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About a Mountain
From “one of the most significant U.S. writers” (David Foster Wallace), an investigation of Yucca Mountain and human destruction in Las Vegas.
When John D’Agata helps his mother move to Las Vegas one summer, he begins to follow a story about the federal government’s plan to store high-level nuclear waste at a place called Yucca Mountain, a desert range near the city of Las Vegas. Bearing witness to the parade of scientific, cultural, and political facts that give shape to Yucca’s story, D’Agata keeps the six tenets of reporting in mind—Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How—arranging his own investigation around each vital question.
Yet as the contradictions inherent in Yucca’s story are revealed, D’Agata’s investigation turns inevitably personal. He finds himself investigating the death of a teenager who jumps off the tower of the Stratosphere Hotel, a boy whom D’Agata believes he spoke with before his suicide.
Here is the work of a penetrating thinker whose startling portrait of a mountain in the desert compels a reexamination of the future of human life.
When John D’Agata helps his mother move to Las Vegas one summer, he begins to follow a story about the federal government’s plan to store high-level nuclear waste at a place called Yucca Mountain, a desert range near the city of Las Vegas. Bearing witness to the parade of scientific, cultural, and political facts that give shape to Yucca’s story, D’Agata keeps the six tenets of reporting in mind—Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How—arranging his own investigation around each vital question.
Yet as the contradictions inherent in Yucca’s story are revealed, D’Agata’s investigation turns inevitably personal. He finds himself investigating the death of a teenager who jumps off the tower of the Stratosphere Hotel, a boy whom D’Agata believes he spoke with before his suicide.
Here is the work of a penetrating thinker whose startling portrait of a mountain in the desert compels a reexamination of the future of human life.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
72 people are currently reading
1105 people want to read
About the author
John D'Agata
14 books79 followersJohn D’Agata is the author of Halls of Fame: Essays, About a Mountain, and The Lifespan of a Fact, as well as the editor of the 3-volume series A New History of the Essay,, which includes the anthologies The Next American Essay, The Making of the American Essay, and The Lost Origins of the Essay. His work has been supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Howard Foundation Fellowship, an NEA Literature Fellowship, and a Lannan Foundation Fellowship. He holds a B.A. from Hobart College and two M.F.A.s from the University of Iowa, and recently his essays have appeared in ,i>The Believer, Harper's, Gulf Coast, and Conjunctions. John D’Agata lives in Iowa City with a dog named Boeing, and he teaches creative writing at the University of Iowa where he directs the graduate Nonfiction Writing Program.
Find out more at johndagata.com
Find out more at johndagata.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 344 reviews
February 16, 2012
Update 2/16/2012: Wow I just read this Slate article about John D'Agata and his fact checker. Apparently they had heated debates over whether facts matter. D'Agata throws the word 'art' around like some trump-card and was generally acting like an asshole. I don't disagree with his point: facts can be changed in the service of art. However, I don't think D'Agata can justify that what he wrote is art! I read the essay in question (it's actually the last chapter of this here book) and I would say that he didn't change facts in the service of art, but in the service of sensationalism! Besides, his writing style is atrocious. I have no problem with other artists fudging the truth, when they are actually making good art: Ryszard Kapuściński, Geoff Dyer, Gontran de Poncis, etc. Or filmmakers: Herzog, Erroll Morris, Kiarostami, etc. But a hack job like D'Agata? Give me a break! Sorry for the rant, but this article just pissed me off.
Original Review: John D'Agata is no writer. He may be smart and he may have his eye on the pulse of new innovative writing and he may even be able to talk intelligently about it, but he is no writer. There is a simple explanation for this. John D'Agata has no ear for language.
At this point, you may be flabbergasted. You may be wondering "but Jimmy, how can you say that about someone who is admired by Ben Marcus, Blake Butler, David Ulin and many other innovative trendsetting writers?" Easy, they are wrong. It is easy to be caught up in a provocative subject, presented in an innovative new way.
But the sentences! The words! Even the most fact-driven boring newspaper writer should have an ear for language, a sense of how to create rhythm and sounds for a desired effect. Or for the opposite of that effect, to shatter rhythm and sound in an attempt to undermine poetry. But here there is no sustained strategy in either direction. Each sentence clunks against my ear, each syllable losing flight in the dead air.
In a book not so much about a mountain, but about a form (the form of a mountain? the form of language?) you would think John D'Agata would try to pay some attention to his words, sentences, paragraphs. This is all the more heinous given that John D'Agata is supposed to be the artful essay writer, as opposed to the un-artful essay writers who care too much about subject matter and not enough about 'style'. And yet, I will take many other essay writers concerned about subject matter over John D'Agata. At least most of them have no pretensions of literary value. And some of them can actually write a good sentence.
John D'Agata's sentences, when they are short and declarative are transparent in the way they are trying to build momentum. And yet no momentum is built. The air goes straight out. The rhythm is decidedly off, and the details are trite, even predictable. There is a particular art to writing a good list, of the predictable vs. the unpredictable, the length and rhythm and sound of the words. John D'Agata does not know anything about this art.
When his sentences are long, they end up tripping all over themselves. You have a sense that John D’Agata has no idea why he is writing a long sentence over a short sentence or vice versa. You have a sense that he is just throwing “style” on the page when he has no idea what it is, or how it works. And yet I would also argue that this book is completely style-less. Style must exist organically. What we have here is an attempt to write an unconventional essay. But what's evident is that John D’Agata doesn’t have that much to say. So he inflates the pages with words, with lists of words that may have associative ties to the subject at hand, in the hopes of hitting an emotional register or two. This strategy might be bearable if John D’Agata could write.
Dare I say the word “sloppy”? Yes, there is something sloppy in this mess of a book. I was expecting so much from it because the subject matter was so interesting. Yet John D’Agata manages to take this premise and make it mind numbingly boring, brushing over its surface with his obvious observations. His writing approaches the superficiality of the city of Las Vegas itself. His attempts to relate it back to his life, his mother, the suicide victim, etc. were just that: attempts. I could only feel the excruciating effort in these attempts, not an opening up to the possibility of discovery through language but a feeling of closed-up-ness. There is no excitement, no depth, and no connection to any of the characters or even to the writer’s own voice at all.
Just for the record, I have nothing against the new essay or the blending of personal and historical, fact and fiction, etc. In fact, I have been reading an anthology that John D'Agata himself edited: The Next American Essay. And I really like some of the pieces so far (Joan Didion's piece in the book does something similar to what John D'Agata is trying to do here, but much more effectively). I even have a shelf of poetic essays. So what I object to is not the form, but how it is executed.
Original Review: John D'Agata is no writer. He may be smart and he may have his eye on the pulse of new innovative writing and he may even be able to talk intelligently about it, but he is no writer. There is a simple explanation for this. John D'Agata has no ear for language.
At this point, you may be flabbergasted. You may be wondering "but Jimmy, how can you say that about someone who is admired by Ben Marcus, Blake Butler, David Ulin and many other innovative trendsetting writers?" Easy, they are wrong. It is easy to be caught up in a provocative subject, presented in an innovative new way.
But the sentences! The words! Even the most fact-driven boring newspaper writer should have an ear for language, a sense of how to create rhythm and sounds for a desired effect. Or for the opposite of that effect, to shatter rhythm and sound in an attempt to undermine poetry. But here there is no sustained strategy in either direction. Each sentence clunks against my ear, each syllable losing flight in the dead air.
In a book not so much about a mountain, but about a form (the form of a mountain? the form of language?) you would think John D'Agata would try to pay some attention to his words, sentences, paragraphs. This is all the more heinous given that John D'Agata is supposed to be the artful essay writer, as opposed to the un-artful essay writers who care too much about subject matter and not enough about 'style'. And yet, I will take many other essay writers concerned about subject matter over John D'Agata. At least most of them have no pretensions of literary value. And some of them can actually write a good sentence.
John D'Agata's sentences, when they are short and declarative are transparent in the way they are trying to build momentum. And yet no momentum is built. The air goes straight out. The rhythm is decidedly off, and the details are trite, even predictable. There is a particular art to writing a good list, of the predictable vs. the unpredictable, the length and rhythm and sound of the words. John D'Agata does not know anything about this art.
When his sentences are long, they end up tripping all over themselves. You have a sense that John D’Agata has no idea why he is writing a long sentence over a short sentence or vice versa. You have a sense that he is just throwing “style” on the page when he has no idea what it is, or how it works. And yet I would also argue that this book is completely style-less. Style must exist organically. What we have here is an attempt to write an unconventional essay. But what's evident is that John D’Agata doesn’t have that much to say. So he inflates the pages with words, with lists of words that may have associative ties to the subject at hand, in the hopes of hitting an emotional register or two. This strategy might be bearable if John D’Agata could write.
Dare I say the word “sloppy”? Yes, there is something sloppy in this mess of a book. I was expecting so much from it because the subject matter was so interesting. Yet John D’Agata manages to take this premise and make it mind numbingly boring, brushing over its surface with his obvious observations. His writing approaches the superficiality of the city of Las Vegas itself. His attempts to relate it back to his life, his mother, the suicide victim, etc. were just that: attempts. I could only feel the excruciating effort in these attempts, not an opening up to the possibility of discovery through language but a feeling of closed-up-ness. There is no excitement, no depth, and no connection to any of the characters or even to the writer’s own voice at all.
Just for the record, I have nothing against the new essay or the blending of personal and historical, fact and fiction, etc. In fact, I have been reading an anthology that John D'Agata himself edited: The Next American Essay. And I really like some of the pieces so far (Joan Didion's piece in the book does something similar to what John D'Agata is trying to do here, but much more effectively). I even have a shelf of poetic essays. So what I object to is not the form, but how it is executed.
March 25, 2011
I think I've come a little bit closer to defining what it is I love about great writing -- I love to learn a little something, I love to lose a breath over an ingenious construction of words, I love an author who welcomes me into a room peopled with ideas that surprise me. I love John D'Agata. Like, almost physically. Like, watch out, John, you are right now living in my town, and I could find you. Alright, I tried to be cute and look you up in the phone book, but you're not listed, but I found the listing for your office in EPB, and I could conceivably drive by every day on my way to work if I didn't mind that two mile detour through collegetown traffic. But all that would be silly, because what I really love is his fervent attitude about the essay. D'Agata's essay refuses to follow form; his conclusion refuses to recap his intro, his outline is beside the point; his facts are researched and justified, but their role is more character than bullet point. His pseudo-facts play the straight man, honest and accurate and ridiculous. Plus, on top of this incredible, irreverent essay construction, what he's saying is just as enchanting as how he's saying it.
You might say D'Agata got lucky, finding himself in Vegas with a national headline concerning nuclear waste on his left and a suicide on his right, but really, all he did was pay attention. And then he asked a lot of questions. And only now and then did they get answered, but more often than not, the not-answer was answer enough. And the ridiculous things (like creating a warning sign that will survive and communicate for 10,000 years) made him chuckle through the knuckleheads he interviewed, and the sad things (a 16-year-old suicide in the city boasting the highest number of suicides per capita in the country) made him weep poetry. And when was the last time you read an essay that took you to such emotional extremes? Essays aren't supposed to do that, they're supposed to be little theses with facts and logical argument -- no crying.
I'm off to read D'Agata's other book of essays, Halls of Fame: Essays, where it seems to me he's doing some Anthony Bourdain-style visits to various halls of kitsch. I'm looking forward to his sharing with me his curiosity, his capacity for wonder, that informs his writing and makes it feel like I'm not learning anything, just staring at his open palms with my mouth agape, wondering what's next.
You might say D'Agata got lucky, finding himself in Vegas with a national headline concerning nuclear waste on his left and a suicide on his right, but really, all he did was pay attention. And then he asked a lot of questions. And only now and then did they get answered, but more often than not, the not-answer was answer enough. And the ridiculous things (like creating a warning sign that will survive and communicate for 10,000 years) made him chuckle through the knuckleheads he interviewed, and the sad things (a 16-year-old suicide in the city boasting the highest number of suicides per capita in the country) made him weep poetry. And when was the last time you read an essay that took you to such emotional extremes? Essays aren't supposed to do that, they're supposed to be little theses with facts and logical argument -- no crying.
I'm off to read D'Agata's other book of essays, Halls of Fame: Essays, where it seems to me he's doing some Anthony Bourdain-style visits to various halls of kitsch. I'm looking forward to his sharing with me his curiosity, his capacity for wonder, that informs his writing and makes it feel like I'm not learning anything, just staring at his open palms with my mouth agape, wondering what's next.
June 24, 2018
Me gusta mucho hablar de residuos nucleares en Las Vegas, y menos de suicidios en Las Vegas, pero la verdad es que una vez que te pones con lo primero, llegas a lo segundo bien derechito.
Read
June 2, 2010It's hard to make any criticism or comment regarding About A Mountain without feeling like that reaction has been anticipated by and even included in the book already. One of the texts primary arguments is that everything from atomic storage facilities to attempts at communication inevitably corrodes and fails, given time. So to call this ambitious attempt to tell the "untellable" story of Yucca Mountain a failure is redundant, because instead of that impossible it offers a collection of facts and figures untethered to advocacy or calls for action, and bookends these with more personal, suggestive details. What bothered me, though, in the assumption that the whole of such a complex a "technical disaster" can't be told is that other books, by other authors, have accomplished what D'Agata declares impossible -- Carolyn Nordstrom's A Different Kind of War Story, for instance, and Svetlana Alexievich Voices from Chernobyl. Unlike those books, About A Mountain never really puts much at stake, despite the appearance of the highest stakes. There's no real argument against the Yucca Mountain facility, because Las Vegas, the place most at risk, is portrayed as a city designed for destruction. Meanwhile, there's no real attention to the natural environment that the facility would impact, either. Ultimately, that lack of stakes made this feel more like an intellectual exercise than anything else -- an interesting one, at times, and compelling to read, but I couldn't shake the uncomfortable sense that such a casual, even cynical approach reduces significant, disastrous possibilities to nothing more than materials for epistemological speculation. I'm not even going to try to give this a rating, because that kind of reduction is so at odds with my confused, ongoing reaction to the book.
January 10, 2011
My review from the Missoula Independent
In his second book, John D'Agata has shown himself to be a razor-sharp deconstructionist of society's foibles, fables and complexities. Author of the much lauded collection of essays, Halls of Fame, and aggressive editor of two essay compilations, he turns in his latest to Yucca Mountain, an arid landscape 100 miles northwest of downtown Las Vegas, and its implications—both correlated and imagined—that it had on the region and on the world. From the first page he manages to dust off our notions of the essay, the cultural history and the travelogue. It's all very disorienting, and somehow extraordinarily pertinent.
About a Mountain starts on a personal note and wends its way to cover the universe. While helping his mother relocate to a Las Vegas development, D'Agata begins investigating the proposed nuclear waste depository at Yucca Mountain (approved by Congress in 2002, rescinded in 2009). Soon, he discovers that contradictions about the site are ubiquitous. D'Agata recounts, in tragicomic deadpan, that neither the National Economic Council nor the Department of Energy can agree on anything from the cost of the project to hypothetical routes the shipments would take. From there, the absurdities multiply and the author dutifully follows them all. Stylistically wedged somewhere between the nerdy travel episodes of Sarah Vowell and the incisive compulsions of Chuck Palahniuk, D'Agata immerses himself in the looping knots of his story, from the vagaries of casino architecture and the dark politics of Vegas, to the Thematic Apperception Test and the Vegas suicide rate (researchers claim that merely visiting the city increases the chances of having suicidal inclinations). From a study of the nightmarish designs intended for Yucca, D'Agata focuses his considerable dexterity on "nuclear semiotics," the highly subjective theory of figuring out which words, colors and images to use to deter the curious of the future from disturbing nuclear waste sites.
Not once in About a Mountain does the author attempt anything as conventional as a narrative, or for that matter, anything resembling a formulaic chronology: His story could have occurred over the course of a week or several years. Often archaic and misleading, it is never boring or incomprehensible. With chapters journalistically titled "Who," "What," "When," "Where," "Why" and "How," D'Agata gives an account of his time volunteering with the Las Vegas Suicide Prevention Center (after which he becomes obsessed with the suicide of 16-year-old Levi Presley), the biological necessity and approaching extinction of screaming, the frightening diary entries of Edvard Munch, "The Scream" in modern advertising, the fear and trembling inherent in all the great works of art, and the ultimate astrobiological fate of the universe. At the conclusion of this 10-page denial of our future, D'Agata gets at the nucleus of his investigations:
"I do not think that Yucca Mountain is a solution or a problem. I think that what I believe is that the mountain is where we are, it's what we now have come to—a place that we have studied more thoroughly at this point than any other parcel of land in the world—and yet still it remains unknown, revealing only the fragility of our capacity to know."
About a Mountain is distinctly ahistorical as nonfiction, while overly historical for a classic essay. Its humor is buried in noncommittal narration—as dry and inhuman as the region it explores. D'Agata creates a disruptive, unemotional mood, imbues it with real or artificial meaning, then fades out and into another fascinating whim. It is one circuitous digression after another, as though the author is taking every passing thought remotely connected to Yucca and attempting to statistically prove why each is important while still remaining unconvinced. No answers are given, few questions beforehand asked. One considerable disadvantage is his tendency to make the obvious into something impenetrable in order to instill much of his material with nonexistent significance.
D'Agata is a master of juxtaposing curiously ironic statistics with the deeply miserable. About a Mountain is a virtuosic display that, like many postmodern attempts, only occasionally relegates itself to inanity. Starting early in his career D'Agata has injected prose poetry into lackluster topics, going far beyond simply illuminating his subjects to a disassembling of the craft of writing itself. He is more technician than writer, and his book is high-end collage rather than lyrical essay. Sometimes the artistic drive hinders the facts, as in D'Agata's statement that the 16-year-old boy's suicide coincided with the final Senate vote on Yucca, only to add a disclaimer that he embellished the dates of the two events for reasons of continuity.
But at its best, About a Mountain is not really about a mountain. Mostly, it is about the form of the essay as though its subjects were set to random on an iTunes playlist; poetry charged with a slightly frightening dud of dynamite. Everyone to whom I've summarized the book responds, "That sounds like a great novel," and it says something essential about D'Agata's method that when I tell them it is a nonfictional essay, they still insist that it sounds like a great novel.
In his second book, John D'Agata has shown himself to be a razor-sharp deconstructionist of society's foibles, fables and complexities. Author of the much lauded collection of essays, Halls of Fame, and aggressive editor of two essay compilations, he turns in his latest to Yucca Mountain, an arid landscape 100 miles northwest of downtown Las Vegas, and its implications—both correlated and imagined—that it had on the region and on the world. From the first page he manages to dust off our notions of the essay, the cultural history and the travelogue. It's all very disorienting, and somehow extraordinarily pertinent.
About a Mountain starts on a personal note and wends its way to cover the universe. While helping his mother relocate to a Las Vegas development, D'Agata begins investigating the proposed nuclear waste depository at Yucca Mountain (approved by Congress in 2002, rescinded in 2009). Soon, he discovers that contradictions about the site are ubiquitous. D'Agata recounts, in tragicomic deadpan, that neither the National Economic Council nor the Department of Energy can agree on anything from the cost of the project to hypothetical routes the shipments would take. From there, the absurdities multiply and the author dutifully follows them all. Stylistically wedged somewhere between the nerdy travel episodes of Sarah Vowell and the incisive compulsions of Chuck Palahniuk, D'Agata immerses himself in the looping knots of his story, from the vagaries of casino architecture and the dark politics of Vegas, to the Thematic Apperception Test and the Vegas suicide rate (researchers claim that merely visiting the city increases the chances of having suicidal inclinations). From a study of the nightmarish designs intended for Yucca, D'Agata focuses his considerable dexterity on "nuclear semiotics," the highly subjective theory of figuring out which words, colors and images to use to deter the curious of the future from disturbing nuclear waste sites.
Not once in About a Mountain does the author attempt anything as conventional as a narrative, or for that matter, anything resembling a formulaic chronology: His story could have occurred over the course of a week or several years. Often archaic and misleading, it is never boring or incomprehensible. With chapters journalistically titled "Who," "What," "When," "Where," "Why" and "How," D'Agata gives an account of his time volunteering with the Las Vegas Suicide Prevention Center (after which he becomes obsessed with the suicide of 16-year-old Levi Presley), the biological necessity and approaching extinction of screaming, the frightening diary entries of Edvard Munch, "The Scream" in modern advertising, the fear and trembling inherent in all the great works of art, and the ultimate astrobiological fate of the universe. At the conclusion of this 10-page denial of our future, D'Agata gets at the nucleus of his investigations:
"I do not think that Yucca Mountain is a solution or a problem. I think that what I believe is that the mountain is where we are, it's what we now have come to—a place that we have studied more thoroughly at this point than any other parcel of land in the world—and yet still it remains unknown, revealing only the fragility of our capacity to know."
About a Mountain is distinctly ahistorical as nonfiction, while overly historical for a classic essay. Its humor is buried in noncommittal narration—as dry and inhuman as the region it explores. D'Agata creates a disruptive, unemotional mood, imbues it with real or artificial meaning, then fades out and into another fascinating whim. It is one circuitous digression after another, as though the author is taking every passing thought remotely connected to Yucca and attempting to statistically prove why each is important while still remaining unconvinced. No answers are given, few questions beforehand asked. One considerable disadvantage is his tendency to make the obvious into something impenetrable in order to instill much of his material with nonexistent significance.
D'Agata is a master of juxtaposing curiously ironic statistics with the deeply miserable. About a Mountain is a virtuosic display that, like many postmodern attempts, only occasionally relegates itself to inanity. Starting early in his career D'Agata has injected prose poetry into lackluster topics, going far beyond simply illuminating his subjects to a disassembling of the craft of writing itself. He is more technician than writer, and his book is high-end collage rather than lyrical essay. Sometimes the artistic drive hinders the facts, as in D'Agata's statement that the 16-year-old boy's suicide coincided with the final Senate vote on Yucca, only to add a disclaimer that he embellished the dates of the two events for reasons of continuity.
But at its best, About a Mountain is not really about a mountain. Mostly, it is about the form of the essay as though its subjects were set to random on an iTunes playlist; poetry charged with a slightly frightening dud of dynamite. Everyone to whom I've summarized the book responds, "That sounds like a great novel," and it says something essential about D'Agata's method that when I tell them it is a nonfictional essay, they still insist that it sounds like a great novel.
January 9, 2025
This book sucked. Boring, and the author is not nearly as clever as he thinks he is. So many pointless lists, and the structure of the narrative and flow of each section is clumsy and not engaging. Overall, I didn’t learn as much about the Yucca mountain project as I wanted to, and instead a lot of pointless shit about Las Vegas and other random shit the author got sidetracked by.
February 21, 2024
Aside from learning about Yucca mountain, which I had never heard about, I also learned that D’Agata REALLY likes lists
January 20, 2016
This is a brilliant book. I don't like to throw a term like that around too easily but this book blew me away. On the surface, it's a book about the controversy surrounding the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository, but it ends up being about so so much more. No surprise that D'Agata is a fan of the lyric essay--and also that he started out as a poet--because this book is as much prose poetry as it is investigative reporting. Don't get me wrong. It has plenty of investigation in it. In fact, D'Agata obviously did a mammoth amount of research for this book, consulting a veritable army of experts of all kinds, from linguists to nuclear scientists to authorities on suicide to private investigators to Las Vegas PR people and everyone in between. He read extensively and quotes extensively. But what's more important to the book is how organic a structure it employs. He researches one subject and then allows that subject to naturally lead to another. He lets life events lead from one subject to another. (After all, he only discovers the Yucca mountain subject because he and his mother move to Las Vegas, a life event with which he opens the book.) And then he pursues that next subject to the hilt, even if it means getting very far away from the immediate subject of Yucca mountain. For some readers, I imagine, this could make the book quite maddening. But I loved it. I think it's a tour de force of creative nonfiction. One of the best written, most exacting, and most haunting books I've read in some time.
September 20, 2011
As of yet, I find myself in the "It was okay" category of John D'Agata's About a Mountain. It isn't bad, it really isn't. In a way I enjoy hearing about the history of Las Vegas, the signs, the buildings, and the people who live there. I find the controversy of nuclear waste intriguing and it certainly makes me think about how far mankind will go to ignore the problems that they themselves created. Yet I still can't bring myself to consider it a good read, or one I would consider making again. I am still reading it and by no means is it a chore to finish reading, but I already plan to cycle this book out of my library.
To sum my thoughts up simply and honestly... The history is interesting. The controversy is interesting. The book is not. John D'Agata is not.
As another reviewer, Jess, stated: "Every so often, I read a book that is getting rave reviews and just don't understand why. Nothing against Mr. D'Agata or the work he did before writing this book, but I just didn't find this book to be extraordinary in its content or writing style."
However, in the end, the book does make me think.
To sum my thoughts up simply and honestly... The history is interesting. The controversy is interesting. The book is not. John D'Agata is not.
As another reviewer, Jess, stated: "Every so often, I read a book that is getting rave reviews and just don't understand why. Nothing against Mr. D'Agata or the work he did before writing this book, but I just didn't find this book to be extraordinary in its content or writing style."
However, in the end, the book does make me think.
May 4, 2024
Note: I just wrote a long review criticizing this book, but Goodreads thought it would be a good idea to get stuck saving the review despite perfect internet connection, so I'm not going to bother rewriting it all.
Here's the gist: good topic, really bad delivery.
It's also really frustrating that D'Agata lied about much of this information, claiming after it was discovered that he was manipulating facts in the service of art. This, sir, is not art; it is a piece of sensationalist journalism that really wants to sell well.
Don't read this; just look up Yucca Mountain on your own and save yourself the trouble of trying to discern D'Agata's facts from his fiction.
Here's the gist: good topic, really bad delivery.
It's also really frustrating that D'Agata lied about much of this information, claiming after it was discovered that he was manipulating facts in the service of art. This, sir, is not art; it is a piece of sensationalist journalism that really wants to sell well.
Don't read this; just look up Yucca Mountain on your own and save yourself the trouble of trying to discern D'Agata's facts from his fiction.
October 7, 2022
This one lost me. The author likes lists, which created a trancelike state for me while reading at bedtime. My mind did latch on to the idea of creating messages that can be understood by future civilizations: How do you endlessly convey that a vast, seemingly natural place is toxic and dangerous? How can you ensure physical signage will withstand the elements and the ages? (I appreciate the thinker who pointed out that the human race might just be gone in a hundred years, so what's the point!) The book concludes with details about a young man's tragic death—that part was haunting and is sticking with me, but I'm still pondering how it all connects.
September 26, 2023
This guy is obsessed with hearing himself talk. And lists.
April 7, 2022
This is hands down the most provocative and well written book I’ve read in years.
July 27, 2024
Really pushed thru to finish this and it was not worth it. Interesting idea horrible execution someone feed this man a Ritalin
June 11, 2010
About A Mountain is quirky little book. In it, John D'Agata takes a look Las Vegas, Yucca Mountain and a teenager's suicide leap off the top of a Las Vegas landmark, the Stratosphere. Exactly what ties these things together is never made entirely clear, but half the fun of reading About A Mountain is pondering that enigmatic mystery.
My own answer is that the three elements are tied together by a sense of unreality, futility and sadness. Las Vegas is no doubt the most unreal city in America, a glitzy metropolis built on previously barren desert sands. Once home to nothing more than jackrabbits and snakes, it's now a megacity, complete with luxury hotels and gourmet restaurants run by every celebrity chef worth the name. But most of Las Vegas is simply a cunning deception, an artful facade marked by a fake Eiffel Tower, a fake St. Mark's Square, a fake Empire State Building, a fake volcano, a fake pyramid.
There's no shortage of places to spend money and have fun, and no shortage of places to lose money and to despair. The Stratosphere is a fine symbol of the futility of trying to come out ahead in this city of dreams and nightmares. Isolated from the main action, it soars above the city and desert sands. The view is spectacular, but the hotel feels lonely and sad, like the failing venture it is. Perhaps that's why a lonely teenager chose this place to end his life by taking the elevator to the top and jumping off.
And then there's the mountain of the title, Yucca Mountain, the proposed and controversial nuclear waste dump. The juxtaposition of the thoroughly cosmopolitan city that is Las Vegas with Yucca Mountain, where tons of nuclear waste would be stored, is odd and jarring. Las Vegas is an alive place -- a city that buzzes with energy -- the megawattage lights, the unending gambling, the casinos that never close. And Yucca Mountain, if it is ever completed, would be a dead place -- an eternal tomb for nuclear waste, that highly toxic spent material left over after all the energy has been extracted from nuclear fuel.
Yucca Mountain is probably never going to be completed. What fills one with sadness and despair is not that politicians proposed it, but that the nuclear waste that would have been consigned there continues to be generated and stored haphazardly who knows where. About A Mountain puts a spotlight on this ugly problem of the nuclear age. Right now, there's really no good place to put the stuff. It's highly toxic, and it stays that way for hundreds of thousands of years. It's dangerous to store, dangerous to transport, and there's no safe central place to store it.
This is where the unreality of Las Vegas intersects with the unreality of Yucca Mountain. Both are places which require one to pretend that everything is just fine and that all life's problems have happy solutions. But Yucca Mountain is not the answer to the nuclear waste problem. And Las Vegas is not really a happy place.
My own answer is that the three elements are tied together by a sense of unreality, futility and sadness. Las Vegas is no doubt the most unreal city in America, a glitzy metropolis built on previously barren desert sands. Once home to nothing more than jackrabbits and snakes, it's now a megacity, complete with luxury hotels and gourmet restaurants run by every celebrity chef worth the name. But most of Las Vegas is simply a cunning deception, an artful facade marked by a fake Eiffel Tower, a fake St. Mark's Square, a fake Empire State Building, a fake volcano, a fake pyramid.
There's no shortage of places to spend money and have fun, and no shortage of places to lose money and to despair. The Stratosphere is a fine symbol of the futility of trying to come out ahead in this city of dreams and nightmares. Isolated from the main action, it soars above the city and desert sands. The view is spectacular, but the hotel feels lonely and sad, like the failing venture it is. Perhaps that's why a lonely teenager chose this place to end his life by taking the elevator to the top and jumping off.
And then there's the mountain of the title, Yucca Mountain, the proposed and controversial nuclear waste dump. The juxtaposition of the thoroughly cosmopolitan city that is Las Vegas with Yucca Mountain, where tons of nuclear waste would be stored, is odd and jarring. Las Vegas is an alive place -- a city that buzzes with energy -- the megawattage lights, the unending gambling, the casinos that never close. And Yucca Mountain, if it is ever completed, would be a dead place -- an eternal tomb for nuclear waste, that highly toxic spent material left over after all the energy has been extracted from nuclear fuel.
Yucca Mountain is probably never going to be completed. What fills one with sadness and despair is not that politicians proposed it, but that the nuclear waste that would have been consigned there continues to be generated and stored haphazardly who knows where. About A Mountain puts a spotlight on this ugly problem of the nuclear age. Right now, there's really no good place to put the stuff. It's highly toxic, and it stays that way for hundreds of thousands of years. It's dangerous to store, dangerous to transport, and there's no safe central place to store it.
This is where the unreality of Las Vegas intersects with the unreality of Yucca Mountain. Both are places which require one to pretend that everything is just fine and that all life's problems have happy solutions. But Yucca Mountain is not the answer to the nuclear waste problem. And Las Vegas is not really a happy place.
April 27, 2010
It seems like most reviewers tore through book, just as I did, and I think that is a testament to D'Agata's style, which is tight and lyrical.
The main topic of this book is about the US government looking to use Yucca Mountain, located just outside of Las Vegas, as a storage facility for our nations plentiful nuclear waste. This topic, interesting enough on its own, then spiderwebs itself into tangentially related topics such as linguistics, the strange, modern fantasy that is Las Vegas, ridiculous politics, suicide, Edvard's Munch's The Scream, our moral obligation towards future generations (if there is any), and what the world as we know it will look like in 10,000 years (for starters, it's gonna be 50 degrees colder because the planet's axis is gradually tilting).
This is not your normal non fiction reading experience. D'Agata seems intent on reshaping the modern essay. It can probably be lumped in with 'new journalism' or 'literary non fiction' or whatever you want to call it. One of the things I found most interesting was his bibliography at the end of the book, which were occasionally coupled with little notes from D'Agata, explaining certain sources, and in some cases, plainly stating that this particular piece of information that was used in the book was wrong and that he had misremembered it. But then why didn't he just correct it in the final text? Why leave the misremembered information in the main text? And he did this a few times in the bibliography, stating that "Oh, well this isn't exactly true," or "I thought this was the case but I learned later...".
I am not pointing this out as "Look at what a bad journalist he is." I'm pointing this out to say, "This is interesting, why did he do it this way? What is he trying to tell the reader?" I think it is linked with some of his ruminations of knowledge vs. wisdom, though I'm not quite sure. Or it's kinda like he tried to see if he could do a investigative research project while relying heavily on his own perceptions, experiences, and memories to carry the book. And he even mentions in the book at one point when someone says he's "Press" and he says he's not "Press" and they ask what exactly he's doing and he responds that he's not sure exactly. Which could seem kinda silly but make no mistake, this thing is well researched and drenched in mind-blowing information. This all sounds like an oxymoron but it works and it's interesting and you should read it. This is the type of book you want your friends to read so you can talk it out afterward.
D'Agata is going to be on Bookworm April 25, 2010.
The main topic of this book is about the US government looking to use Yucca Mountain, located just outside of Las Vegas, as a storage facility for our nations plentiful nuclear waste. This topic, interesting enough on its own, then spiderwebs itself into tangentially related topics such as linguistics, the strange, modern fantasy that is Las Vegas, ridiculous politics, suicide, Edvard's Munch's The Scream, our moral obligation towards future generations (if there is any), and what the world as we know it will look like in 10,000 years (for starters, it's gonna be 50 degrees colder because the planet's axis is gradually tilting).
This is not your normal non fiction reading experience. D'Agata seems intent on reshaping the modern essay. It can probably be lumped in with 'new journalism' or 'literary non fiction' or whatever you want to call it. One of the things I found most interesting was his bibliography at the end of the book, which were occasionally coupled with little notes from D'Agata, explaining certain sources, and in some cases, plainly stating that this particular piece of information that was used in the book was wrong and that he had misremembered it. But then why didn't he just correct it in the final text? Why leave the misremembered information in the main text? And he did this a few times in the bibliography, stating that "Oh, well this isn't exactly true," or "I thought this was the case but I learned later...".
I am not pointing this out as "Look at what a bad journalist he is." I'm pointing this out to say, "This is interesting, why did he do it this way? What is he trying to tell the reader?" I think it is linked with some of his ruminations of knowledge vs. wisdom, though I'm not quite sure. Or it's kinda like he tried to see if he could do a investigative research project while relying heavily on his own perceptions, experiences, and memories to carry the book. And he even mentions in the book at one point when someone says he's "Press" and he says he's not "Press" and they ask what exactly he's doing and he responds that he's not sure exactly. Which could seem kinda silly but make no mistake, this thing is well researched and drenched in mind-blowing information. This all sounds like an oxymoron but it works and it's interesting and you should read it. This is the type of book you want your friends to read so you can talk it out afterward.
D'Agata is going to be on Bookworm April 25, 2010.
January 7, 2011
Any good personal essay should have the following: 1) A personal voice that ensnares our attention immediately. 2) A trigger to the main theme or themes. Locus standii, in other words. 3) Relevant and interesting digressions that run from historical and scientific to cultural and anecdotal. 4) A conclusion that brings together the main themes and enough of the loose threads.
This essay has the the second and third points in abundance. Point one is slow to build as D'Agata seems to waver between establishing his voice and remaining in the background like a reporter merely documenting. Point 4 is where this doesn't quite reach the top of the mountain trail. I'm okay with that, however, because not everything has to tie together for us to see it--the reader sometimes has to take those last few steps to see the view..
His mother's move to Las Vegas results in D'Agata's interest in the vote over whether to store nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain. We're already immersed in trying to understand Vegas and, from here, we're soon traveling with school kids to visit the site, learning the history of the political shenanigans, shoddy science, and incompetence that has lead to Yucca Mountain being selected, trembled as the effects of a nuclear waste disaster are described, and heard about a young man who killed himself by jumping from the Stratosphere, the tallest building around. The next section is rather too long, but I can see why someone who writes would find it fascinating: there's a committee attempting to create a warning sign for Yucca Mountain that will warn people away for the next 10,000 years. Seems simple, right? Read and find out and then figure how he segues back to suicide--Las Vegas has the highest rate in the U. S.--Edvard Munch, and back around to the warning message.
I say he didn't quite hit number four, but that's not to throw you off the track, but to keep you on it. Check it out.
This essay has the the second and third points in abundance. Point one is slow to build as D'Agata seems to waver between establishing his voice and remaining in the background like a reporter merely documenting. Point 4 is where this doesn't quite reach the top of the mountain trail. I'm okay with that, however, because not everything has to tie together for us to see it--the reader sometimes has to take those last few steps to see the view..
His mother's move to Las Vegas results in D'Agata's interest in the vote over whether to store nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain. We're already immersed in trying to understand Vegas and, from here, we're soon traveling with school kids to visit the site, learning the history of the political shenanigans, shoddy science, and incompetence that has lead to Yucca Mountain being selected, trembled as the effects of a nuclear waste disaster are described, and heard about a young man who killed himself by jumping from the Stratosphere, the tallest building around. The next section is rather too long, but I can see why someone who writes would find it fascinating: there's a committee attempting to create a warning sign for Yucca Mountain that will warn people away for the next 10,000 years. Seems simple, right? Read and find out and then figure how he segues back to suicide--Las Vegas has the highest rate in the U. S.--Edvard Munch, and back around to the warning message.
I say he didn't quite hit number four, but that's not to throw you off the track, but to keep you on it. Check it out.
September 16, 2012
I was interested in this book when it first came out because of its connection to Yucca Mountain, but decided not to bother reading it because the reviews suggested the author played pretty loose with the facts. Now that I've read it (and now that I'm thinking about planning a class on communities and disaster), I could envision using sections of it to get students to think about how we perceive risk. I especially liked the section about the difficulties of marking the Yucca Mountain site adequately to warn future generations of the risks entombed there.
The core of the book, however, revolves around the suicide of a young man in Vegas. Reading the book in conjunction with the Lifespan of a Fact is an interesting exercise. I understand D'Agata's point that the essay is a fundamentally different genre than journalism. As I read LOAF, he's asserting that there are any number of reasons why a writer would manipulate facts, sometimes to create a greater emotional impact, sometimes to draw our attention to the vagaries of human perception, sometimes to show how legend serves different purposes than journalism. But I still don't know how I feel about his willingness to manipulate facts to serve the "rhythm of the story." I'm going to have to think about this one.
The core of the book, however, revolves around the suicide of a young man in Vegas. Reading the book in conjunction with the Lifespan of a Fact is an interesting exercise. I understand D'Agata's point that the essay is a fundamentally different genre than journalism. As I read LOAF, he's asserting that there are any number of reasons why a writer would manipulate facts, sometimes to create a greater emotional impact, sometimes to draw our attention to the vagaries of human perception, sometimes to show how legend serves different purposes than journalism. But I still don't know how I feel about his willingness to manipulate facts to serve the "rhythm of the story." I'm going to have to think about this one.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 6, 2014
I appreciated a lot of the devices that D'agata used here, especially his use of litany. I felt like it didn't create a harmonious whole, which may have been the point--something to do with the ever-looming threat of nuclear destruction that shadows Las Vegas somehow twinning with the unknowability of the kid who jumps--but his use of research and detailing of process were really strong and admirable.
July 8, 2014
I don't typically read essays but I found this to be a pretty decent read. D'Agata does a great job detailing Las Vegas and researching Yucca Mountain. I will say that I found some parts to go on and on and on that I had to do a little skimming over just to keep interest. This is a topic worth getting involved in and I recommend this book if you're looking for a quick little read.
February 24, 2010
I learned that sometimes you can wait years for a book and still be pleasantly surprised.
Read
December 27, 2022Parts of this are virtuosic but it sure reads like he just couldn’t settle on a book to write and so padded things out to get to the end of this.
October 24, 2017
Many reviews here understand this book to be about failures — of communication, language, a politics ‘supposed to’ protect. D’Agata does even seem to systemically break down the ways in which each of these are within the same network, of the mountain but also our society and culture more broadly. First and foremost, I’m always shocked that more readers of ethnography aren’t reading this! Especially since its narrative style and fact-bending for the sake of narrative cohesion is something modern anthropology is always going on about! I digress.
I do not believe About a Mountain is About Failure. I do not even believe it is about nuclear waste, or Yucca Mountain, or an obsession with finding an answer to the question, “what can we do? what can anyone do?” Perhaps what it is about is given away in the very structure of the book — Who, What, When, Where, Why, How, Why Why WHY. We were all in elementary school once, we learned that these are necessary questions to answer in order to establish a narrative, but we also learned that these are the questions that require an answer in order to establish something as fact, or establish some kind of understanding — really, to be able to know what’s going on. What D’Agata’s essay seeks to do, I believe, is to create an impasse within the reader, such that they are forced to come to terms with what it means to know, and question whether or not we can know anything at all.
Personally, I love D’Agata’s writing style. I read something once, a long time ago (in an ethnography, haha!) that was something along the lines of, “sometimes the most profound things are expressed the most simply” and I’m inclined to agree with it, especially in this case. He doesn’t use romantic language because this topic doesn’t deserve to be aestheticized. The aestheticization of the city of Vegas and of nature and nuclear energy is the very reason why we had collectively found ourselves in this position in the first place! His run on sentences, sentences with too many capital letters denoting signs or brands, sentences with too many commas, single sentence paragraphs extending the entirety of a page — for me, whenever I am lost in the flow of reading, D’Agata’s sentences create a visceral anxiety within me; as if I can’t finish it fast enough, yes, but I think it’s really coming from the expectation of profundity. As if all of this, whatever this is, is going to lead to something, anything that will allow me to make sense of what is going on in order to Do Something About It, and right when it should most it’s ripped away from me as I realize it’s only a list.
But this list, ultimately, tells me nothing. Finally visiting the mountain, even going inside it, D’Agata holds onto the hope that the mountain will reveal something of itself to him — or if it can’t, that the person guiding the tour will. Or the people sitting around him from other major publications. Nothing. He can’t hear, he is totally surrounded by cavernous blackness. He becomes a volunteer for a suicide hotline, convinces himself he spoke to the boy that committed suicide before he did so, and interviews the boy’s family, going as far as ending the essay with a complete account of the boy’s last day. These are, for me, the most affecting parts of the essay: they all point to a notion that — no matter how much we desire to understand and make sense of the world — there will always be roadblocks. Ten thousand years or twenty-four thousand years or a million years or infinity (like the half-life of radioactive materials), time and the distances it necessarily creates, will always create lapses in our ability to understand and take action. D’Agata’s essay is about Nothing, and the ways that Nothing gives shape to both our everyday and the ways we make sense of it.
I do not believe About a Mountain is About Failure. I do not even believe it is about nuclear waste, or Yucca Mountain, or an obsession with finding an answer to the question, “what can we do? what can anyone do?” Perhaps what it is about is given away in the very structure of the book — Who, What, When, Where, Why, How, Why Why WHY. We were all in elementary school once, we learned that these are necessary questions to answer in order to establish a narrative, but we also learned that these are the questions that require an answer in order to establish something as fact, or establish some kind of understanding — really, to be able to know what’s going on. What D’Agata’s essay seeks to do, I believe, is to create an impasse within the reader, such that they are forced to come to terms with what it means to know, and question whether or not we can know anything at all.
Personally, I love D’Agata’s writing style. I read something once, a long time ago (in an ethnography, haha!) that was something along the lines of, “sometimes the most profound things are expressed the most simply” and I’m inclined to agree with it, especially in this case. He doesn’t use romantic language because this topic doesn’t deserve to be aestheticized. The aestheticization of the city of Vegas and of nature and nuclear energy is the very reason why we had collectively found ourselves in this position in the first place! His run on sentences, sentences with too many capital letters denoting signs or brands, sentences with too many commas, single sentence paragraphs extending the entirety of a page — for me, whenever I am lost in the flow of reading, D’Agata’s sentences create a visceral anxiety within me; as if I can’t finish it fast enough, yes, but I think it’s really coming from the expectation of profundity. As if all of this, whatever this is, is going to lead to something, anything that will allow me to make sense of what is going on in order to Do Something About It, and right when it should most it’s ripped away from me as I realize it’s only a list.
But this list, ultimately, tells me nothing. Finally visiting the mountain, even going inside it, D’Agata holds onto the hope that the mountain will reveal something of itself to him — or if it can’t, that the person guiding the tour will. Or the people sitting around him from other major publications. Nothing. He can’t hear, he is totally surrounded by cavernous blackness. He becomes a volunteer for a suicide hotline, convinces himself he spoke to the boy that committed suicide before he did so, and interviews the boy’s family, going as far as ending the essay with a complete account of the boy’s last day. These are, for me, the most affecting parts of the essay: they all point to a notion that — no matter how much we desire to understand and make sense of the world — there will always be roadblocks. Ten thousand years or twenty-four thousand years or a million years or infinity (like the half-life of radioactive materials), time and the distances it necessarily creates, will always create lapses in our ability to understand and take action. D’Agata’s essay is about Nothing, and the ways that Nothing gives shape to both our everyday and the ways we make sense of it.
July 2, 2017
About a Mountain is an odd book. It seems at first to be a book with a mission. In short, it is a non-fiction account of the Yucca mountain near Las Vegas chosen as a waste repository for nuclear waste. D'Agata moves to Las Vegas after helping his mother join a retirement community there and hearing about the project. He becomes interested in unearthing the reasons for the choice, the impact on the community and the truths or untruths behind it. What follows is only coherent in interludes. About a Mountain is a tangential, distracted argument that moves through various philosophical moods and topics.
The interesting contrast in style and structure makes D'Agata's work at once intriguing and less effective than it could be. He frequently uses lists and colums of facts and figures, sometimes to ridiculous extents, like the nonsense numbers estimating nuclear waste's half life. He digs so deep into speculative statistics that he becomes unconvincing. In particular the argument about the likelihood of an accident on route to Yucca ruins its own good point by speculating too far and unnecessarily. Then he roams into vaguer territory, looking at things like the meaning of signs in human history or a particularly interesting diversion into the nature of the "scream" in human behaviour and development. It's a jagged jigsaw puzzle, not quite fitting but also not entirely baffling.
In between, a picture emerges of a unique, frightening city, something so unnatural and robotic. Las Vegas is portrayed as a travesty, its existence based on a freak moment of watery abundance and its present a nightmare of dried up, depressed doom in the desert. D'Agata reels out the facts (always with a wry knowledge of the flexibility of statistics and their openess to interpretation) to create an image of America's worst city but still maintains its humanity and highlights the rights of the people who live there. Beneath that real life city is a network of self-gratifying bureaucracy, of institutions and businesses doing favours for each other, everyone at the top involved in some way to nulify democracy and the right to speak against something that affects your home town so dramatically.
About a Mountain ends, aptly, with something that appears unconnected with the story of Yucca mountain - D'Agata obsessively recreates the last hours in the life of a suicide victim who sprang from a Las Vegas hotel. It speaks to his character as a documenter - not staying on topic and frantically neurotic about the details of a speculative event. There is a sense of paranoia and a wayward imagination in D'Agata's attempt to uncover the truth, something that makes his writing untrustworthy and fragile but also very human. It is a brave book that doesn't stick to the script, unsatisfying in parts but with moments of tragic clarity which make it, at least, an effective and disturbing urban portrait. 5
The interesting contrast in style and structure makes D'Agata's work at once intriguing and less effective than it could be. He frequently uses lists and colums of facts and figures, sometimes to ridiculous extents, like the nonsense numbers estimating nuclear waste's half life. He digs so deep into speculative statistics that he becomes unconvincing. In particular the argument about the likelihood of an accident on route to Yucca ruins its own good point by speculating too far and unnecessarily. Then he roams into vaguer territory, looking at things like the meaning of signs in human history or a particularly interesting diversion into the nature of the "scream" in human behaviour and development. It's a jagged jigsaw puzzle, not quite fitting but also not entirely baffling.
In between, a picture emerges of a unique, frightening city, something so unnatural and robotic. Las Vegas is portrayed as a travesty, its existence based on a freak moment of watery abundance and its present a nightmare of dried up, depressed doom in the desert. D'Agata reels out the facts (always with a wry knowledge of the flexibility of statistics and their openess to interpretation) to create an image of America's worst city but still maintains its humanity and highlights the rights of the people who live there. Beneath that real life city is a network of self-gratifying bureaucracy, of institutions and businesses doing favours for each other, everyone at the top involved in some way to nulify democracy and the right to speak against something that affects your home town so dramatically.
About a Mountain ends, aptly, with something that appears unconnected with the story of Yucca mountain - D'Agata obsessively recreates the last hours in the life of a suicide victim who sprang from a Las Vegas hotel. It speaks to his character as a documenter - not staying on topic and frantically neurotic about the details of a speculative event. There is a sense of paranoia and a wayward imagination in D'Agata's attempt to uncover the truth, something that makes his writing untrustworthy and fragile but also very human. It is a brave book that doesn't stick to the script, unsatisfying in parts but with moments of tragic clarity which make it, at least, an effective and disturbing urban portrait. 5
February 16, 2018
Things I liked: the formatting of the book into the "who, what, when, where, how, why" chapters, ending with three consecutive "whys." I liked that there were nine chapters and that toward the end of the book D'Agata spends a few pages writing about the significance of the number nine. I definitely learned some things about Yucca Mountain, Nuclear Waste, and politics. I also had lots of questions regarding D'Agata's writing style and his use of composites/fiction within creative non fiction.
Things I didn't like: One main comparison D'Agata uses in this book to create threads of connection is the date of a young man's suicide and the date of the voting re: Yucca Mountain. But, in reality, these two events occurred on separate days. In the notes, he specifics this discrepancy and writes that he did several other things like this in order to have greater dramatic effect. I don't know that I like/trust this. I read a NYT review that addressed this issue and the idea of creative non fiction as a way to gather facts or a way to experience art, and it seems like D'Agata is leaning waaaay far over in the "experiencing art" arena. I don't think CNF has to be one or the other, and I usually am more lenient and accepting of things like changing names or creating character composites or using "imagining" in CNF, but I felt this choice (and some others) by D'Agata was unnecessary.
The content of the book, like all the talk about Nuclear disaster and the corruption of money and politics, the futility of the future... it made me feel really anxious and pretty hopeless. Not a book I would have picked up for myself to read. There were merits and things I've taken away that I am looking forward to discussing with my MFA class, but all in all, the content and some of the writing ethics and writing style just weren't for me.
July 4, 2019
I read this book in one sitting yesterday, which should show how compelling it is. I've heard about John D'Agata a lot (people seem to have a lot of opinions about him) so I thought it would be interesting to read this long essay collection. It certainly made me think about a lot of things, and for the most part, the essay is interesting.
The mountain that is referred to in this essay is Yucca Mountain, a proposed nuclear waste storage site outside of Las Vegas. In his investigations of Yucca Mountain, D'Agata is not only giving a hard look at environmentalist policy in the U.S. but also the ways that humans speak and communicate with one another, to the future of humans ourselves. I felt that when the book was about Yucca Mountain and Las Vegas, it did well. I did notice that most of the reviews on my copy were all from white guys (most notably David Foster Wallace, who D'Agata seems to write very similarly to). I will say that the subject matter is interesting and well researched, but I didn't consider much of what I was seeing revolutionary (maybe because I am reading its successors).
Bizarrely, where the book failed for me was in D'Agata's investigation of a suicide. The rest of the book transitions well and sharply from subject to subject, but there is a sharp crack that is almost visible in the book when D'Agata starts talking about Levi. For some reason, the book just can't make the leap into Levi's life/D'Agata's interest in Levi's life seem real to me. For one thing, it seems like D'Agata is treating this change in subject matter like a weird metaphor or theme transition; at other times it seems like it is very personal but he can't write about it. Overall, I think the book is a good one, but it visibly drops off in craft towards the last quarter or so.
The mountain that is referred to in this essay is Yucca Mountain, a proposed nuclear waste storage site outside of Las Vegas. In his investigations of Yucca Mountain, D'Agata is not only giving a hard look at environmentalist policy in the U.S. but also the ways that humans speak and communicate with one another, to the future of humans ourselves. I felt that when the book was about Yucca Mountain and Las Vegas, it did well. I did notice that most of the reviews on my copy were all from white guys (most notably David Foster Wallace, who D'Agata seems to write very similarly to). I will say that the subject matter is interesting and well researched, but I didn't consider much of what I was seeing revolutionary (maybe because I am reading its successors).
Bizarrely, where the book failed for me was in D'Agata's investigation of a suicide. The rest of the book transitions well and sharply from subject to subject, but there is a sharp crack that is almost visible in the book when D'Agata starts talking about Levi. For some reason, the book just can't make the leap into Levi's life/D'Agata's interest in Levi's life seem real to me. For one thing, it seems like D'Agata is treating this change in subject matter like a weird metaphor or theme transition; at other times it seems like it is very personal but he can't write about it. Overall, I think the book is a good one, but it visibly drops off in craft towards the last quarter or so.
October 3, 2023
2 stars because D'agata does actually engage with some extremely interesting concepts. However, the smug intellectual laziness in his approach and the well-documented disregard for facts muddy the waters, and limit his ability to draw a valuable conclusion. I break with D'agata's conclusions dramatically: the malleable, responsive nature of knowledge itself is a strong point in favor of its durability, and we must dare to dream that problems which seem insurmountable merely have yet to find the right solutions. Self-rightous apathy is a boring, and unchallenging answer.
September 7, 2017
D'Agata's structure is the strong point of this book, not the dubious "nonfiction" categorization or the prose, as others have suggested. The way he finds unlikely ways to weave back and forth between his different topics, linking words, time spans, and themes allows his book a certain kind of grace that seems innovative. I agree with Bill Gifford's review in the Washington Post that D'Agata's prose style itself is rather pompously self-aware: "He makes you think, "Wow, look at that Writer, writing," rather than thinking about whatever it is he wants you to think about. There are lists that go on for pages, and an awful lot of one-sentence paragraphs."
Of note: the conflicts on his purposeful obscuring of facts, despite his awareness of his own inaccuracy, in the name of "art." Will be reading "Lifespan of a Fact" at some point to follow up on this.
Of note: the conflicts on his purposeful obscuring of facts, despite his awareness of his own inaccuracy, in the name of "art." Will be reading "Lifespan of a Fact" at some point to follow up on this.
June 5, 2018
It's sort of like a John McPhee book written by an angry cynic. The prose is beautiful, and the range is meandering, centering on Las Vegas but weaving from one narrative to another with facts and opinions along the way. There are large sections on a project to place nuclear waste inside a nearby mountain, the effort to design a sign that will communicate the danger of that nuclear waste to humans 10,000 years in the future, and the suicide of a teenager. I admire the book; I also find it makes me want to distance myself a little because it is so searingly critical of hypocrisy and people's futile attempts to manage the unmanageable without really having anything better to offer.
January 28, 2019
This was a brilliant and creative book. Sure, it’s about the absurdity of the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository and the conundrum of even meeting safety standards for the arbitrarily picked date of 10,000 years in the future. But this book is so much more than a political commentary, it’s a creative social analysis of Las Vegas reality, which isn’t pretty like all those neon lights. Most of the negative reviews seem to be stuck on dissecting D’agata’s unconventional writing style. I found it to be interesting and engaging. I enjoyed the lists. This is without a doubt the first poetically written anti-nuclear book I’ve ever read and I loved it.
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