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70th out of 290 books
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111 voters
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Imperial
An epic study of an emblematic American region by one of our most celebrated writers
It sprawls across a stinking artificial sea, across the deserts, date groves, and labor camps of southeastern California, right across the Mexican border. For generations of migrant workers, from Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl of the 1930s to Mexican laborers today, Imperial County has held th...more
It sprawls across a stinking artificial sea, across the deserts, date groves, and labor camps of southeastern California, right across the Mexican border. For generations of migrant workers, from Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl of the 1930s to Mexican laborers today, Imperial County has held th...more
Hardcover, 1308 pages
Published
July 30th 2009
by Viking Adult
(first published 2009)
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He wrote an article in Harper's that made me want more. I had a long think with myself between paper and electronic. Though I prefer anything with a lot of charts and illustrations on paper, I went for the electronic edition to avoid carrying the brick. This made the swim to the other side unencumbered such that I could sprawl as freely as the book. However, had this been an older book with a certain kind of smell, a name scrawled in the front, some underlinings and marginalia, I would have carr...more
While some of them said it more politely than others, reviewers generally agreed that most readers will find the size of Imperial overwhelming (not to mention the $55 price tag). But none could dismiss Vollmann's work, and most praised it strongly. They admired not only Vollmann's bombastic literary and personal style but his choice of subject matter. For all his digressions, Vollmann centers his story on a region defined by humans' ongoing attempts to control water, and several reviewers were i...more
A non-linear history of Imperial County, California. Vollmann catches the desertness of the place, illegal aliens, narcocorridos, Chinese tunnels, the casual vice of Mexicali, maquiladoras, the creaction of the Salton Sea, and now the decline of Imperial.
Vollmann is careful, balanced and wistful. He asks, but does not answer, the question of taming the desert with irrigation water and the subsequent bloom of agriculture. Now Imperial is in slow decline because it is more profitabl...more
Vollmann is careful, balanced and wistful. He asks, but does not answer, the question of taming the desert with irrigation water and the subsequent bloom of agriculture. Now Imperial is in slow decline because it is more profitabl...more
Imperial will probably be more "respected" than read. I would be a liar if I didn't admit that the irrigation and farming statistics, despite having a logical purpose in the narrative, did grow a bit boring. At the same time, the stuff about chinese tunnels, maquiladoras, drug ballads, and the new river more than made up for it. (It was also neat that the LA sections mentioned an exact block that I have lived on and the street that I currently live on.) Rising Up and Rising Down was mo...more
If one best learns a language by total immersion, then one can likewise learn of place as William Vollman sets out to prove in his massive study “Imperial” which bombards the reader with every sort of datum on the California-Mexican area. Major themes include distribution of water, the transformation of small farms to vast agricultural domains, the plight of the Mexican illegal immigrant, the history of the Chinese in Mexico, accounts of early settlers, and more, much more. “Imperial” documents ...more
I spent some of my childhood adjacent to Imperial county in Yuma, AZ (Vollman describes Yuma very accurately as 'sprawling mediocrity'). So, prior to reading 'Imperial', if you asked me where the most boring, ahistorical place in the US was, I'd be very tempted to say 'Imperial County', California.
This was based on my elementary and junior high school memories-- taking a bus down to Somerton for basketball league-- oblivious to the hundreds of bandanna'd and sombrero'd figures in th...more
This was based on my elementary and junior high school memories-- taking a bus down to Somerton for basketball league-- oblivious to the hundreds of bandanna'd and sombrero'd figures in th...more
q
rated it
Recommends it for:
humans, especially Americans and ones who either love America or are frightened of her
Shelves:
nonfiction,
political
Years ago, among other tactics to persuade his publishers not to force him to cut out chunks of his massive novels, William Vollmann used to remind them that he might someday be considered for a Nobel. A hundred pages into Imperial, he'd convinced me he hadn't been kidding back then. Two hundred pages in, I was wondering which category the committee should consider him for. Six hundred pages in, I realized there's little chance he'll be seriously considered, because there's so much in this bo...more
If you're going to read one 1100-page work of nonfiction this year, it should be Imperial. Really, though, the breadth of the work is staggering. Vollmann sets out to capture the eclecticism of the history, landscape, and people of the US-Mexico border near Imperial County, California (east of San Diego). The book ranges from portraits of individuals, such as Lupe Vasquez, one of his Mexican informants, to extended accounts of the power-plays for water from the Colorado River. It is a compelling...more
Moments of brilliance followed by long, meandering passages in which I lost interest. The book is long - so long that it took me over a year to get through this. Certain passages of this book are absolute must-reads, my favorite being the description of Vollmann hiring a river guide to paddle him through a toxic river to see how immigrant workers endanger their lives to sneak into the U.S. Vollmann is clearly a scholar/writer of great talent and insight.
Ok, admittedly, I only read 3/4, but at 1100+ pages and endless footnotes I ran out of time. What I will say, I admire WTV's refusal to edit for content. I believe his decision to keep in the staggering amount of information is noble, interesting and essential to the work as a whole. His dissection of Imperial County was engrossing and I hope to see Imperial's unforgiving landscape for myself one day.
Steven Bridenbaugh
added it
A remarkable portrait of an a most unusual part of the country.
Anyone who has lived in Imperial County will be impressed by the depth of Vollmann's curiosity, and his unflinching honesty. The book is a masterpiece of political insight. Every issue of water and land use that will continue to vex governments is laid bare. A wonderful, human approach to what's the matter with the world today.
Anyone who has lived in Imperial County will be impressed by the depth of Vollmann's curiosity, and his unflinching honesty. The book is a masterpiece of political insight. Every issue of water and land use that will continue to vex governments is laid bare. A wonderful, human approach to what's the matter with the world today.
Where do I begin? This book is the work of a crazy genius. This book is a mess. It's huge, sprawling, insightful, and (in my opinion) unfocused. In short this is classic Vollman. If you really really love Vollman, I would recommend this book. For people who have never read him, it will just be too much. Fabulous source notes. The publisher did a great packaging job. It's a real acheivemment to publish over 1,000 pages of changing typefaces and illustrations throughout the body of the text. Vikin...more
What a strange trip; visceral, transcendent, dull, irrelevant - all of that. From some very important observations about border culture and the ghosts of boosterism in California to a bunch of ill-advised metaphors about prostitutes and a catalog of vaginal imagery. So is Imperial a good book or a bad one, I guess it depends where you dive in. One this is for sure, it is vast and in the end its strengths are at least as manifold as its weaknesses. If it could be paired down to 300 pages of st...more
Johnny
is currently reading it
I expect this book to be on my currently-reading shelf for most of the year. I don't plan to tackle it in one sitting.
When a writer like Vollmann writes a 1,300-page book about the county that you grew up in, then you'll understand my sense of responsibility and excitement in reading it.
When a writer like Vollmann writes a 1,300-page book about the county that you grew up in, then you'll understand my sense of responsibility and excitement in reading it.
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Mason
added it
If I take the time, I'll find the right word that describes the sense of amazement one feels when a master narrator elicits a sadness felt at the center of one's bones. Anyone who dismisses this as "1500 pages about the border" is missing a great experience.
I really enjoyed this book, it is a bit long, but that is almost the point, he tells the story of a place in agonizing detail, at points you feel like its not all necessary but he does an amazing job of keeping it all together and expressing his philosophy through this meditation on a subject. It's good stuff-also you do need a good sense of humor as he does tend to digress in completely oddball manners like how i got broke up with, how the hooker was last night, this time i was talking to a pe...more
Exhaustive, exhausting, all you need to know about that place where everything North American converges. A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award in nonfiction (to be announced March 11)...
This is a 1200 page book; I've enjoyed it so far and appreciate the type of research done over the ten year span it took Vollmann to compile, format, and organize. I definitely would like to see the companion book of photographs that the author released at the same time. There's definitely some Kerouac influence in Vollmann's narrative and the book has its own quirky style: I can understand people being turned off but I wasn't. I became immersed in Imperial and found this study of the Califor...more
whoo-ee this guy needs to hire an editor. really loved the concept, too bad about it being 700 pages too long.
This long, long, long book is about the history of the Imperial Valley, which crosses California into Mexico. A major theme of the book is the politics of water, and how it turned desert into farmland when it was available, and farmland into desert when it wasn't. An amazing story. Highly recommended.
Charles
is currently reading it
Vollman is one of those "writers who writes faster than I can read."
I do not recommend this book for most people. It's frustratingly long and detailed to the point of being quite maddening at times. Yet some of the time I loved this book. Without the footnotes it's 1150 pages. Reduce repetition and cut out 300 pages and it'd be a lot stronger. But Vollmann has guts. He doesn't compromise. And I respect that. Took me 7 months to read, in which time I put Imperial down at times and read about 20 other books. You gotta take breaks, but it's do-able. I've never been...more
Granted I didn't make it through this 1200-page behemoth...
I read and skimmed 300-400 pages. His research is extensive, but his rambling is awful. Where the f*ck was his editor? He totally lost me when he went on a 7-page tangent about why an ex-lover scorned him because she didn't appreciate his cunnilingus. Indeed, Vollman sucks.
I referenced his bibliography in order to learn more about this interesting subject, but avoid this book unless you need a paperweight or something t...more
I read and skimmed 300-400 pages. His research is extensive, but his rambling is awful. Where the f*ck was his editor? He totally lost me when he went on a 7-page tangent about why an ex-lover scorned him because she didn't appreciate his cunnilingus. Indeed, Vollman sucks.
I referenced his bibliography in order to learn more about this interesting subject, but avoid this book unless you need a paperweight or something t...more
Whew! Took me a couple of years to finish this one, and in the end it was worth it. It's a combination of wry statistical anaylsis of crop yields and water-usage rates; a history of Imperial County; and Vollmann's own reportage from the area, which is always the best part of any book by him (hookers, illegals, corridos, secret Chinese tunnels in Mexicali). Part history book, part travelogue. If you make it through, you will know more about California's Imperial Valley than you even thought there...more
Bethany
marked it as to-read
Starred review in Booklist.
Eli Buckley
is currently reading it
so far so good
Imperial is sprawling, contradictory, and intense. Parts wildly compelling, others poorly (and idiosyncratically) edited and dull. But in the best parts -- when Vollmann's talking with people otherwise unheard, or with people who are lying and misdirecting -- it's a good read. If you can make it through the other bits (the statistics, tables, oddly-conceived historical reconstructions, tedious font choices, removal of personal boundary, rambling).
Downgrading this to 3.5 stars. The good parts are great, but with too much meandering and too many tangents the big picture gets lost at times. I've lost my motivation to plow through 1,000-plus pages and am returning this hefty volume to the library so that someone with more fortitude can take a crack at it. Vollmann is a great writer who in this case needs a great editor.
Great first chapter on border towns and immigration, then the subsequent chapters end in lots of exclamation points! And run on sentences and run on paragraphs (with lots of sub clauses). Needed an editor!
"Before this century is done, there will be an evolution in our values,... not because man has become more civilized but because, on a blighted earth, he will have no choice."
Cesar Chavez
Cesar Chavez
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William Tanner Vollmann is an American novelist, journalist, short story writer and essayist. He lives in Sacramento, California with his wife and daughter.
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