In Arafat Mountain, there is all literature, in all its forms. In Arafat Mountaint, some characters go to a castle. Someone watches a Woody Allen movie, and cries. There is Arafat Mountain, where it is said that Mohammed gave one of his last sermons. A plane disappears. There are parallel universes, and, of course, space-time travel. An island with prisoners. It is most certainly the end of the world. Gods eat other gods. And, in a room somewhere, there is a lever that, above all, you must never touch.
Imagine all the horrors and deaths you’ve already heard about, then imagine all the universes and crazy landscapes they come from. Add volcanoes, meteors, home invasions, suicides, Ferraris and accidents, then pull the lever and see what happens. Maybe something terrible, maybe something weird, it depends on the universe. Is it the end of the world? Does it matter?
In Arafat Mountain, Mike Kleine, like Roberto Bolano in Antwerp, deploys an incredible gift for collage, weaving derisory micro-stories together in such a way as to produce a mixed sensation of yellow laughter, despair, and cosmic horror, from which, strangely enough, springs an obvious beauty.
