Customer Reviews

Forced Entries: The Downtown Diaries: 1971-1973

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

(the review title makes reference to elements in the book)

This book is old but no less compelling than it was upon publication. Be forewarned though as Carrol's preface admits that
this slice-of-post-60s junkie life is not entirely true to
actual experience or sequenced correctly (relative to time)
but I assure you that these are mere details in what is otherwise a fine and strangely reassuring book - at least for those with personal experience with drug addiction.

There is a tone of optimism which keeps emerging throughout the work which reaches a climax as the author finally manages to rid his body of literal festering corruption afterwhich he basks in the afterglow of the early NYC sounds. One is left with the
impression that Carrol is more addicted to the Big Apple than any substance.

For those looking for an expose of "look what I did
to support my junk habit" well look elsewhere. This is much less
about heroin than it is the general vibe surrounding the early 70s in NYC. If you were there you will experience a strong sense of deja vu - for those who weren't well use this book as your
starting point and move forward.

I thought "The Basketball Diaries" was great, but this book surpassed even that. I laughed out loud several times and read parts over and over again. Carroll writes so beautifully that you almost forget the book is about life on drugs. His language is beautiful and clever, and his stories are funny and easy to imagine. This is one book I will be reading over and over again for along time. I wish he had a third diary out.

After seeing the movie "The Basketball Diaries," I decided to pick up the book. It was excellent. Then I read "Forced Entries." I admire Jim for writing without barriers. He sees humor in things you wouldn't think of. I couldn't put this book down. Because of those two books, he is now my favorite author/poet. His poetry is worth reading also. Everything he writes is a personal, touching, and often a scary reality. When reading his stuff, you can picture yourself in his world for a day. You see through the drug-addict's and poet's eyes. To understand the lengths people with drug addiction go through, you have to read at least one of his books. However, you'll be craving to read more.

an immensely humorous, frolicking, and impressively well-written look inside the corridors of New York city during a special time period. I tremble at the thought that The Basketball Diaries might not have been popularized, for then we might not have been so exposed to the sheer "Zen" talent of this writer.

Very few writers combine humor so well with literary splendor.

very enjoyable.

As the book says, it's a sensational sequel to Jim Carroll's first book of diaries, "The Basketball Diaries." I personally loved this book for irrelevant reasons. First, the last reviewer as stated that he/she didn't like this book because it jut told about his sex life and all that. What she wanted was for him doing drugs and stealing and stuff because he/she might have thought that that type of stuff was cool. This isn't how you should look at Forced Entries and especially The Basketball Diaries. In Forced Entires, Jim Carroll seaches his way to be pure (get off of drugs) through facing unknown challenges and taking the hard way down the road. He meets celebrities like Andy Warhol, he flees to Californai to cure the heroin addiction. You have to see Forced Entries in the litural sense and that Jim Carroll created himself out of literature. At the end he pours the sin of his bodily remains out of him and faces the more pure life, where he reaches the spot he was looking for in The Basketball Diaries and Forced Entries. "I can feel the window light hurting my eyes I just want to be pure..." - the last page of The Basketball Diaries

Jim Carroll is by and far one of America's most talented poets. He is also a supreme musician, diarist, and writer. In his second published diary, he picks up where The Basketball Diaries left off. He takes you with him into his head, on his trek for purity to California, and back to New York City, where it all began. The book is insightful, painfully funny, enlightening for anyone, and a must for all Jim Carroll fans. If nothing else, the language with which Jim writes is beautifully entertaining.

I love this book. Wickedly insightful. Metaphors that are razor sharp. Anyone who thinks the Basketball Diaries is better than this obviously has a lot of growing up to do...chronologically and aesthetically. I've read and re-read this book over and over..memorizing passages because they are so beautifully written... It's honest, halarious and sobering. Everyone should read this.

(Sorry if I make some mistakes, my first langage is French. I hope you will at least understand my review. Thanks!)

Forced Entries is a real good book of Jim, but it's really different of «Basketball Diaries». In this first book, you read the real personnal thoughts of a young man living is life at 150%. What he write in his diary is exactly what he's living in New York City, and what are his deep feelings about it. It makes this book so intense and «real» that it reflects an incredible energy.

In «Forced Entries», you don't have this intensity, because Jim, in opposition of «The Basketball Diaries», didn't write it at the same time as he was living it. You don't feel the same energy as in «BDs». So if you are looking for a sequel that would be written the same way as the «BDs» were, you will be a little disappointed.

But the book in himself is really good! You can see, as you're reading the lines, that Jim's writting talent has grown since «BDs». The texts are longer and written with more attention. You can feel the work of Jim behind each line. In fact, the real difference with «BDs» is that when Jim makes an entry in «Forced Entries», it's not to just relate something that happened during the past few days. He look at it as a philosopher, a poet, and he gives his personnal reflexions on it. This book is a more mature one.

So, in conclusion, I would say that «Forced Entries» is a real great work of Jim Carroll. It's full of deep reflexions and toughts of Jim. But it doesn't has the intensity and the innocence of «The Basketball Diaries». In fact, nobody, not even Jim Carroll himself, can reach the level of energy and reality of «The Basketball Diaries», because it's the mind of a young boy of 14 years old put on paper. It had to be written one time, and Jim Carroll wrote it. So now, I think we have to look at his other works as books written in a different state of mind. You can never find back your child mind. So, if you read «Forced Entries» as an independent book and not as a sequel of «The Basketball Diaries», you will discover an exceptionnal writter and poet: Jim Carroll.

Taking smack, kicking smack, this book details it all. It is life in NYC on a habit and trying to beat the habit. Itis the message of what Basketball Diaries, the movie attempted (In my opinion that ruined the movie, but so what). Still there are some unforgetable scenes, with special guests Patty Smith and A. Ginsberg. Jim Carrol paints scenes so vivid in reality one can taste them. The scenes are real, gutty, and sometimes downright so unbelievable that they have to be based on truth. A bit of advice: Don't go to the movies and sit next to someone with an arm infection wearing a tight t-shirt.

Yes, you must read "basketball Diaries" first. But, in this second book you really can feel Jim. And it's amazing. Love his writing, the way he words things. Love how his personality just flows onto the page and you feel like your actually there, hanging out with him.