Halls of Fame: Essays

by John D'Agata

In these refreshingly bold, creative, and incisive essays, John D'Agata journeys the endless corridors of American's myriad halls of fame and faithfully reports on what he finds there. In a voice all his own, he brilliantly maps his terrain in lists, collage, and ludic narratives. From Martha Graham to the Flat Earth Society, from the brightest light in Vegas to the "outsider artist" Henry Darger, D'Agata's obsessions are as American as they are contemporary. Contents Round Trip Martha Graham, Audio Description Of Flat Earth An Essay Hall of An Essay About the Ways in Which We Matter Notes toward the making of a whole human being . . . Collage History of Art, by Henry Darger And There Was Evening and There Was Morning Notes

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Memoir, Poetry

256 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2000

About the author

John 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

Reviews

[Kathrina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've procrastinated in writing this review for almost a week, and I'm still not sure what I'm going to write here. D'Agata is the victim of my latest author stalking, and I want to gush, but I have to hold myself back a bit, as I didn't feel this title backed up his claim to master of the lyrical essay as well as About a Mountain. Of course about 8 years covers the distance between their publications, and I read them backwards, so I think the latest display of style is his best. I guess what it comes down to is one's definition of poetry and what a reader expects from a poem vs an essay.
Essays require a subject; they must be "about" something. It is the creative non-fiction author's job to make that essay "about" something be appealing to a broader range of readers than, say, an essay on contagious diseases published in a medical journal, or even a specialized trade pub. And I don't mean appeal as in a popularity contest; I mean appeal as in the ability to tell a story on a factual, intuitive, and emotional plane, simultaneously. Perhaps the essay tells another level of its story between the lines or in the margins. Perhaps what is unsaid is significant to what is said. Perhaps what is provided as fact is, in reality, emotional bias. The creative non-fiction writer must use the stylings of a poet -- metaphor, imagery, character -- to fill out the fact-driven, logical argument that defines essay. This approach creates something like a Poetry of Fact, as opposed to the more traditional approach, Poetry of Emotional Engagement. (I just made that up, but I think the caps make it seem rather revelatory, don't you?) Take a poem like Williams' The Red Wheelbarrow: It is essentially a "non-fiction" poem, but it is not "about" a wheelbarrow.
D'Agata achieves this Poetry of Fact to a stunning degree in his long-form essay, About a Mountain. But years earlier, it seemed he approached it from the other direction, writing essay-like "about" material inside a poetic form. The result is less smooth and accessible, and he really requires his readers to be on board with the experiment before launching. I really wanted to be on board, as well. He was writing "about" intriguing subjects -- Henry Darger, The Flat Earth Society, Martha Graham -- all things I want to explore, the subjects as well as D'Agata's unique take on them. But, too often, for me, there wasn't enough, not enough depth or emotional engagement, methods I value more in poetry than any other form. D'Agata wanted me to be satisfied with a factual, anecdotal description of what was observed, with plenty of blank space for between-the-lines readings, but I wanted more D'Agata in it, more author investment, more poetic interpretation. What I wanted, I guess, was About Martha Graham, About Flat Earth, About Henry Darger, in the style of About a Mountain

[Betsy Wheeler · Rating 5 out of 5]

i loved these essays -- probably my first introduction to the "lyric essay." one in particular i remember liking initially -- and would in the future teach to my writing students -- was the essay on Henry Darger (title slips my mind). brilliant in terms of its attempt to get into the daily life of the artist while conjuring the somewhat disturbing (but also beautiful) space of his paintings.

[Priscilla · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went into this with the impression that D'Agata is, well..that he's kind of a dink. Initially, through the first few essays, I thought that perhaps I'd been too harsh, misjudged, etc. etc. But, ultimately, I came out at the end of "Halls of Fame" certain of my original opinion. (At least the book is a fast read [I think it took me four evenings to get through it], so at least I didn't have to spend too much time with him.) D'Agata is a good writer, though his form choices and language/voice choices don't always seem justified by what he achieves with them. I found the titular essay pretty tedious - it felt more like a celebration of "look what I can do" or "look how clever I am" than a successful essay that hung together (except by imposed structure) or was informative at the end; it wasn't even very entertaining and sections of it I had to force myself to get through. But it's the essay on Deep Springs (on building a more whole person than mortals like you or I will ever be) that made me want to just write the book off - it's effusively glowing in that "look how clever I am" sort of way, but when you consider that D'Agata was a student at the school and never self-identifies as such, it comes off feeling slying self-congratulatory and kind of smirkingly self-satisfied. He saved me from wanting to punch him with the Henry Darger essay....until I read through the notes and found that D'Agata chose to lie and misrepresent as part of the "art" of the thing, and I'm just not interested in reading nonfiction (which by its nature begs the reader, "Trust me; I'm telling you the truth") that lies to me - it's deliberate manipulation justifying as and hiding behind artistic license; if you're going to write a fiction about an artist in honor of his art, then don't pretend it's something else. So, yeah, D'Agata is a dink. But now I've read his famous book of essays and can stop there.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh. em. gee. this book made me want to scream and punch things and then over and over again it made me swoon. big, swooping swoons. sure it's a little pretentious, but it is also ambitious, challenging, and rather wonderful. i loved the essay on martha graham. the essays are annoying because i wish i wrote them first. yup, this book put pure envy through my veins.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conflict of interest alert. I really enjoyed this book and was often impressed in a wide-eyed way at the technique and what was going on formally -- continual reinvention of form for every essay here which I think some reviewer predicted would spark a promiscuous proliferation of people trying to write formally wacky essays, which is true! Faves were the one about Martha Graham, the end of the flat earth one, the one about Deep Springs (a personal fascination of mine that confirmed a lot of my suspicions) and the one about Las Vegas, light, and sleep.

Great book for writers to read under the category of "hey! you can do anything!" Sometimes I felt a little too much fireworks/spectacle/performance of cool things to be done with words and "look at how I know this little-known thing and can make you interested" which seemed to obscure the intention or the "why I must tell you this" aspect.

[Nitesh Menon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A number of years ago I drove from Vegas to California. For several hours, I found myself passing through a vacant mountain/desert landscape. My contact with civilization consisted of 2-3 passing cars, a rest stop / brothel near Area 51, and a sign for Deep Springs College. These essays communicate the profound oddness of that trip (and Nevada, in general). Also nice to see (a non DFW) example of the Iowa writing style.

The essay on Henry Darger is particularly excellent.

[pearl friedland · Rating 4 out of 5]

d’agata is an important essayist, redefining what an essay can be. he pushes the boundaries, sometimes i think, to the point of miscommunication, which ends up muddling the message he is attempting to get across. but his words have expanded the canon, and i hope that lyric essays will begin to find their way into the mainstream vernacular. a hard read, but a worthwhile one.

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

"One must have a good memory to keep the promises one makes. Art, for example, originally emerged out of the need for good hunts, strong offspring, safe journeys through death. Art allowed the earliest humans to represent things they couldn't have, hoped to have, had too much of to carry. 'Modeling,' scholars call it, the fundamental element of which is the copy."

[Alex Hubbard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essays are curious things, and D'Agata's book revels in that curiosity. Though some of the pieces seemed to put form over content, Halls of Fame was a thoroughly enjoyable read.

[M Casteel · Rating 5 out of 5]

More of a poetry book crossed with fiction crossed with something else, but it's very thought provoking.

[Tony Zitta · Rating 3 out of 5]

That last essay tho is a fiver

[Keegan Gore · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a lot of ways Halls Of Fame is perfect synthesis of the essay and poetry, fact and fiction, a mixing of form and subject that, in the best essays, is absolutely sublime.

[Patty Gone · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Halls of Fame, John D'Agata blends prose, poetry, reportage, and conceptual writing into meditations on and around large ideas, such as art, wonder, and light. He is a master of scope: making quotations from cultural outliers (such as a man who still believes the world is flat) feel like universal truths by surrounding their far-out theses with historical context, D'Agata's own autobiographical experience, and citations.

This book is also a textbook for the notion of having subject matter dictate one's form. "Notes Toward The Making Of A Whole Human Being" consists of one long periodic sentence, mirroring the myopic work ethic of the boys of Deep Springs. The title essay is spaced so that one feels the time of the lugubrious road trip it chronicles.

He pulls from overheard dialogue, public signage, scholarly works, tourist guides, anything, bringing disparate, seemingly unrelated texts and theories into conversation with each other. In "And There Was Evening And There Was Morning," drawing equals signs between the Luxor's light (it's designer's intentions and its day-to-day maintenance), New Age science, Zen meditation, and lists of cliches that use the words "light" and "dark." He points at answers, D'Agata's reporting is subjective reporting, but only in the sense that he doesn't believe objective reporting exists. D'Agata sets the pieces on the table and arrange them in a way that a point-of-view develops naturally. He doesn't argue, he points.

[John Vanderslice · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book. Now, I can say with confidence that it is not for anyone. Some people might even hate it. Most of the essays are collage in nature, and several read more like poetry than nonfiction--no surprise that D'Agata earned MFAs in both poetry and nonfiction at the University of Iowa--but I was blown away. I can't think of any other writer who so seamlessly combines personal history and opinion with book research with investigative journalism with a commitment to collage as a form to pure artistry of expression. This book is often called experimental, but I think that does it a disservice. It's certainly different, but it's not different for being different sake. It's supremely intelligent, deeply human, and written with unforgettable lyricism. And the variety of D'Agata's subjects is incredible: the Hoover Dam; Martha Graham; the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas; sleep issues in the United States (and in Las Vegas in particular); the "ultimate outsider" artist Henry Darger; D'Agata's own self-styled tour of various American "Halls of Fame." The last
essay--quietly brilliant--predicts D'Agata's next book of nonfiction: About a Mountain. With its focus on Las Vegas, its frank first person voice, and its reliance of some fascinating personal interviews, "And There was Evening and There was Morning," reminds a reader of the later book and makes a superb finale for this extraordinary and idiosyncratic collection.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
4 stars second reading March 2007

Personal essays that stretched the boundary between prose and poetry. Sometimes self-indulgent seeming, but his experiments paid off, and there is not doubt he is a good writer. Essays" Round Trip (wonders of the world/ Hoover Dam), Martha Graham, Audio Description Of, Flat Earth Map: an Essay, Hall of Fame: an Essay About the Ways in Which We Matter, Notes toward the Making of A Whole Human Being (Deep Springs creepo cult school), College History of Art, by Henry Danger, And There Was Evening and There Was Morning (light, Luxor Hotel in Vegas)

Second time reading this collection of form-challenging essays. Interesting subject matter, from Vegas to Hoover Dam to Flat Earth Society. D'Gata keeps himself out of the essai. He spoke in Adv. CNF class and said he always chooses form before writing. Keeps collections of notebooks/ facts.

[Lisa Roney · Rating 4 out of 5]

John D'Agata is clever, very clever. In some ways, that's all I want to say. I liked these essays much more once I started considering them as poetry instead. Although I enjoyed reading them, however, I feel certain they will not stick in my mind. They are perhaps an important experiment, and most of the glowing comments I have read about this book are probably mostly true. It expands horizons, it entertains, it has things to say about language and our current cultural moment. I am sure that D'Agata would be a fascinating and intelligent guest at a dinner party. And everyone has a right to be a bit of a pretentious jerk when he's young and talented. Plus, there are indeed moments of beauty and sensitivity here. I will read more of John D'Agata. I hope he survives and grows. For now, that's enough.

[Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

The true masterpiece of this book is the essay on Henry Darger. The nature of the situation, and D'Agata's own approach to recording it seems best suited to a lyric essay. Admittedly, the conventions of this form are still being defined. But I take issue with the exigency of the book's central essay. It doesn't really seem to exhibit much consequence. As I mention in my review of D'Agata's second book, I'm interested in his mind, and the ideas he chooses to pursuit. I'm just not sure that the writing truly suits the nature of those ideas very aptly.

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

If the "lyric essay" is a new or newish form, I guess it is all right that at times D'Agata.s pieces seem determined to look as unlike an essay as possible, or to be essays only because he has naming rights to his own work.

Occasionally tedious, but overall enjoyable whether they are in his more traditional mode or dissected into fragmentary statements, lists, or presented as an instructional manual.

(I think I am going to take back that part about the lists. They're more tedious than enjoyable.)

[Tarynroch · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was intrigued by the review I read of this book. The author, D'Agata, has MFAs in poetry and nonfiction writing (interesting combination) and combines these skills in Halls of Fame. The book is divided into chapters that tackle different subject matter inspired by the different Halls of Fames that D'Agata visited. Parts are great: beautiful, provocative. Other parts, not so much. The book comes off being confused. Worth looking into though if you are looking for something different.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

from "Collage History of Art, by Henry Darger" (Halls of Fame) by John D'Agata:

When you're all alone everything belongs to you. All the good and bad. Every yes and no. Whether to kill that little girl, or not. It was sometime in his late twenties, Henry tells us in his journal, when he lost the newspaper clipping of the girl from the Daily News. He prayed to God to return it, but God never did.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Began with a bang and kind of dropped me off along the way - D'Agata's tendency to list and cite and reference made me feel like I was reading a sourcebook rather than a book at time, especially in the title piece and "Flat Earth Map." Granted, this is probably the most openly experimental book I've ever read for fun, but the final piece, save for the page-long lists of quotations of "light" and "dark," was wonderful. When he decides to stick to it, D'Agata's prose is tremendous.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a lot of fun reading this and definitely understand how important D'Agata is to the essay today, even to my own work without my having known it until now. My favorite is the one about Martha Graham. I do get a little bogged down with the footnotes in the one about the Flat Earth guy, and in general the consciousness of form can get a little claustrophobic, but hey, if I write essays as good as these, I'll consider myself a success.

[Cole · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read these essays out of order for a class on experimental writing styles. I alternate back and forth between finding D'Agata one of the most unbearably pretentious writers ever ("Notes Toward the Making of a Whole Human Being") and one of the most beautifully observant ("Round Trip").

The Joan Didion influence here is obvious in every line, and the artistry is evident. I would have an easier time loving D'Agata if he wasn't so clearly in love with himself.

[flannery · Rating 4 out of 5]

New to the lyric essay, still biased to the "regular-ass" essay, but totally smitten by John D'Agata's writing, his attention to detail, the ease with which he finds meaning and metaphor in his subjects. As in "About a Mountain" I feel like his treatment of regular folk is sometimes smug so I deducted a star. That will teach him. I made the mistake of trying to read this on the elliptical machine.

[Steel · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, Kim Johnson recommended this book to me. I think it was by a buddy of hers from the Iowa Writer's Program. It's a killer bit of collage/creative nonfiction/poetry that I think D'Agata calls the lyric essay. He's editing a lit mag called the Seneca Review that publishes a lot of them, apparently. In any case, there were parts of this book that I thought were tremendous.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

The worst thing about this book is that there is not enough of it. MORE, MORE, JOHN D'AGATA. One of the most brilliant, beautiful, and intelligent things I have read in a very long time. All writers should be embarrassed that they are not him. I know I am. Off to the library to read everything this man has ever written...

[Matt Buchholz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creative non-fiction that sometimes veers too far into the intellectually insular world of poetry for my liking, but the formalist ambition throughout makes most of what I consider flaws, excusable. When someone is clearly this excited about writing, it's infectious even when it's not always great.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyable. Beautiful essays. Loved the essay about Deep Springs - back when I was a soon to be high school graduate I remember being fiercely agitated that they wouldn't accept women. When will Mr. D'Agata write something else?

[C.S. Carrier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks heavens for John D'Agata and his work. He's rescued the essay from ickiness. His essays are so beautiful words and lyricism. The sequence of essays entitled "Halls of Fame" kill. And the essay on Henry Darger kills.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, by one of the pioneers of the lyric essay, is commendable for using innovative formal techniques in the service of non-fiction, but I found the book lacking in terms of incisiveness or passion.
NB: most of my colleagues really liked this book, so maybe it's just that I have lame tastes.