WEBVTT

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It's wonderful to be here to
listen to John D'Agata read

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from his new book.

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So I am going to
turn the mic over

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to Fenton who's going to
sing you a song first,

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and Vivaldi in fact.

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But first, let me mention that
the next reading in the UA

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Prose Series is the
Mexican Fiction anthology

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reading, which is
coming up on March 12th.

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So the Mexican Fiction anthology
was put out by Dalkey Archive

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Press this past year, and
it's a very interesting

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bilingual anthology.

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And we have the editor and two
writers coming in from Mexico

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to be with us, and
to give a reading,

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and also to do a panel on
Friday on contemporary Mexican

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fiction.

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It's three writers
in conversation,

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so that should be
very interesting.

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Cibelle is also arranging, has
arranged this amazing book club

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in general, but in specific,
for this book coming up

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on Thursday.

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So these are some other
things to look forward to,

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but without further
ado, I'd like

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to introduce Fenton Johnson.

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[APPLAUSE]

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Sorry.

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Thank you.

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Reminded me of that.

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Yes, I'm Fenton Johnson.

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I'm on the faculty of the
creative nonfiction/ essay/

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nonfiction program here at
the University of Arizona.

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And it's my pleasure to
introduce John D'Agata.

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Reading John D'Agata brings
to mind Joan Didion in part

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because like Didion, he confines
himself to the background

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even when writing deeply
impassioned prose.

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Every essayist can learn--

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I had originally written every
writer of creative nonfiction,

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but I changed that.

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Those people who were at the
Q&A today will know why--

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every essayist can learn from
John's measured and careful use

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of the first person.

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John is not invisible to
the reader, of course.

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He is all over his pages, but he
declares himself not explicitly

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but through a style that is
at the same time as limpid

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as EB White and as
complex as Guy Davenport.

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Jump cuts, juxtapositions that
are fanciful yet profound,

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one-sentence paragraphs, a
wry and knowing irony resting

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on a profound faith in
the human condition,

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all these were present
in his earlier work--

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I'm thinking of Halls of Fame--
but achieve their apotheosis

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in About a Mountain.

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Some time ago, I conceived
an exercise for my students

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in which I asked them to
juxtapose two seemingly

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unrelated topics.

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On its surface, the
point of the exercise

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is to demonstrate the ways
in which the mind creates

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meaning, how given an apple
and an orange, we will,

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indeed we must arrive at fruit.

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At the most superficial
level of analysis,

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About a Mountain is
such an exercise.

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Exactly what does the
proposal to bury generations

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of nuclear waste under
Nevada's Yucca mountain

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have to do with a
young man's suicide?

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You'll have to read
the book to find out,

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but I will tell you
that it proceeds

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in the most powerful
way, which is

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to juxtapose the apple
and the orange so artfully

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that we the readers arrive at
the connection organically.

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In this way, reading becomes
the most interactive of media.

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The writer presents the
reader with what is,

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then humbly and
gracefully withdraws,

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trusting the reader
to do the work.

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In the juxtaposition
of our rape of the West

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and the death of
a young man, John

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shows us how the political
becomes personal.

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It's an extraordinary
achievement,

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bending and shaping
nature writing, one

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of the most commonplace
of American literary forms

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to recognizable if
unsettling ends.

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It innovates not through flash
and dazzle, but through pause

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and think.

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And this is a quotation.

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"Yucca mountain is where we are.

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It's what we have
come to now, a place

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that we have studied
at this point more

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thoroughly than any other
parcel of land in the world.

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And yet still it
remains unknown,

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revealing only the fragility
of our capacity to know."

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That sentence captures the
revelations and limitations

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of empiricism, situating it
within the mystery in which

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our investigations take place.

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David Foster Wallace
called John D'Agata one

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of the most significant
American writers.

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He has dedicated himself,
made a life practice--

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the Buddhist would say--

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to the study and practice
of the art of the essay.

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His two anthologies-- these
books are all for sale over

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here--

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his two anthologies, The
Next American Essay and now

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The Lost Origins of the
Essay, both standard offerings

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and writing classes nationwide,
set forth the history

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and the destiny of the form.

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John is what the Buddhists call
a bodhisattva, a fully unified

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artist.

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One feels a seamlessness between
the person and the writing,

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with both showing
forth a generous heart

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coupled with a brilliant mind.

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It's a great pleasure
to welcome John back

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to the University of
Arizona Poetry Center.

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[APPLAUSE]

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