A Note on Links
More Essays by Milan
Speaking of Distraction
The Shallows by Nicholas Carr
Another Review of The Novel: An Alternative History
The Orange Eats Creeps
The Unconsoled and the Annihilation of Plot
How did About a Mountain
Starred Review. In this circuitous, stylish investigation, D’Agata (Halls of Fame) uses the federal government’s highly controversial (and recently rejected) proposal to entomb the U.S.’s nuclear waste located in Yucca Mountain, near Las Vegas, as his way into a spiraling and subtle examination of the modern city, suicide, linguistics, Edvard Munch’s The Scream, ecological and psychic degradation, and the gulf between information and knowledge. Acting as a counterpoint to Yucca is the story of a teenager named Levi who leapt to his death off Las Vegas’ Stratosphere Motel. It is testament to D’Agata skillful organization of the book, broken into Who, What, When, Where, and Why, and his use of a rapid sequences of montages—Levi’s suicide is spliced with Orwellian Congressional debates on the stability of Yucca Mountain . . .
The Names by Don DeLillo (1982)
The Box Man by Kobo Abe (1973, English 1974)
Head in Flames by Lance Olsen (2009)
Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk (2006, English 2010)
The Weather Fifteen Years Ago by Wolf Haas (2006, English 2009)
I believe Harper’s – maybe it was The Believer – had an essay regarding the Las Vegas suicide. Must have been an excerpt from this book.
It was The Believer. I read it there and dug it, but felt it was something larger, felt really interesting glances, but didn’t realize it was part of a larger work.
I’ve gone from disappointed in the piece to really, really wanting to read this book.
Thanks for the post.
That Believer essay had a fantastic premise, but was so burdened by grammatical errors and sentences that didn’t make any sense. One whole paragraph about a cat attacking a string was so terribly written that it gave me a headache all day. I hope it was an editorial problem, and not representative of what’s in the book.