of us have never known of. After reading a few weeks ago Bob Dylan's Chronicles Vol. Having recently completed my reading of the Johnny Cash book Cash: An Autobiography I was struck with how dangerous it really was for Johnny and his family to live in Jamaica around all these violent and crazy nuts. Cash was lucky he was only robbed and that the intruder's gun pressed to young John Carter's skull never went off. If this were a travel promotional advertisement I assure you, without a doubt, this island I have crossed off my "things to do" list. Very well-written and fascinating, if not frightening essay about things that may be true, and maybe might happen. Why I read it was simply because of some of the brilliance I discovered along the way in getting to this point in the book. But I should have quit reading after the last essay with the human-killing chimpanzees. When I say this it makes me feel as if I am Ronald Reagan in his presidential debate with Walter Mondale, and that particular psychological transference certainly enters me a little creepily. But Sullivan's long non-fiction work titled Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter's Son is every bit as good, or even better, than any non-fiction piece Wallace has ever written. It would be desirable to have a non-fiction piece by Wallace the length that Blood Horses came in at, but we are left, gratefully, with the many short and brilliant pieces Wallace did leave us. John Jeremiah Sullivan could serve us best by returning to the long form or else inserting more of himself into the subjects of his shorter pieces. But this book was certainly worth reading and I will be on the look-out for more bright essays from this young and promising writer. Aug 19, James Murphy rated it liked it. Well, Sullivan is a writer who writes with an infectious energy well-seasoned with humor. He's fun to read for a while. These are personal essays ranging in subject matter from Christian rock to reality TV. There are many stations in between. I like it that he seems to write mostly about the South. My favorite is "Mr. My least favor Well, Sullivan is a writer who writes with an infectious energy well-seasoned with humor. My least favorite is "Violence of the Lambs" about a preposterous ongoing war between humans and animals, which Sullivan admitted, in the end, he'd made up. Early on I began to think Sullivan's prose style consisted mostly of badinage. I grew tired of it and grew tired of the essays which, probably partly due to his light treatment, held little interest for me. Feb 18, J. This is an eclectic mix of light and deep pieces. Sullivan speaks to the tenuousness of pop culture. He wants to hold onto things that little bit longer. For example his piece on the writer Mr. Lytle is an elegy and an attempt to hold him in the world a little bit longer. He doesn't like journalists who give a clear judgement, he says he 'likes seeking out places of ambiguity and crawling around in them'. Sullivan appreciates that his version of a subject is one among many. Pulphead includes a lot of musical pieces. His pieces are part of a project of redemption, trying to give resonance to musicians who may have slipped out of the public conscience a little. He also attempts to offer a different perspective on someone who has been interviewed multiple times i. Erudite pieces are placed with idiomatic pieces, reality television beside a piece on Rafinesque, an early 19th Century French naturalist and anthropologist. On his writing method he told the guardian "The initial research will be very indiscriminate," he says. All these things feeds into a mill and it's all part of a globular manuscript and then I start trying to listen to how the material is talking to itself — a stray detail in a memoir may connect to something I saw while reporting: little crystals are formed. My favourite essays were the ones where he put a lot of himself into the essay but I can appreciate that for the most part he is trying to place himself so that he can maintain skepticism and put the subject firmly in the centre. Lytle spoke to me more because he was personally involved. He is planning to write about Cuba, Rio and Ireland. Still I would be interested in anything else he produces. Feb 28, Kevin rated it it was ok. Reading these stories brought to mind the image of Chuck Klosterman kidnapped, stuck in a hotel room, pumped full of Ambien, and forced to write less about music pop culture. That's not as much of a criticism as it sounds, I suppose, because Klosterman is frequently eager to the point of breathlessness in his essays and I find myself wishing he'd slow down and take his time. Well, I mean I used to think that until I got my hands on this book that approximates the results of said experiment and f Reading these stories brought to mind the image of Chuck Klosterman kidnapped, stuck in a hotel room, pumped full of Ambien, and forced to write less about music pop culture. Well, I mean I used to think that until I got my hands on this book that approximates the results of said experiment and found myself frequently bored. I can't tell you what about Sullivan's prose didn't click with me. All the words are in the right order and used correctly, and the majority of the subjects are interesting, and yet somehow the final output is bland. Often I couldn't tell if he was putting me on or not and in trying to figure out what was the truth and what was fiction I found I wasn't sufficiently engaged to care either way so I let it drift. There were two or three articles I ended up skimming after the halfway point and in looking at the table of contents I can't even remember which ones those were. Now as I sit here attempting to write what passes for a review I'm left interested in figuring out why nothing resonated, but it's the same problem I sometimes have when cooking: I can tell something spice is missing but I can't tell you what it is that it needs. Detecting the absence is not the same as knowing what to do about it. More cussing, maybe? A bit more of a angry streak? Some fire, some hot sauce, something. Check it: "When I woke up at dawn he was nibbling my ear and his right hand was on my genitals. I sprang out of bed and began to hop around the room like I'd burned my finger, sputtering foul language. He gets high a few times in these essays and even buys weed in Jamaica as a gift for Bunny Wailer. He was a volunteer fireman in college. All of this is a way of saying that these essays have split ends and burnt edges. This fact makes you vaguely dread Mr. Sullivan is quotable without seeming to work very hard at it. In the Axl Rose essay, for example, he gets a lot said that no one else has said quite as well. Sullivan is a bit pulp-headed, glibly mythopoetical, straining for effect. Those moments are rare. Pulphead: Essays (Paperback) | BookPeople

And in still another essay, Sullivan opens up his home to the producers of One Tree Hill and is surprised when the filming location becomes a hotspot for fans of the program. His essays on, varyingly, Michael Jackson , Rose, and the roots of modern blues are well-structured, thoughtful, and have just the right words to describe exactly what in all of these forms of music is worth preserving. The A. Reviews Book Review. Emily Todd VanDerWerff. Filed to: Books. Books Book Review. Of course we don't know whether to laugh or cry when faced with this reflection—it's our inevitable sob-guffaws that attest to the power of Sullivan's work. What's impressive about Pulphead is the way these disparate essays cohere into a memoirlike whole. The putty that binds them together is Mr. Sullivan's steady and unhurried voice. Reading him, I felt the way Mr. The book has its grotesques, for sure. But they are genuine and appear here in a way that put me in mind of one of Flannery O'Connor's indelible utterances. Unlike Tom Wolfe or Joan Didion, who bring their famous styles along with them like well-set, just-done hair, Sullivan lets his subjects muss and alter his prose; he works like a novelist. His compulsive honesty and wildly intelligent prose recall the work of American masters of New Journalism like Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe. Whether he ponders the legacy of a long-dead French scientist or the unlikely cultural trajectory of Christian rock, Sullivan imbues his narrative subjects with a broader urgency reminiscent of other great practitioners of the essay-profile, such as New Yorker writers Joseph Mitchell and A. Liebling or Gay Talese during his '60s Esquire heyday. Pulphead is one of the most involving collections of essays to appear in many a year. What they have in common, though, whether low or high of brow, is their author's essential curiosity about the world, his eye for the perfect detail, and his great good humor in revealing both his subjects' and his own foibles. Pulphead compels its readers to consider each as an equal sum in the bizarre arithmetic of American identity. The result is an arresting take on the American imagination. Skip to main content. Search form Search. Let Us Shop For You!

Book Review: 'Pulphead' by John Jeremiah Sullivan |

Keep in mind I am an addict, therefore I am inherently always looking feverishly for something to read that is worthy of my time. I always want the writer to succeed in making me happy. This one failed miserably. Michael : I was hoping for an essay on Michael Jackson that would make my teacher and friend Gordon Lish excited about reading it. Lish has always wanted Don DeLillo to write a biography on Michael Jackson and when I saw this I was thinking perhaps he wouldn't need to. But I found the piece a bore and could not even finish it. I do think it is somewhat possible that David Foster Wallace could have won me over and made me read it if he himself had written it. Sullivan did not do this for me. Sulivan made me feel deeply for Sparkman's son and it is too bad how things worked out for him. I already hate the Tea Party, so I was indifferent to all that silly and outrageously pathetic stuff in total, but the census taker tramping around the hollers of Kentucky kept my attention honorably. Sullivan shows his own knack for research and digging up remnants enough to make an essay readable and extremely worthwhile, if not important. Unnamed Caves : This is a very good essay dealing with the long history of our American Indian in Tennessee. Sullivan goes subterranean along with other professional spelunkers and visits with grave robbers still stealing what little remains to be found of the ancient Mound Builders. The reported cave drawings of birds, spears, stick figures, and human heads give us a fresh new history many of us have never known of. After reading a few weeks ago Bob Dylan's Chronicles Vol. Having recently completed my reading of the Johnny Cash book Cash: An Autobiography I was struck with how dangerous it really was for Johnny and his family to live in Jamaica around all these violent and crazy nuts. Cash was lucky he was only robbed and that the intruder's gun pressed to young John Carter's skull never went off. If this were a travel promotional advertisement I assure you, without a doubt, this island I have crossed off my "things to do" list. Very well-written and fascinating, if not frightening essay about things that may be true, and maybe might happen. Why I read it was simply because of some of the brilliance I discovered along the way in getting to this point in the book. But I should have quit reading after the last essay with the human-killing chimpanzees. When I say this it makes me feel as if I am Ronald Reagan in his presidential debate with Walter Mondale, and that particular psychological transference certainly enters me a little creepily. But Sullivan's long non-fiction work titled Blood Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter's Son is every bit as good, or even better, than any non-fiction piece Wallace has ever written. It would be desirable to have a non-fiction piece by Wallace the length that Blood Horses came in at, but we are left, gratefully, with the many short and brilliant pieces Wallace did leave us. John Jeremiah Sullivan could serve us best by returning to the long form or else inserting more of himself into the subjects of his shorter pieces. But this book was certainly worth reading and I will be on the look-out for more bright essays from this young and promising writer. Aug 19, James Murphy rated it liked it. Well, Sullivan is a writer who writes with an infectious energy well-seasoned with humor. He's fun to read for a while. These are personal essays ranging in subject matter from Christian rock to reality TV. There are many stations in between. I like it that he seems to write mostly about the South. My favorite is "Mr. My least favor Well, Sullivan is a writer who writes with an infectious energy well-seasoned with humor. My least favorite is "Violence of the Lambs" about a preposterous ongoing war between humans and animals, which Sullivan admitted, in the end, he'd made up. Early on I began to think Sullivan's prose style consisted mostly of badinage. I grew tired of it and grew tired of the essays which, probably partly due to his light treatment, held little interest for me. Feb 18, J. This is an eclectic mix of light and deep pieces. Sullivan speaks to the tenuousness of pop culture. He wants to hold onto things that little bit longer. For example his piece on the writer Mr. Lytle is an elegy and an attempt to hold him in the world a little bit longer. He doesn't like journalists who give a clear judgement, he says he 'likes seeking out places of ambiguity and crawling around in them'. Sullivan appreciates that his version of a subject is one among many. Pulphead includes a lot of musical pieces. His pieces are part of a project of redemption, trying to give resonance to musicians who may have slipped out of the public conscience a little. He also attempts to offer a different perspective on someone who has been interviewed multiple times i. Erudite pieces are placed with idiomatic pieces, reality television beside a piece on Rafinesque, an early 19th Century French naturalist and anthropologist. On his writing method he told the guardian "The initial research will be very indiscriminate," he says. All these things feeds into a mill and it's all part of a globular manuscript and then I start trying to listen to how the material is talking to itself — a stray detail in a memoir may connect to something I saw while reporting: little crystals are formed. My favourite essays were the ones where he put a lot of himself into the essay but I can appreciate that for the most part he is trying to place himself so that he can maintain skepticism and put the subject firmly in the centre. Lytle spoke to me more because he was personally involved. He is planning to write about Cuba, Rio and Ireland. Still I would be interested in anything else he produces. Feb 28, Kevin rated it it was ok. Reading these stories brought to mind the image of Chuck Klosterman kidnapped, stuck in a hotel room, pumped full of Ambien, and forced to write less about music pop culture. That's not as much of a criticism as it sounds, I suppose, because Klosterman is frequently eager to the point of breathlessness in his essays and I find myself wishing he'd slow down and take his time. Well, I mean I used to think that until I got my hands on this book that approximates the results of said experiment and f Reading these stories brought to mind the image of Chuck Klosterman kidnapped, stuck in a hotel room, pumped full of Ambien, and forced to write less about music pop culture. Well, I mean I used to think that until I got my hands on this book that approximates the results of said experiment and found myself frequently bored. I can't tell you what about Sullivan's prose didn't click with me. All the words are in the right order and used correctly, and the majority of the subjects are interesting, and yet somehow the final output is bland. Often I couldn't tell if he was putting me on or not and in trying to figure out what was the truth and what was fiction I found I wasn't sufficiently engaged to care either way so I let it drift. There were two or three articles I ended up skimming after the halfway point and in looking at the table of contents I can't even remember which ones those were. Now as I sit here attempting to write what passes for a review I'm left interested in figuring out why nothing resonated, but it's the same problem I sometimes have when cooking: I can tell something spice is missing but I can't tell you what it is that it needs. Detecting the absence is not the same as knowing what to do about it. More cussing, maybe? A bit more of a angry streak? Some fire, some hot sauce, something. Check it: "When I woke up at dawn he was nibbling my ear and his right hand was on my genitals. I sprang out of bed and began to hop around the room like I'd burned my finger, sputtering foul language. To clarify, I'm not asking Sullivan to be mad at the guy for being gay and having desires; he goes on at length to say that he's not. Regardless of the gender or sexual identity of the perpetrator, Sullivan woke up to unwelcome molestation and that's how he delivers the anecdote to us? It's two lines that should have my adrenaline up and instead I'm falling asleep. I don't know. Maybe I've become a True American and I can't appreciate anything that's delivered without mg of sodium and a slap to the back of the head. Maybe I just want to feel like Sullivan really reacts to anything around him his brother being electrocuted to death, seeing with his own eyes secret Native American cave art from hundreds of years ago, his home being used as a television set instead of sleeping his way through it all, or at least through the retelling. Mar 14, Gus Sanchez rated it liked it Shelves: essays. When an essay on a Christian Rock festival starts off a bit slowly, then suddenly sneaks up on you, you know you've got a skilled essayist grabbing your attention. The first few essays from John Jeremiah Sullivan's collection of essays, Pulphead , do exactly that: keep your attention focused on his narrative shifts and vivid descriptions, all the while aware that the subject matter may or may not be of interest Halfway through, however, he lost me. The last 3 essays were no longer exercises in nar When an essay on a Christian Rock festival starts off a bit slowly, then suddenly sneaks up on you, you know you've got a skilled essayist grabbing your attention. The last 3 essays were no longer exercises in narrative strength, but instead a collection of thoughts and ideas that lacked cohesion. And it's not as if the subject matter was of no interest; far from it, actually. Sullivan seems to go on and on and on, without providing the reader a much-needed payoff. Essays that lack compactness should reward the reader, and they never seem to. A shame, really. I was greatly looking forward to reading this collection. Still, Sullivan's a skilled essayist, but in this case, his essays are often overblown with way too many unfocused ideas, and a narrative pretension that suggests his literary ambitions are getting in the way of his true talents. Mar 03, Andrew added it Shelves: essays. The Wallace comparisons are made more often than they ought to be, and there is a certain line of comparison -- Sullivan, after all, is the sort of guy who regularly flip-flops in his writing from academic perspective to ordinary-as-all-fuck perspective, and writes extensively on Axl Rose. And they manage to publish books of essays, not something a lot of folks are doing nowadays, and especially not something a lot of folks who actually have anything interesting to say are doing nowadays. But th The Wallace comparisons are made more often than they ought to be, and there is a certain line of comparison -- Sullivan, after all, is the sort of guy who regularly flip-flops in his writing from academic perspective to ordinary-as-all-fuck perspective, and writes extensively on Axl Rose. But there's a better comparison, to Guy Davenport, that isolated Kentucky writer who largely focused his writing on in-depth studies of his fellow American originals and weirdos. At one point, Sullivan explicitly name-checks Davenport, as he explores one of the several professional eccentrics who make a presence in this volume of essays. Sep 20, Ashley rated it liked it. I almost feel bad for only giving it 3 stars. I thought a couple of the essays were really very good, but they just couldn't make up for how mediocre I found the rest. Take my rating with a grain of salt, I am unusually hard on essay collections short story collections as well. Dec 25, Drew rated it really liked it. Non-fiction essays. Excellent writer. Humorous-- sometimes I laughed out load. Contains life wisdom. The author is a person I would like to know. He has a wide range of interests, especially music and performers. I read some of the essays aloud to Elizabeth. I'll continue to read his work. Thank you, Brandon, for recommending this book. Oct 17, Adam rated it really liked it Shelves: essays-essay-collections , present , non-fiction. It took me a while to get around to this. I love this genre, but my love of it has led to way more disappointments than I experience while reading, say, fiction. John Jeremiah Sullivan's Pulphead seems to have drawn an endless number of comparisons to other essay writers. Some, to mostly uninspiring writers like Chuck Klosterman, have not caused me much excitement. Others, to Hunter S. Thompson or David Foster Wallace, are what led me to finally sitting down and reading this thing. It turns out It took me a while to get around to this. It turns out that these comparisons, as they usually are, are not particularly relevant. The comparisons aren't inaccurate, but they are dull. Wallace is my favourite journalistic essay writer, Thompson I still enjoy, one of my few heroes as a teenager to enjoy longevity on my bookshelves, mental or physical. Sullivan's his own man. His voice, his intimate, eminently curious prose style, is all his own. What he brings to the table, most consistently and powerfully, is a sense of respect for his subject matter that is lacking with other writers. Can you imagine what a dullard like Chuck Palahniuk would have done with a Christian Rock festival? Sullivan instead entertains with a warm, human portrait of genuinely beautiful souls, while pointing out the darker side of such events effectively but not in an annoyingly arrogant fashion although he's brilliant with the classy put-down. Sullivan is not afraid of drawing emotion and inquisitiveness to the surface, whether his, yours, or his subjects', but keenly aware not to milk any of those. He fashions powerful human portraits out of men pop culture has reduced to cartoons Axl Rose, Michael Jackson, The Miz , while offering, in so conversational a tone you sometimes are prone to accepting them even when you disagree with him, his opinions on pop culture and the human experience. Re: rock music, he says that Guns N' Roses was the last great rock band that didn't think there was anything the least bit funny about being in a rock band. This ignores the wave, during the s and s, of all-out sincerity in "indie rock. That's because he treats the subject with the same level of respect and attention he gives to everything else. The Bunny Wailer essay is a fine commentary on Bunny Wailer and some of the Wailers' music, but also a surprisingly effective brief survey of Jamaica's sociopolitical climate since the s. The Andrew Lytle essay, deeply personal, offers both fascinating human portraits and a commentary on the South. It's all about how the animal kingdom excluding us will rise up and obliterate us. The war has already started. It's hilarious and terrifying, with the revelation at the end being some kind of genius commentary on non-fiction, fiction, fear-mongering, and journalistic writing, period. Without, amazingly, being smarmy or shitty in any way. View all 3 comments. Jul 25, Christopher Bundy rated it it was amazing. I've been meaning to post about this smart collection of essays -- Pulphead -- from John Jeremiah Sullivan for some time but then I find and read another essay by him and would rather just read him than talk about him--I think I've finally exhausted what's available out there. And now I'm in line behind dozens of other writers and readers who have already championed this guy's work, someone whose prose is so intimate and immediate that I feel as if we have a relationship. He writes in the traditi I've been meaning to post about this smart collection of essays -- Pulphead -- from John Jeremiah Sullivan for some time but then I find and read another essay by him and would rather just read him than talk about him--I think I've finally exhausted what's available out there. He writes in the tradition of the "new" journalists, a genre I love and don't see nearly enough of, especially in the long form. Outside of Harper's, The New Yorker, and occasionally pieces in GQ where Sullivan has published many of his Esquire, and some literary journals, few magazines publish long form journalism. For that matter, most readers can't get past words, an essay so short as to nearly negate the subject itself by so superficially exploring it I exclude the compressed, or flash essay which explores a subject "through action, through objects, through metaphor, through inference Brevity Craft Essays. And it's his exhaustive curiosity, his ability and willingness to come at his subjects from the periphery while also investing himself in his subjects and his piece, that makes his work so goddamned compelling and addictive. Each essay is about much more than the title subject and he manages to make each one compelling. Never stop looking, wondering, asking questions. Jul 10, Scott rated it it was amazing. I had dreams about these essays, several times, actually, during the week or so I spent with Pulphead. They were those vivid kind of dreams in which you relive an event in your life--a party, an intimate encounter, a vacation--but, you know, in a more crazy, dreamy sort of way. So I'd wake up and be like, wait, when did I hang out with Axl Rose?? Or: why was I in those caves?? Anyway, the point is that John Jeremiah Sullivan is an wonderfully immersive writer, with a pinpoint eye for the t I had dreams about these essays, several times, actually, during the week or so I spent with Pulphead. Anyway, the point is that John Jeremiah Sullivan is an wonderfully immersive writer, with a pinpoint eye for the telling detail, the sums-it-all-up anecdote, the image or observation you would never think of but, once said, is so obvious you can almost convince yourself that you've thought that way all along. I loved Pulphead, clearly, which didn't really surprise me, but what I didn't expect was that the essays I would have bet I would have enjoyed least, I enjoyed most. Or almost-most. I didn't want these to end. But everything's great here: the essay about the incredibly dorky and likely insane Constantine Rafinesque, a naturalist of the s who almost figured out evolution before Darwin; the one about the caves in Tennessee, with all of the ancient artwork; the piece on Bunny Wailer, for whom Sullivan scored some ganja on the streets of Kingston, as a present; the one on Geeshie Wiley, some old-time bluesman whom I'd never heard of, but now want to track down and listen to. That's Sullivan, and Pulphead, in a nutshell: he teaches you a lot, and leaves you eager to learn more. Nov 02, Tom rated it it was amazing. It's not worth pointing out which essays disappointed me, because there were really only a couple, and so many of the others just totally knocked me out. In the best ones, Sullivan gets deeply personal, demonstrating the empathy and humanity that lifts these pieces above your standard weird- American-culture fare. This is evident from the first essay, "Upon This Rock," about his trip to a Christian rock festival. And anyone who can write about a Tea Party rally with care, without ridicule, as he m It's not worth pointing out which essays disappointed me, because there were really only a couple, and so many of the others just totally knocked me out. And anyone who can write about a Tea Party rally with care, without ridicule, as he manages in "American Grotesque," must have his head screwed on mostly straight. I almost took a break from the book and didn't read that essay, as I got to that piece the Monday night before the election. I'm glad I pressed on. The scope of this book is so great that it's almost surprising to look at the table of contents and realize a full four of these pieces are, in a sense, profiles of musicians, and all are wonderful and different. In particular, the Michael Jackson piece might be the best writing I've ever encountered concerning its subject. His descriptions of the people and places he encounters while traveling throughout his home territory are spot-on and filled with tiny details that say more than a longer description. He also offers the shortest, most accurate withering deconstruction of Christian rock penned in quite some time. And in still another essay, Sullivan opens up his home to the producers of One Tree Hill and is surprised when the filming location becomes a hotspot for fans of the program. His essays on, varyingly, Michael Jackson , Rose, and the roots of modern blues are well-structured, thoughtful, and have just the right words to describe exactly what in all of these forms of music is worth preserving. The A. Back in modern times, Sullivan takes us to the Ozarks for a Christian rock festival; to Florida to meet the alumni and straggling refugees of MTV's Real World, who've generated their own self-perpetuating economy of minor celebrity; and all across the South on the trail of the blues. He takes us to Indiana to investigate the formative years of Michael Jackson and Axl Rose and then to the Gulf Coast in the wake of Katrina—and back again as its residents confront the BP oil spill. Gradually, a unifying narrative emerges, a story about this country that we've never heard told this way. It's like a fun-house hall-of-mirrors tour: Sullivan shows us who we are in ways we've never imagined to be true. Of course we don't know whether to laugh or cry when faced with this reflection—it's our inevitable sob-guffaws that attest to the power of Sullivan's work. What's impressive about Pulphead is the way these disparate essays cohere into a memoirlike whole. The putty that binds them together is Mr. Sullivan's steady and unhurried voice. Reading him, I felt the way Mr. The book has its grotesques, for sure. But they are genuine and appear here in a way that put me in mind of one of Flannery O'Connor's indelible utterances. Unlike Tom Wolfe or Joan Didion, who bring their famous styles along with them like well-set, just-done hair, Sullivan lets his subjects muss and alter his prose; he works like a novelist.

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