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Summary: A Genre for Generation X
Review: This is an intense and urgent new kind of literature, not entirely self-reflexive but not ignorant of the self either. In John D'Agata's _Halls_ we witness the collision of the world and writer, the heart and the mind, poetry and nonfiction. It's been said that these essays reflect on the work already done by Anne Carson, I think instead though that they are actually breaking new ground, for instead of imagining antiquity like Carson, D'Agata is imagining a world that already exists but which we seldome visit. Like all of those roadside attractions whose billboards amuse us but which we never bother visiting on our way to our real destinations, D'Agata's destinations always seem to be the dallying few of us have the patience for. Thank goodness for this too. Down the paths D'Agata's takes in this first book is a world of new literature waiting to be mined.
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Summary: Can You Handle Another 5-Star Review?
Review: Well you're gonna have to! One of my students recently brought this book into class and read aloud to us from it. This might not seem very interesting except for the fact that I teach HIGH SCHOOL, and this book is not the easiest book to read. But once I copied a few sections of the book for my class it became clear that what is clearly a high literary achievement is also an extraordinarily passionate, clear telling of one young man's experiences in the unknown, odder sectors of American culture. I think the mix of it sounding so new and fresh and the fact that this author is bizarrely young is what has made it so fascinating for my students. Granted my students are highly gifted and in a program that only admits a few per year at a fairly exclusive prep school; still this says something about so called high literature and how it can also be accessible, when done well, to younger "lower" brow readers. Now my public library's reading group is reading "Halls of Fame", a great achievement given the fact that we've only read fiction exclusively in the past!
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Summary: Wrought Rare Worlds
Review: These "essays" have to be categorized as something else. Not because they aren't essays technically, but because they're too good for that crowd. And I don't mean that in a snobby way; I mean that John D'Agata clearly has more going on in these "writings" than the average nonfiction piece. His composed, carefully wrought, gnarled style is at once the means of his art and its subject. He uses the style of collage, which is the natural form of the essay, and in this way orders and gives meaning to the bizarre worlds he creates. One can never be sure if D'Agata's subjects are his presumed subjects (the Flat Earth Society, American Halls of Fame, Hoover Dam, the "brightest light in the world", etc.) or himself, or the essay and its very history. I say that these can't be essays simply because no one else writing today treats the essay as seriously or artfully as D'Agata's writings. Let's say he has the ambition of an essayist but the heart and ear of a poet.
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Summary: Provocative, Learned, Wacko, Brilliant
Review: This is a work of genius, the first genuine masterpiece in nonfiction from anyone of this up and coming generation. John D'Agata writes erudite, breathtakingly cerebral essays of crystaline prose, a riveting voice, charming humor, and an unironic eye cast firmly on the ironic--an approach to the twenty-first century that chisels at your heart until it breaks, willingly, in two. This is a writer who kicks tradition out the window. He's for anyone who's known all along that essays could say and be and do MORE.
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Summary: genius struck
Review: all-embracing ... absurd yet oddly touching ... lyrical but not pretty ... bewildering ... infuriating ... chaotic & sublime ... tragic ... hilarious ... nonfiction but not ... poetry but not ... don't walk into d'agata's world expecting to come out unchanged
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Summary: I Had No Idea!
Review: And here I thought I was reading some little obscure thing that I found in my independent local Bookery! I was coming online to write what I thought was going to be the first review for this charming whirlwind of a book! I guess I should be thrilled to see that I'm not, but now I don't know what to say because everyone else has said it. It truly is a fantastic thrill of a read. You've got to be patient and willing to work, but the payoffs are extraordinary. They're right that this really is poetry more than prose. You've got to approach the work the same way you would a poem. Mind open.
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Summary: thank you for a homesickness cure
Review: i've just realized that my wife has used my email to already write a review of this book! that goes to show how much we've both been wowed by it. we're living abroad for the year and almost weekly have been making trips to the one english bookstore in town since we got here in august. what a great surprise to find john d'agata's 'halls of fame' among all the garbage america has been shipping over during the past year in terms of books. likewise, i am personally thankful for this charming take on america's seedier side, the crass side, overly-commercialized & under-appreciated artsy sides of american culture that this book provides. instead of all those personal journey stories that seem to be the big fad at the moment. take it from a homesick american abroad i guess! the voice of america is captured beautifully in this book. i recommend it definitely!
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Summary: Five Stars: Period
Review: This is brilliant stuff. Period.Well one more thing. This is poetry. Now, period. Essays just don't deserve the prestige and beauty that this writing brings to literature.
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Summary: not a john dagata groupie here...just a serious fan
Review: i'm writing a review this one time because john d'agata's book rocks and i want to get the word out. i also want you to know that i'm not coming on here in order to profess my love for him or anything, so you can take my opinion seriously. in fact i think you really gotta hand it to the guy, i mean he's got the teenage popstar looks that prolly would make most people immediately not take him seriously plus he's insanely young and that never helps with the jealousy factor. when he was in the city to read in fact i was all set to despise the punk. but the thing is you can't. he's young and he's hot and he's got more talent at 26 than most writers have access to their whole lives. he won me over totally. read the first essay in his collection called "round trip" and you'll be trapped in his web eternally. (he says in the notes that it was inspired by an essay on the same subject by joan didion but the reality is that his treatment of hoover dam is breathtakingly better. so the kid's modest too!) halfway through the book, as you're reading the startlingly innovative "hall of fame: an essay about the ways in which we matter", you'll be wondering why no one in the nonfiction world ever tried this before. later on, in "notes toward the making of a whole human being", you'll be laughing your butt off. and toward the end, in the essay about the lonely artist named henry darger, you'll be crying. and if you're not crying you're not reading the book correctly. for the most part everyone i know and respect has adored this book, and for so many people in my little back biting writing program to agree to love a writer who is both younger than they are, more talented than they are, and already hugely successful, already with a book out and supposedly another on the way at the age of whatever he is...well this is a big deal. he's a big deal. i think d'agata's going to change the literary landscape, that's a quote from our prof, a critic who's really famous and always right about these thngs in the creepiest of ways. so that's all for my review. it's more of a nudge i guess.
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Summary: New Movements in Nonfiction
Review: There's something abrest in the nonfiction world. It's a movement that combines the music of poetry with the fact-rich obssessions of nonfiction. Now, from the guy who gave us the phrase "lyric essay", comes the best definition of the term: a book of essays that straddle poetry and prose more daringly and more subtly than any other I think yet written. Want to know what all the hoopla is about? Read this book. Read it for pleasure, for a good challenge, for the opportunity to know way ahead of time what the next big trend in the literary world is going to be. Read it now to be ahead of the game, because John D'Agata is doing things that I, at least, have never seen done before in essays, things that I don't think anyone of his (our) generation would even dare to try. This is a 26 year old who's already lightyears ahead of his elders and who's going to lead the pack for generations hence! Guaranteed.
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