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About a Mountain -- Read It
Since I’m currently reading John D’Agata’s book-length essay, About a Mountain , for an upcoming review, I don’t want to say too much about it. But, I will recommend it most emphatically. Without in any way, shape, or form implying that a style as interesting as that which D’Agata has summoned to write this book is derivative (because it’s not), it’s probably the only thing I’ve read to compare favorably to the energy, humor, and satire with which David Forster Wallace wrote several of the masterful essays collected in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again .
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- Some Thoughts Upon Beginning The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann I suppose the two adjectives I've most heard in conjunction with The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann are intimidating and bizarre (at least, those...
- About a Mountain by John D'Agata How did About a Mountain slip by me? Looks awesome. It sounds something like Don DeLillo, and D’Agata has been praised by DFW. From Publishers...
- Remixing Books Via Future of the Book, author Benjamin Rosenbaum has put his short story "Start the Clock" up for "remix." Basically, as long as you credit...
- Ballard’s Final Book Cancelled In this rapidly dawning era of publishing anything possibly affiliated with a major author, it's nice to see that the late JG Ballard's publisher has...
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Recommended Books DeLillo's major work before White Noise is probably his most underrated novel. Its all right here--the politics of paranoia, terrorism, the unnamable--set in an evocative, timeless Greece.
The most bizarre Abe novel I've yet read, which is indeed saying something. About a subclass of Japanese men who go around wearing boxes from the waist up (and then use them as domiciles in the evening), the book is also an experiment in perspective shifts, a highly unstable, metafictional first-person narrative, and an exploration of voyeurism, consumerism, and aberrant sexuality.
Charting the path to three gunshots--the one that killed filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, the one that disabled his Islamic extremist assassin, Mohammed Bouyeri, and the one that led to Vincent Van Gogh’s one hundred years earlier--Olsen tells three separate stories that resonate with one another on numerous levels: the logic of extremism, the role of the dissident in Dutch society, the limits of tolerance, the purpose of the artist, the feeling of the most important five minutes of your life. Read my interview with the author.
Creatively structured, well-executed epic novel of rural South Africa from 1950 - 2000. Takes on a lot and lives up to it magnificently. Highly recommended.
A book that's an interview about the book you're supposedly holding in your hands. Creative, potent, and full of life. Just what metafiction should be. Read my post on it.
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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)
Glad to see you following up on this without disappointment. After you first brought it up, I glanced its way, then sent your link to a former professor who is currently working on a book about Las Vegas and the surroundings. He was quite pleased and bought it right off.
I read it over the weekend and couldn’t put it down. The parts about language were especially fascinating to me. He seems to think on a different level than the rest of us, similar to DFW in that regard.
What are your thoughts on Bock’s review in NYT, where Bock deems his rearrangement of time for dramatic impact unethical?
I’m also curious to hear thoughts about Bock’s review from anyone who’s read “About a Mountain.” After seeing the book recommended a few places, I put it on my wish list. I still intend to get to it but was wondering if Bock’s criticisms rang true with people who’ve spent time with the book.
Regarding Bock:
It’s a fair question. I don’t think it should be dismissed, but nor do I think D’Agata’s compositing of dates is quite as simple as tightening things up for a better narrative hook, as the NYT review has it.
I’ll have to think about it some. I think you could create a plausible defense for it, but at this point I’m not sure that it was necessary.