An Dantomine Eerly

by Jarret Middleton

As the Irish-American poet Dallin lay dying he recalls the surreal geography and traumatic events that lead to his end.  An absence in a wind-beaten house suggests a past but somehow still-looming tragedy; vacancy fills a ghostly barroom and the campus of a condemned university; city streets and desolated forests are populated by no one except the formulations of Dallin’s own mind.  The ailed poet and his beautiful, haunting wife Aìsling flee an obscure political persecution that culminates in her planned murder.  The impact of her death afflicts Dallin in ways he cannot comprehend and spirals him into his meeting with the mythic celestial escort, An Dantomine Eerly.   An Dantomine Eerly is fine experimental writing, using narrative techniques, dream-world symbolism, and a poetic style of prose that takes up John Banville’s admittance “to blend poetry and fiction into some new form.”  The novel itself is a re-conception of the 17th century Irish poetic form of the aisling , meaning “dream vision” or “vision poem.”  As Dallin confronts his moment of death, the book assembles itself as a collage of the affinities, falsehoods, and absurdities of memory and reality.    Comparisons to pre-discovery Chuck Palahnuik ( Fight Club ) and early David Foster Wallace ( The Broom Of The System ) have been made, as well as the influence of older, experimental works.  The result is a stylized exploration of the infinite world through the microscope of Middleton’s ill-fated narrator, and above all, a promising debut.  

160 pages, Paperback

First published September 11, 2010

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

From My Blog...[return][return]My first thought prior to beginning the book was of Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading, a book I recommend to everyone, but I digress. An Dantomine Eerly by J.R.D. Middleton is a work of fiction, told with a unique voice, lyrical in quality about Dallin, a poet who while dying takes the reader back through his life, in his mind. An Dantomine Eerly takes the reader on an intellectual ride, which at times may have the illusion of being extremely disjointed and surreal and the various prose techniques, while extremely affective to this story, may throw one off rhythm briefly. I will need to read through this book at least one more time to fully grasp all the author has to offer, so rich are the meanings of the narrations in Dallin’s mind. Profusely prolific in an amazingly short amount of space, I found An Dantomine Eerly to be as engaging a read as I had hoped, while more dissimilar than similar to Nabokov’s work, yet one that requires quite a bit of thought on a not entirely pleasant subject matter. I truly enjoyed reading An Dantomine Eerly and look forward to re-reading the book to see what I missed during my first read through. I would recommend this book to readers looking for an intellectual read as well as book groups that like a challenging book to discuss.

[Aaron Dietz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, the first thing you should know about this book is that "An Dantomine Eerly" is a name. so you know, there isn't some noun that is called a dantomine. It's someone's name. Or maybe also a noun. I mean I guess names are nouns in the sense that they are pronouns, but in a sort of true version of reality they kind of represent nouns more than act as nouns explicitly.

If this kind of inner tedium of language excites you, then you may well love this book—the writing is smart and language-clever. There's also some kind of mystic masturbation sequence and a lot spookiness and eery stuff (not "eerly"--eery. "Eerly" is a name, see, not a description of a dantomine). Ask An about this.

[ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read… liked the font choices throughout it