The American Night: The Writings of Jim Morrison (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

THE AMERICAN NIGHT presents Morrison's previously unpublished work in its truest form. WIth their nightmarish images, bold associative leaps, and volcanic power of emotion, these works are the unmistakable artifacts of a great, wild voice and heart.

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THE AMERICAN NIGHT presents Morrison's previously unpublished work in its truest form. WIth their nightmarish images, bold associative leaps, and volcanic power of emotion, these works are the unmistakable artifacts of a great, wild voice and heart.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 6th printing edition (July 30, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679734627
• ISBN-13: 978-0679734628
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #27,318 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars beautiful, surreal poetry, flawed but still great, December 27, 2001

By	J from NY (New York) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

okay, so morrison wasn't walt whitman. big deal. all you geniuses who knock him for being such a "pretentious" (a totally relative term)poet are probably turned on to the hip new sound of illustrious modern music geniuses like the backstreet boys or kid rock. well, to put it mildly, you guys can have them, and i for one prefer jim morrison to any the corporate owned commercialized out there today, who use absurd gimmicks and parade around in ridiculous costumes and makeup while openly admitting that all they are interested in is money. and i'm not some old hippie indulging in nostalgia--i'm 18. morrison was a passionate, idealistic, philosophical, intellectual poet who wanted to revolutionize society with the band's music. yes, things did not pan out as most of the artists (including morrison) envisioned it, but this is nonetheless heartfelt, sincere stuff, and it works as lyrics AND poetry, say what you may. i guarantee you that if morrison had lived he would have been an above average, if not legendary, poet, and that he would have made his mark among artists and intellectuals outside of pop culture. "an american prayer" is a touching poem and is the work of a man who had aspirations and ideals that were perhaps too lofty for one human being to carry out or realize at all, with or without the influence he had. he is obviously influenced poetically by the surrealists, the existentialists, and his poetry is more of the modern variety than the classical, as one would expect from such a rebellious, anti authoritarian individual. you can tell from these poems alone, and the poems in "wilderness", that while morrison was no shakespeare, he was an amazingly unique individual who somehow gained free access to his subconscious mind and who frequently employed imagery from it, seemingly whenever he wanted. and the guy who titled his commentary "abject failure as art" doesn't seem to recognize (or doesn't want to)that morrison was not writing from the traditional perspective, and one can probably be safe in assuming that he was of the dada/surrealist/futurist opinion that anything can be art, including life. if ever a man was himself the existential incarnation of his philosophy of life, jim morrison was it. this is a necessity and a must read, as is all the other poetry he wrote.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Unbalanced, January 24, 2002

By	asdfasdf5656w (Washington) - See all my reviews

Some of Jim's poems are exceptionally good, specifically the finished ones. But for the most part it seems they weren't finished, which isn't surprising considering American Night was published by his estate after his death. Who knows what he was planning to do with this material... it was just laying around in a jumble in various notebooks, I presume, and so they decided to sell it. They sold it "as is", straight from his notebooks and journals without any editing.

You might already be familiar with some of the material in this book, such as the chapter called Lyric Verse, which is a rehash of song lyrics. Then there's "Celebration of the Lizard," "American Prayer," "The Hitchhiker," "Paris Journal," and "Notebook Poems." I thought the most interesting section was "Notebook Poems", it was full of ideas about this and that, basically lots of experimentation. But unfortunately a lot of it just seems piled together.

I recommend Jim's self-published poetry book The Lords and New Creatures. It was completed while he was alive, thus it has the feel of a finished project-- something American Night lacks.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetry at it's finest, December 31, 1998

By A Customer

For so long students have been shown and taught about poetry in "medieval" ways by boring, old teachers. Made to write pointless Haiku's or name poems, etc... None of them give a blossoming student, with dreams to someday be a writer, a chance. Few students today can appreciate the artform it truly is, because of the way they're subjected to it, moreless write it. James Douglass Morrison, in this peice and his other poetry he has written, creates that bridge to youth,like myself and others. "The American Night", allows us to "Break on Through, to the other side", to Jim's side.