What do you think?
Rate this book
Poor People
That was the simple yet groundbreaking question William T. Vollmann asked in cities and villages around the globe. The result of Vollmann's fearless inquiry is a view of poverty unlike any previously offered.
Poor People struggles to confront poverty in all its hopelessness and brutality, its pride and abject fear, its fierce misery and quiet resignation, allowing the poor to explain the causes and consequences of their impoverishment in their own cultural, social, and religious terms. With intense compassion and a scrupulously unpatronizing eye, Vollmann invites his readers to recognize in our fellow human beings their full dignity, fallibility, pride, and pain, and the power of their hard-fought resilience.
Some images that appeared in the print edition of this book are unavailable in the electronic edition due to rights reasons.
Poor People struggles to confront poverty in all its hopelessness and brutality, its pride and abject fear, its fierce misery and quiet resignation, allowing the poor to explain the causes and consequences of their impoverishment in their own cultural, social, and religious terms. With intense compassion and a scrupulously unpatronizing eye, Vollmann invites his readers to recognize in our fellow human beings their full dignity, fallibility, pride, and pain, and the power of their hard-fought resilience.
Some images that appeared in the print edition of this book are unavailable in the electronic edition due to rights reasons.
466 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2007
260 people are currently reading
2924 people want to read
About the author
William T. Vollmann
100 books1,465 followersWilliam Tanner Vollmann is an American author, journalist, and essayist known for his ambitious and often unconventional literary works. Born on July 28, 1959, in Los Angeles, California, Vollmann has earned a reputation as one of the most prolific and daring writers of his generation.
Vollmann's early life was marked by tragedy; his sister drowned when he was a child, an event that profoundly impacted him and influenced his writing. He attended Deep Springs College, a small, isolated liberal arts college in California, before transferring to Cornell University, where he studied comparative literature. After college, Vollmann spent some time in Afghanistan as a freelance journalist, an experience that would later inform some of his works.
His first novel, You Bright and Risen Angels (1987), is a sprawling, experimental work that blends fantasy, history, and social commentary. This novel set the tone for much of his later work, characterized by its complexity, depth, and a willingness to tackle difficult and controversial subjects.
Vollmann's most acclaimed work is The Rainbow Stories (1989), a collection of interlinked short stories that explore the darker sides of human nature. His nonfiction is equally notable, particularly Rising Up and Rising Down (2003), a seven-volume treatise on violence, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Over the years, Vollmann has continued to write prolifically, producing novels, short stories, essays, and journalistic pieces. His work often delves into themes of violence, poverty, and the struggles of marginalized people. He has received several awards, including the National Book Award for Fiction in 2005 for Europe Central, a novel about the moral dilemmas faced by individuals during World War II.
Vollmann is known for his immersive research methods, often placing himself in dangerous situations to better understand his subjects. Despite his literary success, he remains somewhat of an outsider in the literary world, frequently shunning public appearances and maintaining a low profile.
In addition to his writing, Vollmann is also an accomplished photographer, and his photographs often accompany his written work. Painting is also an art where's working on, celebrating expositions in the United States, showing his paintings. His diverse interests and unflinching approach to his subjects have made him a unique voice in contemporary American literature.
Vollmann's early life was marked by tragedy; his sister drowned when he was a child, an event that profoundly impacted him and influenced his writing. He attended Deep Springs College, a small, isolated liberal arts college in California, before transferring to Cornell University, where he studied comparative literature. After college, Vollmann spent some time in Afghanistan as a freelance journalist, an experience that would later inform some of his works.
His first novel, You Bright and Risen Angels (1987), is a sprawling, experimental work that blends fantasy, history, and social commentary. This novel set the tone for much of his later work, characterized by its complexity, depth, and a willingness to tackle difficult and controversial subjects.
Vollmann's most acclaimed work is The Rainbow Stories (1989), a collection of interlinked short stories that explore the darker sides of human nature. His nonfiction is equally notable, particularly Rising Up and Rising Down (2003), a seven-volume treatise on violence, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Over the years, Vollmann has continued to write prolifically, producing novels, short stories, essays, and journalistic pieces. His work often delves into themes of violence, poverty, and the struggles of marginalized people. He has received several awards, including the National Book Award for Fiction in 2005 for Europe Central, a novel about the moral dilemmas faced by individuals during World War II.
Vollmann is known for his immersive research methods, often placing himself in dangerous situations to better understand his subjects. Despite his literary success, he remains somewhat of an outsider in the literary world, frequently shunning public appearances and maintaining a low profile.
In addition to his writing, Vollmann is also an accomplished photographer, and his photographs often accompany his written work. Painting is also an art where's working on, celebrating expositions in the United States, showing his paintings. His diverse interests and unflinching approach to his subjects have made him a unique voice in contemporary American literature.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 203 reviews
July 10, 2014
Why are some people rich and other people poor?
Do you consider yourself poor? Why are you poor?
Do the rich have any obligation to the poor?
These are a few of the questions Vollmann asked of an array of people he encountered or sought out around the world. All of the people he asked would be considered “poor” by any standard.
The god-like culture-creators at the New York Times said of this book “for all its ostensible daring and exploration, this is a book full of foregone conclusions. Strip away the theory, and you have a glorified travelogue… he assembles glimpses and anecdotes from many places and then creates simple truisms to unite them. Instead of a meditation on poverty illustrated by reportorial experience, “Poor People” feels like a collection of outtakes on which themes have been superimposed.” Fine. Is it a fault of the book that instead of consulting the World Bank or Ivy League professors, he went to the source of suffering and asked of it fundamental questions, and that suffering was, predictably, numb to explain itself? Impoverished of its own reasons? Anyway, what new is there to be said, from the outside, about poverty and its sufferings? Isn’t this the same data Jesus was crunching while turning tables in the temple?
Vollmann is a storyteller. His aim was only to tell these voiceless people’s stories. ”I cannot claim to have been poor. My emotion concerning this is not guilt at all, but simple gratitude… All that I dare to do is to note several similarities and differences which I believe pertain to the experience of being poor…”
The stories are strange, and numbing, and terrifying, and saddening. Economists have other distressing views on why these existential problems exist, but what are theories and global strategies to those living in poverty? One person is poor because of destiny, another is poor because of illness, another because of disability or deformity, another is poor because of war or other large-scale disasters, others are poor because of historical circumstance. Isn’t it lovely to nurse the problem of thinking about poverty rather than having to dwell our entire lives within it?
I am not poor. Before reading this book I certainly would not have considered myself rich. Now I believe that I am. I live in one of the most affluent areas in one of the most affluent countries in the world. I make enough money to live, but not enough to save. I eat every day, I have clean water, I have a home to return to at night or in bad weather. The fact that I can speak of my “leisure activities” is an indication of the comfort of my level of normality, and I can afford my preferred leisure activities- I like books and movies and walks and museums, and luckily for me, most of the museums in Washington DC are free to the public. (However, I can’t recall ever seeing the very poor within these free museum walls.) I am rich. “Income inequality” is an of-the-moment hot political topic; I fear of course that it will pass into silence like most problems that pervade and persist in our society; but traveling around this metropolis one is confronted each and every day with reification of “income inequality.”
Last week I was taking the bus downtown to go to my job and approaching the intersection of Florida Avenue and North Capitol Street I observed two signifiers of income inequality. First, I observed, among a line of shabby rowhouses, a lot that used to be housing but was now a rubble field- shattered brick, cement, and wood were piled among heaps of garbage. Within this rubble field, on a tattered and soiled couch in the open air, sat a lone man in dirty clothes smoking a cigarette and staring ahead. It was around 10 in the morning, and the hot sun was already beating through the bus windows. It beat down on him, too, and he was soaked in sweat and looked desolate. I was on my way to an air conditioned library to earn my day’s wages, and he sat on a ruined couch in a field of garbage and detritus, smoking away Time. A block farther on, at a trafficked intersection, a half dozen men sat on a thin metal railing passing their morning among the CO2 reek of spewing cars. Their “park” was this rail a few inches wide and one or two benches embedded in concrete; they hung their heads and sweated through their clothes; my bus paused at a red light. A girl in low-cut jeans and a form-fitting t-shirt walked by, and this immediately drew their attention. They began yelling at her, and she began running away from them; one pursued her down North Capitol Street, rubbing his crotch furiously. Within four or five blocks I was near the National Mall, and all of the men were clean, in business suits, coming out of offices and restaurants- the women wore beautiful dresses that fit their lovely bodies snuggly, sometimes suggestively, and they walked without fear or intimidation.
Were the people formerly spoken of poor people? What rich-man prejudices were embedded in the paragraph above? What accounts for the transition and differences in that four-block span of city?
If one wants truly educational evidence of “income inequality”, one needs only to drive into Baltimore from the west, and you will experience neighborhoods that I can only describe as resembling photographs of Berlin in 1945- empty, frightening in their chaotic ruin, but inhabited. Police sit and watch on every other corner. The people who live there disappear as soon as you take note of them. Within a ten-minute drive you will be in neighborhoods with porch swings, small gardens, and new restaurants and bars, where beautiful people cheerfully spend new money at outdoor cafes and chat idly. Reading crime statistics from Baltimore, the poor do often make their presences known across these vague borders in that strange city. Every person I know who lives in Baltimore has stories of crime. They are all rich.
My car has been broken into numerous times. One time it was stolen entirely, driven to west Baltimore, stripped and left on a street corner. The police eventually found it, and because I am rich I had it repaired and drove it for a long time after this incident. One evening a few years ago I came home from work around 5 o’clock and my back door had been kicked in, every drawer, closet, and cubbyhole in my house turned out and rifled through. The police came and told me there had been a dozen break-ins in my neighborhood in the past weeks. I boarded up my destroyed back door and put my house and belongings back in order and took inventory of what had been taken. Was the person or people who drove away with my car or who broke into my house in broad daylight poor? I can’t imagine why a rich man would kick in my back door, go through all of my things, steal my computer, a jar of change, some of my girlfriend’s underwear, and a small, colorful glass pipe I used to smoke marijuana out of. Was I disturbed by this incident? Definitely. If I met the person who broke into my house and invaded my private world today, how would I react? What would I say to them? I’m no longer angry or disturbed, but I might ask them what they needed my things for, and why they chose this method of obtaining what they needed. Certainly, I would not want them to go to jail for what they did.
I and a great deal of the people I know only have to confront poverty in these abstract modes, these small eruptions or incursions. Mostly, I shut my door to poverty. I drive by it. I note it with sorrow and bewilderment. I don’t live with the illusion that I can make a difference; even when I give to those who beg, be it food or money, I don’t feel that I am making the slightest impact. I have never been poor. I do know that I never have, nor probably ever could, obtain the proximity to poverty that Vollmann dared. The value in Poor People is that it gives a cowardly rich man like myself access to the voices and stories of a few of the poor. Perhaps these people, whom I generally and shamefully consider phenomena and apparitions, will appear to me now in a somewhat more human form.
~~
Do you consider yourself poor? Why are you poor?
Do the rich have any obligation to the poor?
These are a few of the questions Vollmann asked of an array of people he encountered or sought out around the world. All of the people he asked would be considered “poor” by any standard.
The god-like culture-creators at the New York Times said of this book “for all its ostensible daring and exploration, this is a book full of foregone conclusions. Strip away the theory, and you have a glorified travelogue… he assembles glimpses and anecdotes from many places and then creates simple truisms to unite them. Instead of a meditation on poverty illustrated by reportorial experience, “Poor People” feels like a collection of outtakes on which themes have been superimposed.” Fine. Is it a fault of the book that instead of consulting the World Bank or Ivy League professors, he went to the source of suffering and asked of it fundamental questions, and that suffering was, predictably, numb to explain itself? Impoverished of its own reasons? Anyway, what new is there to be said, from the outside, about poverty and its sufferings? Isn’t this the same data Jesus was crunching while turning tables in the temple?
Vollmann is a storyteller. His aim was only to tell these voiceless people’s stories. ”I cannot claim to have been poor. My emotion concerning this is not guilt at all, but simple gratitude… All that I dare to do is to note several similarities and differences which I believe pertain to the experience of being poor…”
The stories are strange, and numbing, and terrifying, and saddening. Economists have other distressing views on why these existential problems exist, but what are theories and global strategies to those living in poverty? One person is poor because of destiny, another is poor because of illness, another because of disability or deformity, another is poor because of war or other large-scale disasters, others are poor because of historical circumstance. Isn’t it lovely to nurse the problem of thinking about poverty rather than having to dwell our entire lives within it?
I am not poor. Before reading this book I certainly would not have considered myself rich. Now I believe that I am. I live in one of the most affluent areas in one of the most affluent countries in the world. I make enough money to live, but not enough to save. I eat every day, I have clean water, I have a home to return to at night or in bad weather. The fact that I can speak of my “leisure activities” is an indication of the comfort of my level of normality, and I can afford my preferred leisure activities- I like books and movies and walks and museums, and luckily for me, most of the museums in Washington DC are free to the public. (However, I can’t recall ever seeing the very poor within these free museum walls.) I am rich. “Income inequality” is an of-the-moment hot political topic; I fear of course that it will pass into silence like most problems that pervade and persist in our society; but traveling around this metropolis one is confronted each and every day with reification of “income inequality.”
Last week I was taking the bus downtown to go to my job and approaching the intersection of Florida Avenue and North Capitol Street I observed two signifiers of income inequality. First, I observed, among a line of shabby rowhouses, a lot that used to be housing but was now a rubble field- shattered brick, cement, and wood were piled among heaps of garbage. Within this rubble field, on a tattered and soiled couch in the open air, sat a lone man in dirty clothes smoking a cigarette and staring ahead. It was around 10 in the morning, and the hot sun was already beating through the bus windows. It beat down on him, too, and he was soaked in sweat and looked desolate. I was on my way to an air conditioned library to earn my day’s wages, and he sat on a ruined couch in a field of garbage and detritus, smoking away Time. A block farther on, at a trafficked intersection, a half dozen men sat on a thin metal railing passing their morning among the CO2 reek of spewing cars. Their “park” was this rail a few inches wide and one or two benches embedded in concrete; they hung their heads and sweated through their clothes; my bus paused at a red light. A girl in low-cut jeans and a form-fitting t-shirt walked by, and this immediately drew their attention. They began yelling at her, and she began running away from them; one pursued her down North Capitol Street, rubbing his crotch furiously. Within four or five blocks I was near the National Mall, and all of the men were clean, in business suits, coming out of offices and restaurants- the women wore beautiful dresses that fit their lovely bodies snuggly, sometimes suggestively, and they walked without fear or intimidation.
Were the people formerly spoken of poor people? What rich-man prejudices were embedded in the paragraph above? What accounts for the transition and differences in that four-block span of city?
If one wants truly educational evidence of “income inequality”, one needs only to drive into Baltimore from the west, and you will experience neighborhoods that I can only describe as resembling photographs of Berlin in 1945- empty, frightening in their chaotic ruin, but inhabited. Police sit and watch on every other corner. The people who live there disappear as soon as you take note of them. Within a ten-minute drive you will be in neighborhoods with porch swings, small gardens, and new restaurants and bars, where beautiful people cheerfully spend new money at outdoor cafes and chat idly. Reading crime statistics from Baltimore, the poor do often make their presences known across these vague borders in that strange city. Every person I know who lives in Baltimore has stories of crime. They are all rich.
My car has been broken into numerous times. One time it was stolen entirely, driven to west Baltimore, stripped and left on a street corner. The police eventually found it, and because I am rich I had it repaired and drove it for a long time after this incident. One evening a few years ago I came home from work around 5 o’clock and my back door had been kicked in, every drawer, closet, and cubbyhole in my house turned out and rifled through. The police came and told me there had been a dozen break-ins in my neighborhood in the past weeks. I boarded up my destroyed back door and put my house and belongings back in order and took inventory of what had been taken. Was the person or people who drove away with my car or who broke into my house in broad daylight poor? I can’t imagine why a rich man would kick in my back door, go through all of my things, steal my computer, a jar of change, some of my girlfriend’s underwear, and a small, colorful glass pipe I used to smoke marijuana out of. Was I disturbed by this incident? Definitely. If I met the person who broke into my house and invaded my private world today, how would I react? What would I say to them? I’m no longer angry or disturbed, but I might ask them what they needed my things for, and why they chose this method of obtaining what they needed. Certainly, I would not want them to go to jail for what they did.
I and a great deal of the people I know only have to confront poverty in these abstract modes, these small eruptions or incursions. Mostly, I shut my door to poverty. I drive by it. I note it with sorrow and bewilderment. I don’t live with the illusion that I can make a difference; even when I give to those who beg, be it food or money, I don’t feel that I am making the slightest impact. I have never been poor. I do know that I never have, nor probably ever could, obtain the proximity to poverty that Vollmann dared. The value in Poor People is that it gives a cowardly rich man like myself access to the voices and stories of a few of the poor. Perhaps these people, whom I generally and shamefully consider phenomena and apparitions, will appear to me now in a somewhat more human form.
~~
August 18, 2018
Vollmann is a bit of an enigma, but one thing that certainly can be said is that he has travelled a great deal in his various roles and taken copious notes. This work is told in the first person, so Vollmann manages to keep the focus off himself when he chooses to, but he has a clear focus, poverty. He simply asks people why they are poor and notes their responses. The rather raw photos are all taken by him as well. Vollmann states his parameters well:
“Because I wish to respect poor people’s perceptions and experiences, I refuse to say that I know their good better than they; accordingly, I further refuse to condescend to them with the pity that either pretends they have no choices at all, or else, worse yet, gilds their every choice with my benevolent approval. Once again I submit the obvious: Poor people are no more and no less human than I; accordingly, they deserve to be judged and understood precisely as I do myself.”
He struggles with a definition of poverty as some of those he interviews do not really perceive themselves as poor, although by most definitions they would be. The United Nations definition seems as good as any:
“Poverty: a human condition characterized by the sustained or chronic deprivation of the resources, capabilities, choices, security, and power necessary for the enjoyment of an adequate standard of living and other civil, cultural, economic, political, and social rights.”
One of the other issues at the start of the book is a throwaway remark by Vollmann, “Poverty is not political”. This clearly isn’t true and Vollmann obviously doesn’t really believe it either as he goes on to show it is entirely political over nearly three hundred pages! Vollmann does equate poverty with wretchedness and concedes that poverty is a series of perceptual categories.
It is easy to criticize Vollmann, as many critics have for naivety or for o ver analyzing but one thing is clear. This isn’t reportage from an armchair critic or reporter, Vollmann has really been there. The list of places and people is impressive. He does look very close to home towards the end of the book, but there are interviews and characters from Thailand, Japan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, The Philippines, India, Colombia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Burma, Vietnam, Hungary, Serbia, Congo, Kenya, Iraq, Australia, Bosnia and various parts of the US. He also draws on some historical quotes and descriptions. It’s an impressive list and Vollmann has not been averse to going into difficult and dangerous places. He also introduces the readers to many of those he interviews and paints vivid portraits of them, so that the reader does become engaged. He is also self-critical analyzing his own thoughts, feelings and actions. He gives money to some and sometimes assists where he can, whilst recognizing how ineffective that really is. It is easy to be critical of Vollmann, but unlike the rest of us, he has been there.
After looking at the nature of poverty initially Vollmann has his own ideas of what defines poverty and how it is broken down. He has chapters on Invisibility, Deformity, Unwantedness, Dependence, Accident-Proneness, Pain, Numbness and Estrangement. There is even a chapter on dirty toilets. The people interviewed, however briefly, although all poor are quite varied. Some are homeless and living on the streets in varieties of ramshackle shelters (or none at all), others are alcoholic or drug addict, prostitutes (as you would expect from Vollmann), older people, the unemployed, the disabled and the poorly paid and exploited.
The answers given vary as you would expect. Some blame the rich or the system, for some it’s Gods will or fate, for some they are at fault themselves, others blame lack of prospects or decent work, and for some it’s their appointed place in society or just mere chance.
Vollmann does have a warning for us all:
“I have observed the sufferings of human beings, done a little to alleviate them, and left them behind. My sensations in doing so are sometimes as smelly as San Francisco's rainy uriney Tenderloin streets, where in a sunken subway plaza homeless ones are reading, snoring or snarling in sodden sleep bags; infected by misery, I look away, but my eyes meet a man's red-eyed glare on those rainy steps in the dark; I could remember him or I could remember the woman sitting on those steps, singing; her pants and her jacket are soaking wet in that night rain and water runs out of her hair into her eyes; her titanic thighs are blotched with eczema and she keeps scratching them; she reeks, but she is smiling as she sings; of course the only honest thing to do is remember them both -- in my tent. I am a rich man. I'm one with the man in Bogotá who said: I'm scared about the poor people coming to take everything from me.”
This is powerful stuff and Vollmann lays it out and leaves it there for us to consider.
“Because I wish to respect poor people’s perceptions and experiences, I refuse to say that I know their good better than they; accordingly, I further refuse to condescend to them with the pity that either pretends they have no choices at all, or else, worse yet, gilds their every choice with my benevolent approval. Once again I submit the obvious: Poor people are no more and no less human than I; accordingly, they deserve to be judged and understood precisely as I do myself.”
He struggles with a definition of poverty as some of those he interviews do not really perceive themselves as poor, although by most definitions they would be. The United Nations definition seems as good as any:
“Poverty: a human condition characterized by the sustained or chronic deprivation of the resources, capabilities, choices, security, and power necessary for the enjoyment of an adequate standard of living and other civil, cultural, economic, political, and social rights.”
One of the other issues at the start of the book is a throwaway remark by Vollmann, “Poverty is not political”. This clearly isn’t true and Vollmann obviously doesn’t really believe it either as he goes on to show it is entirely political over nearly three hundred pages! Vollmann does equate poverty with wretchedness and concedes that poverty is a series of perceptual categories.
It is easy to criticize Vollmann, as many critics have for naivety or for o ver analyzing but one thing is clear. This isn’t reportage from an armchair critic or reporter, Vollmann has really been there. The list of places and people is impressive. He does look very close to home towards the end of the book, but there are interviews and characters from Thailand, Japan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mexico, The Philippines, India, Colombia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Burma, Vietnam, Hungary, Serbia, Congo, Kenya, Iraq, Australia, Bosnia and various parts of the US. He also draws on some historical quotes and descriptions. It’s an impressive list and Vollmann has not been averse to going into difficult and dangerous places. He also introduces the readers to many of those he interviews and paints vivid portraits of them, so that the reader does become engaged. He is also self-critical analyzing his own thoughts, feelings and actions. He gives money to some and sometimes assists where he can, whilst recognizing how ineffective that really is. It is easy to be critical of Vollmann, but unlike the rest of us, he has been there.
After looking at the nature of poverty initially Vollmann has his own ideas of what defines poverty and how it is broken down. He has chapters on Invisibility, Deformity, Unwantedness, Dependence, Accident-Proneness, Pain, Numbness and Estrangement. There is even a chapter on dirty toilets. The people interviewed, however briefly, although all poor are quite varied. Some are homeless and living on the streets in varieties of ramshackle shelters (or none at all), others are alcoholic or drug addict, prostitutes (as you would expect from Vollmann), older people, the unemployed, the disabled and the poorly paid and exploited.
The answers given vary as you would expect. Some blame the rich or the system, for some it’s Gods will or fate, for some they are at fault themselves, others blame lack of prospects or decent work, and for some it’s their appointed place in society or just mere chance.
Vollmann does have a warning for us all:
“I have observed the sufferings of human beings, done a little to alleviate them, and left them behind. My sensations in doing so are sometimes as smelly as San Francisco's rainy uriney Tenderloin streets, where in a sunken subway plaza homeless ones are reading, snoring or snarling in sodden sleep bags; infected by misery, I look away, but my eyes meet a man's red-eyed glare on those rainy steps in the dark; I could remember him or I could remember the woman sitting on those steps, singing; her pants and her jacket are soaking wet in that night rain and water runs out of her hair into her eyes; her titanic thighs are blotched with eczema and she keeps scratching them; she reeks, but she is smiling as she sings; of course the only honest thing to do is remember them both -- in my tent. I am a rich man. I'm one with the man in Bogotá who said: I'm scared about the poor people coming to take everything from me.”
This is powerful stuff and Vollmann lays it out and leaves it there for us to consider.
August 18, 2017
WTV asks questions that need to be asked, in a manner that inspires and provokes, but without the arrogance to pretend to provide any answers.
There is a recognition of his failures, of the impossibility of a "fix", of the chasm between his experience of "the poor" and their experience of themselves, that makes the whole work infinitely more powerful than your standard reportage or essay on poverty.
His photographs are frequently stunning, though they are very poor quality in the paperback.
An important book for all of us rich people. Highly recommended.
Now go read Geoff and Nathan and Cody and other's reviews.
There is a recognition of his failures, of the impossibility of a "fix", of the chasm between his experience of "the poor" and their experience of themselves, that makes the whole work infinitely more powerful than your standard reportage or essay on poverty.
His photographs are frequently stunning, though they are very poor quality in the paperback.
An important book for all of us rich people. Highly recommended.
Now go read Geoff and Nathan and Cody and other's reviews.
November 30, 2025
من هو الفقير؟
كيف انتهى للفقر؟
ما هى الموارد التي تُبقيه على قيد الحياة؟
من المسئول عن فقره، هو أم ظروف أقوى وأكبر منه؟
هل يرى الفقير أنه مُلزم من الغني؟
وفوق هذا كله، ما هو مدى الحرمان الذي يُعرّفه كفقير؟
شغلت تلك الأسئلة وأكثر منها الصحفي "ويليام فولمان"، فقرر القيام برحلة عابرة للقارات لاسكتشاف أكثر مناطق عالمنا فقراً وحرماناً.
تختلف الأماكن والجنسيات والأسباب، وألم ال��قر واحد. يُقابل الكاتب نماذجاً بشرية ضائعة يتحايلون على البقاء على قيد الحياة بطرق متعددة. معظم تلك الطرق لن يروق لنا ممن لم يختبروا الجانب المظلم والقاسي من هذا العالم.
من خلال هذا الكتاب نرى نظرة سوداوية عن الفقر نعرفها جميعا، ولكن من خلال معايشتنا للنماذج التي قابلها الكاتب، نرى ما وراء قشرة الفقر الظاهرية لهؤلاء البشر. تتعدى مهمة الكاتب هنا مجرد إشعارنا نحن القراء بالشفقة عليهم، إلى معايشة كل نموذج منهم مثلما عايشهم الكاتب.
أكتشف أن رغم شفقتي على هؤلاء الناس، كنت أضع حاجزاً بيني وبينهم. فنحنُ نرى المشردين في الشوارع يومياً، ونتخطاهم بلا اهتمام، وليس من الضروري أن يكون سبب هذا التخطي الترفع المتكبر عنهم دائماً، بل ببساطة بسبب الإحساس بالعجز تجاه ما يحدث لهم. فهل وجبة غداء أو مبلغ من المال مهما بلغ حجمه سيحل مشكلتهم الأزلية في إيجاد مأوى آدمي ودائم؟
كان الكاتب في نهاية الكتاب يضع أمامنا مدى عبثية مكافحة الفقر.
فهو يعيش في كاليفورنيا في منطقة تمتلئ بالمشردين الذي يحتلون عتبة بيته. يحكي لنا عن ما يفعله إنسانياً ومادياً محاولا تحسين ظروف حياة هولاء البشر. في الوقت الذي يتقي فيه شر "أثار" الفقر على نفسهم البشرية. فكلما ابتعد اياما قليلة عن بيته، يعود ويرى علامات محاولات الاقتحام والسرقة تملأ جدران منزله.
يروي بسخرية مريرة أن هؤلاء المشردون يرون في منزله المتواضع قصرا منيفا، فهم يعرفون الغني بأنه من يملك سقفا فوق رأسه أو ممن لا يحمل هم قوت يومه. ومادام مالك هذا المكان تنطبق عليه تلك المواصفات، فمن الأنانية أن يُوصد في وجههم أبواب بيته، حارماً إياهم من "استعارة" رفاهيات العيش في بيته، مثل كرسي أو ملاءة.
في خلال رحلته يكتشف أن لكل منظوره الخاص عن الفقر والغنى. يعرف أن من هؤلاء من لازال يحتفظ بإنسانية الحق في الحلم بالخروج من هذا العالم، ومنهم وتلك الغالبية العظمى، من محا الفقر شعورهم بالآدمية.
كتاب مثير للألم والاهتمام. عابه الترجمة الغير جيدة "المعتادة" من الدار العربية للعلوم التي تُجرد أي نص يخرج من تحت أيديهم من أي روح موجودة بداخله.
كيف انتهى للفقر؟
ما هى الموارد التي تُبقيه على قيد الحياة؟
من المسئول عن فقره، هو أم ظروف أقوى وأكبر منه؟
هل يرى الفقير أنه مُلزم من الغني؟
وفوق هذا كله، ما هو مدى الحرمان الذي يُعرّفه كفقير؟
شغلت تلك الأسئلة وأكثر منها الصحفي "ويليام فولمان"، فقرر القيام برحلة عابرة للقارات لاسكتشاف أكثر مناطق عالمنا فقراً وحرماناً.
تختلف الأماكن والجنسيات والأسباب، وألم ال��قر واحد. يُقابل الكاتب نماذجاً بشرية ضائعة يتحايلون على البقاء على قيد الحياة بطرق متعددة. معظم تلك الطرق لن يروق لنا ممن لم يختبروا الجانب المظلم والقاسي من هذا العالم.
من خلال هذا الكتاب نرى نظرة سوداوية عن الفقر نعرفها جميعا، ولكن من خلال معايشتنا للنماذج التي قابلها الكاتب، نرى ما وراء قشرة الفقر الظاهرية لهؤلاء البشر. تتعدى مهمة الكاتب هنا مجرد إشعارنا نحن القراء بالشفقة عليهم، إلى معايشة كل نموذج منهم مثلما عايشهم الكاتب.
أكتشف أن رغم شفقتي على هؤلاء الناس، كنت أضع حاجزاً بيني وبينهم. فنحنُ نرى المشردين في الشوارع يومياً، ونتخطاهم بلا اهتمام، وليس من الضروري أن يكون سبب هذا التخطي الترفع المتكبر عنهم دائماً، بل ببساطة بسبب الإحساس بالعجز تجاه ما يحدث لهم. فهل وجبة غداء أو مبلغ من المال مهما بلغ حجمه سيحل مشكلتهم الأزلية في إيجاد مأوى آدمي ودائم؟
كان الكاتب في نهاية الكتاب يضع أمامنا مدى عبثية مكافحة الفقر.
فهو يعيش في كاليفورنيا في منطقة تمتلئ بالمشردين الذي يحتلون عتبة بيته. يحكي لنا عن ما يفعله إنسانياً ومادياً محاولا تحسين ظروف حياة هولاء البشر. في الوقت الذي يتقي فيه شر "أثار" الفقر على نفسهم البشرية. فكلما ابتعد اياما قليلة عن بيته، يعود ويرى علامات محاولات الاقتحام والسرقة تملأ جدران منزله.
يروي بسخرية مريرة أن هؤلاء المشردون يرون في منزله المتواضع قصرا منيفا، فهم يعرفون الغني بأنه من يملك سقفا فوق رأسه أو ممن لا يحمل هم قوت يومه. ومادام مالك هذا المكان تنطبق عليه تلك المواصفات، فمن الأنانية أن يُوصد في وجههم أبواب بيته، حارماً إياهم من "استعارة" رفاهيات العيش في بيته، مثل كرسي أو ملاءة.
في خلال رحلته يكتشف أن لكل منظوره الخاص عن الفقر والغنى. يعرف أن من هؤلاء من لازال يحتفظ بإنسانية الحق في الحلم بالخروج من هذا العالم، ومنهم وتلك الغالبية العظمى، من محا الفقر شعورهم بالآدمية.
كتاب مثير للألم والاهتمام. عابه الترجمة الغير جيدة "المعتادة" من الدار العربية للعلوم التي تُجرد أي نص يخرج من تحت أيديهم من أي روح موجودة بداخله.
July 27, 2025
The problem that I have with so-called or self-identified Social Justice Warriors is that they have an agenda—nominally, to right the wrongs of society as they perceive them. It’s not that I’m against equality for all, obviously, it’s that I, by default, have a problem with agendas. Agendas compel people to seek out x in order to facilitate y coming to pass. Applied to the sphere of social justice, what I see all too often is a lack of contextual understanding on the part of the would-be hero. Ethnocentrism, lack of cultural relativism, flawed contextualizing; these are but a few of the larger foci issues that bedevil these folks, no matter if their hearts are in the right place. Agendas forego holism, because they self-propel themselves toward action before content gathering.
Example: it is a common conception through the Western lens to posit that women living under Muslim edicts in the Middle East are being denied their basic access to self-actualization. This is a flawed argument, as it fails to contextualize the situation either paradigmatically or from within the Middle Eastern perspective. (It's actually not an argument at all, it's a disposition.) I’m not saying whether the yoke of Islam is prejudicial or not as I have virtually zero intra-contextuality. I exist as an externality and, accordingly, my opinion is just that: opinion and little more. So for me to right the wrongs of female negation in the Mideast conflates my culture’s ideation of women as ‘right’ and outsiders’ as ‘wrong.’ Thus, I take a pass. My rule: if someone asks me for help, I will do what is in my power to help them. Call me inured, cocooned, privileged, anesthetized—it doesn’t matter. I will still refuse to make pat generalizations about entire cultures and nations of people from my ill-informed, Western-fed perception. Besides, I can’t imagine that anyone cares much what my opinion is.
Shockingly, there’s a point to all of this. Listen: this isn’t the kind of shit I usually spend my time sitting around thinking about. I’m too busy fanning my white skin with a stack of freshly-minted $100 bills on top of Mt. Freedom to worry about anything other than my hair (fabulous) and my Valium script (current count: 32 remaining). The power of Poor People is that it removed me from my throne of White Male Privilege (the view is fantastic, ladies) long enough to be wracked by the so-called Bigger Questions. WTV almost outdoes himself here.
“But then she continued: ‘When I feel low I pray to God and the Holy Spirit and then I feel better.’ Who are we, and who was Marx, to deny Oksana that local anesthetic?”
When Vollmann breaks the fourth wall in the last chapter and speaks directly to you, the reader, it is stunning. I rarely recommend a book for anything other than artistic merit, but Poor People should be read by anyone with the slightest interest in getting a glimpse of other cultures from an emic perspective. There is neither judgment nor easy answers. WTV doesn’t propose a way to solve the world’s ills. Apparently, it’s us that have been responsible the whole time for that. Who knew?
Example: it is a common conception through the Western lens to posit that women living under Muslim edicts in the Middle East are being denied their basic access to self-actualization. This is a flawed argument, as it fails to contextualize the situation either paradigmatically or from within the Middle Eastern perspective. (It's actually not an argument at all, it's a disposition.) I’m not saying whether the yoke of Islam is prejudicial or not as I have virtually zero intra-contextuality. I exist as an externality and, accordingly, my opinion is just that: opinion and little more. So for me to right the wrongs of female negation in the Mideast conflates my culture’s ideation of women as ‘right’ and outsiders’ as ‘wrong.’ Thus, I take a pass. My rule: if someone asks me for help, I will do what is in my power to help them. Call me inured, cocooned, privileged, anesthetized—it doesn’t matter. I will still refuse to make pat generalizations about entire cultures and nations of people from my ill-informed, Western-fed perception. Besides, I can’t imagine that anyone cares much what my opinion is.
Shockingly, there’s a point to all of this. Listen: this isn’t the kind of shit I usually spend my time sitting around thinking about. I’m too busy fanning my white skin with a stack of freshly-minted $100 bills on top of Mt. Freedom to worry about anything other than my hair (fabulous) and my Valium script (current count: 32 remaining). The power of Poor People is that it removed me from my throne of White Male Privilege (the view is fantastic, ladies) long enough to be wracked by the so-called Bigger Questions. WTV almost outdoes himself here.
“But then she continued: ‘When I feel low I pray to God and the Holy Spirit and then I feel better.’ Who are we, and who was Marx, to deny Oksana that local anesthetic?”
When Vollmann breaks the fourth wall in the last chapter and speaks directly to you, the reader, it is stunning. I rarely recommend a book for anything other than artistic merit, but Poor People should be read by anyone with the slightest interest in getting a glimpse of other cultures from an emic perspective. There is neither judgment nor easy answers. WTV doesn’t propose a way to solve the world’s ills. Apparently, it’s us that have been responsible the whole time for that. Who knew?
August 22, 2017
Every Homeless Man a Hipster('s Dream)
...in which, typically, the author travels the world in search of vindication of his desk-bound preconceptions.
Come On, Feel the Mitsein
Nothing needs to be done about poor people (or the underpaid and unpaid), because, when confronted by a Cornell graduate (majors in comparative literature and desk-bound world travel), they're philosophical about their fate.
Here's the traveller in his own revealing words:
"...what had I done? I threw a little money and some attention at a random few, then departed the premises...
"Look, I just want to be sincere. I want to write something and make you feel something and maybe you will go out and do something." Not!
Darlings, you can stay at home and do nothing, now you've read your signed first edition of this book and empathised for a few hours.
Pomo Canon Fodder
The unfortunate truth is that William T. Vollmann turns poverty (and other "causes") into fodder for narcissistic literature and its fetishistic consumers (as opposed to the keystone of left-wing political action). He invites you to conclude that the problem's too hard to fix, so it's enough to just read and write puffed-up books about it. He commodifies the poor and places them on a shelf where they're beyond reach (except literarily). And rich people are buying it! So they can feel virtuous. Fellow travellers, hipsters, digital pontificators and drywallers in their dozens! They need never think about the issue again, because they've read the book and moved on with the rest of their lives. And their renovations.
Monkey Doo-Doo
Do nothing,
You just read,
Nod and blog
In righteous
Unison.
SOUNDTRACK:
...in which, typically, the author travels the world in search of vindication of his desk-bound preconceptions.
Come On, Feel the Mitsein
Nothing needs to be done about poor people (or the underpaid and unpaid), because, when confronted by a Cornell graduate (majors in comparative literature and desk-bound world travel), they're philosophical about their fate.
Here's the traveller in his own revealing words:
"...what had I done? I threw a little money and some attention at a random few, then departed the premises...
"Look, I just want to be sincere. I want to write something and make you feel something and maybe you will go out and do something." Not!
Darlings, you can stay at home and do nothing, now you've read your signed first edition of this book and empathised for a few hours.
Pomo Canon Fodder
The unfortunate truth is that William T. Vollmann turns poverty (and other "causes") into fodder for narcissistic literature and its fetishistic consumers (as opposed to the keystone of left-wing political action). He invites you to conclude that the problem's too hard to fix, so it's enough to just read and write puffed-up books about it. He commodifies the poor and places them on a shelf where they're beyond reach (except literarily). And rich people are buying it! So they can feel virtuous. Fellow travellers, hipsters, digital pontificators and drywallers in their dozens! They need never think about the issue again, because they've read the book and moved on with the rest of their lives. And their renovations.
Monkey Doo-Doo
Do nothing,
You just read,
Nod and blog
In righteous
Unison.
SOUNDTRACK:
October 30, 2016
Introduction
Income Table
Dictionary
--Poor People
Sources
Acknowledgments
Photographs
Income Table
Dictionary
--Poor People
Sources
Acknowledgments
Photographs
Read
January 14, 2014“Why are some people rich and other people poor?” -- Mr. Vollmann
"Daddy, how does a person get to be like that man?" -- Ms. Dice
The two questions are quite close. Why is it that....? How does it come about that....? Yet the positions of the questioners and respondents are not parallel. Ms. Dice is in a position of disturbed curiosity ; Daddy, very likely, is in a position of perplexity. Does he know? But neither is involved directly in this question about a third person. Mr. Vollmann asks his question from the position of an informed journalist ; he’s done some research, or if not, should have. And he is asking persons who are presumably quickly identifiable as poor. Do they know that they are poor? Do they know why they are poor? Who was it that said they are poor? : I’m not poor ; she’s poor. If Vollmann’s book fails to answer his question, might it be because his interviewees themselves are poor in, perhaps, an understanding of their situation, poor in education, poor in language? They will not be reading his book ; many will not be able to read his book. We are rich.
I’ve met poor people ; even the poor perhaps. I have my answers patted away regarding why they are poor. I’ve played poor myself at times. Should one accredit oneself to read a book like Poor People and to have opinions as to the answers to the questions posed and reposed by Vollmann? Shall I tell you the anecdotes I’ve stored up about the poor people I’ve met? Would you tell your stories? Is Bill too ‘privileged’ to write this book? Should we put up our ‘not-guilty’ shields when we read it? Because we are guilty ; ‘responsible’ if that goes down more easily. But Vollmann won’t write guilt-porn and he is not out to make a buck on the backs of the poor ; but he does that, too. If you listen to his book you will hear him and you will also hear the voices of the poor.
Read Poor People as a supplement to Vollmann’s Rising Up and Rising Down in which a closely related question is asked, “When is violence justified?” Why violence? Why poverty? Poor People is, however, not the rigorous, analytic work which RURD is. There is analysis, but it is limited. Here are his eight elements of poverty :: Invisibility, Deformity, Unwantedness, Dependence, Accident-Prone-ness, Pain, Numbness, Estrangement. The United Nation’s solution to poverty is correct :: More Aid, Better Directed. Yes please ; whatever that may mean.
Vollmann’s itinerary ::
Thailand, 2001
Yemen, 2002
USA, 1846, 1998-2005, 1920s-40s, 1820s, 1993
Columbia, 1999-2000
Mexico, 2005
Japan, 2004-05, 2000-01
Vietnam, 2003
Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2000
Russia, 2005
China, 2002
Burma, 1994
Hungary, 1998
India, 1979
Virginia and England, 1770s
Iraq, 1998
Serbia, 1994, 1998
Australia, 1994
France, 1754
Ireland, 1889, 1848
Republic of Congo, 2001
Bosnia, 1994, 1992
Scotland, 1700s
Philippines, 1949, 1995
Syria, 1968
Kenya, 1972
Kazakhstan, 2000
United Nations, 1997
Everywhere
Kenya and USA, 1992, 1996
??
"Daddy, how does a person get to be like that man?" -- Ms. Dice
The two questions are quite close. Why is it that....? How does it come about that....? Yet the positions of the questioners and respondents are not parallel. Ms. Dice is in a position of disturbed curiosity ; Daddy, very likely, is in a position of perplexity. Does he know? But neither is involved directly in this question about a third person. Mr. Vollmann asks his question from the position of an informed journalist ; he’s done some research, or if not, should have. And he is asking persons who are presumably quickly identifiable as poor. Do they know that they are poor? Do they know why they are poor? Who was it that said they are poor? : I’m not poor ; she’s poor. If Vollmann’s book fails to answer his question, might it be because his interviewees themselves are poor in, perhaps, an understanding of their situation, poor in education, poor in language? They will not be reading his book ; many will not be able to read his book. We are rich.
I’ve met poor people ; even the poor perhaps. I have my answers patted away regarding why they are poor. I’ve played poor myself at times. Should one accredit oneself to read a book like Poor People and to have opinions as to the answers to the questions posed and reposed by Vollmann? Shall I tell you the anecdotes I’ve stored up about the poor people I’ve met? Would you tell your stories? Is Bill too ‘privileged’ to write this book? Should we put up our ‘not-guilty’ shields when we read it? Because we are guilty ; ‘responsible’ if that goes down more easily. But Vollmann won’t write guilt-porn and he is not out to make a buck on the backs of the poor ; but he does that, too. If you listen to his book you will hear him and you will also hear the voices of the poor.
Read Poor People as a supplement to Vollmann’s Rising Up and Rising Down in which a closely related question is asked, “When is violence justified?” Why violence? Why poverty? Poor People is, however, not the rigorous, analytic work which RURD is. There is analysis, but it is limited. Here are his eight elements of poverty :: Invisibility, Deformity, Unwantedness, Dependence, Accident-Prone-ness, Pain, Numbness, Estrangement. The United Nation’s solution to poverty is correct :: More Aid, Better Directed. Yes please ; whatever that may mean.
Vollmann’s itinerary ::
Thailand, 2001
Yemen, 2002
USA, 1846, 1998-2005, 1920s-40s, 1820s, 1993
Columbia, 1999-2000
Mexico, 2005
Japan, 2004-05, 2000-01
Vietnam, 2003
Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2000
Russia, 2005
China, 2002
Burma, 1994
Hungary, 1998
India, 1979
Virginia and England, 1770s
Iraq, 1998
Serbia, 1994, 1998
Australia, 1994
France, 1754
Ireland, 1889, 1848
Republic of Congo, 2001
Bosnia, 1994, 1992
Scotland, 1700s
Philippines, 1949, 1995
Syria, 1968
Kenya, 1972
Kazakhstan, 2000
United Nations, 1997
Everywhere
Kenya and USA, 1992, 1996
??
January 24, 2012
It's possible that William T. Vollmann enjoys writing more than any person on earth. He also loves journalism; however, he claims to be a terrible journalist. If this is true, then I say journalism is a joke! Vollmann brings more passion to his subjects than anybody writing non-fiction today. He doesn't portray people in an "objective" light, or even try; he shows people the way HE sees them--and he makes this clear without feeling the need to constantly remind us of it. An important (and admirable) aspect of the book involves Vollmann describing his own moderate wealth, and how it affects the way he sees the world, and the billions of people living in it who are poorer than he is. He is very much a central character in all of his non-fiction. To some people, this is a problem. But my defense of Vollmann is that he is not a robot. He doesn't try to be a "fly on the wall", because he knows that's impossible. He's so honest that you sometimes feel bad for him because he can't hold anything back. He tells things like he sees them, and that often includes how he sees himself. Vollmann philosophizes a lot on poverty, but he doesn't make claims. His lack of pretense and self-importance is refreshing: He makes himself out to look like a bumbling fool (perhaps intentionally), making it easier for the reader to side against him if they don't agree with his views or his methods.
Vollmann has written several non-fiction works since his last fiction work. Part of me is sad about this, but another part of me is incredibly excited! One of the fun things about Poor People is that you get to know Vollmann as a person a little better. He's my favorite author, and even more than I love his writing, I respect him as a person. Poor People is essential Vollmann, and essential non-fiction.
Vollmann has written several non-fiction works since his last fiction work. Part of me is sad about this, but another part of me is incredibly excited! One of the fun things about Poor People is that you get to know Vollmann as a person a little better. He's my favorite author, and even more than I love his writing, I respect him as a person. Poor People is essential Vollmann, and essential non-fiction.
March 2, 2010
Who's intellectually well-equipped enough to define poverty? The answer is; no one. Who should we consult when this question begs at all of us, even the most reasonable? Maybe William T. Vollmann? Maybe base curiosity is the best sensibility to have when asking this question? So many questions arise. The symptoms, according to Vollmann, seem to be invisibility, deformity, "unwantedness", dependence, accident-prone-ness, pain, numbness, estrangement, and amortization. And how poetically defined these poverty stricken maladies are. Organized throughout a sociological survey of what poverty essentially entails, and more importantly means, Vollmann seeks, if nothing else, to comment on the how and why of people living hand-to-mouth. Montaigne opines, Agee opines, Orwell opines, etc. All of them, in their own way, have mentioned the problem, sought to analyze it, and have ultimately failed in their self-assured assessments. And so, but Vollmann achieves profound insight in paradoxical commentary; something that he's notoriously well known for.
Sunnee's plight strikes the reader with an almost immediate sense of conviction. She is the most obvious example of one who struggles, lives cognizant of her struggle, and basically cannot change. Surely it's the cheap Thai whiskey that aids her rest every evening. It's possibly because she can't read or write (her own name if nothing else). It's also possibly because her day-to-day existence is only perpetuated, and entirely dependent upon, her depraved desire to continue living. What of her daughter, the beautiful and hopeful Vimonrat? Will Vimonrat suffer the same series of ups and downs and disappointments of her mother? It's possible, almost apparently inevitable, taking into consideration her plight, and the plight of her family and lineage. Yet Sunnee isn't really poor, especially when her situation is comparatively assessed by her contemporaries; she has furniture at all. This is Vollmann's most powerful human study in the book, and they only get worse, or better as the case may be in context.
And Natalia. Such a sad Soviet case, mirroring Dostoevsky's Prince Mishkin in her unavoidable depravity. Then again, what if no police officer or local were to acknowledge her epileptic condition? Bad things happened to her as well. So many unfortunate tragedies, that to list them all, would be utterly tragic in itself. She's a bit more aware than Sunnee seems, albeit seemingly incapable of doing anything about it, her problem that is, the difficulty of not being able to adequately explain her illness.
Also ...
"If you hadn't gone to Chernobyl, what would your life be like today?
I would continue building houses, he shrugged. I would be able to have a decent job, and enough money."
If I hadn't been thrown into this horrible situation, one which seems to perpetuate itself in such an effortless manner, then maybe I could live well, be happier, eventually accomplish something, etc.
This in mind, Vollmann risks sounding like an overzealous bleeding heart; a privileged journalist merely snacking on the destitution of his subjects. But, as is the case with most of Vollmann's non-fiction, he manages to lacerate himself in the most naked, Bourdieuian sense. He offers meager financial aid, as he admits in a majority of the vignettes of Poor People, subsequently realizing that his help is frustratingly ineffectual. If he offers Sunnee money, then she will spend all of it on drink, even if the intention is to help Vimonrat with her education, even if Sunnee understands this. Which also seems like the typical Vollmann anti-solution; to comment upon a paradoxically convoluted social problem, offering, not answers and solutions, but useful commentary.
Both Sunnee and Natalia's predicaments stand as the strongest examples of poverty in the book. Vollmann proceeds to explore a world full of marginal fringe-dwellers and hopeless cases. He's sympathetic for sure, and his sympathy is honest, in that it confronts the impossibility of potential solutions. Capitalism never bodes well for a Vollmann subject, then again, neither does communism, or for that matter, unfortunate circumstances that can only be evaluated on ambiguous terms. Which works so well for a book that addresses such a difficult topic.
Poverty has so many dimensions of understanding. There is no universal definition that does it justice. Like so many of the world's ills and woes, it's a social malady that can, if nothing else, merely be reflected upon by some of the great thinkers of time. Vollman is one of them, traditionally and otherwise. Someone bold enough to address such complicated problems, yet honest enough to admit that he's not going to come up with a solution anytime soon. Who really has though? Appropriately enough, he cites Orwell in his introduction, and he definitely has his affinities with such morally upright thinkers such as Agee and Steinbeck, so is it really any wonder that Vollmann, much like his predecessors can merely offer helpful thoughts on the subject? Not really, because the joy in reading his books is in acquiring insight from a writer who has no delusions about what he is capable of when it comes to saving the world.
Sunnee's plight strikes the reader with an almost immediate sense of conviction. She is the most obvious example of one who struggles, lives cognizant of her struggle, and basically cannot change. Surely it's the cheap Thai whiskey that aids her rest every evening. It's possibly because she can't read or write (her own name if nothing else). It's also possibly because her day-to-day existence is only perpetuated, and entirely dependent upon, her depraved desire to continue living. What of her daughter, the beautiful and hopeful Vimonrat? Will Vimonrat suffer the same series of ups and downs and disappointments of her mother? It's possible, almost apparently inevitable, taking into consideration her plight, and the plight of her family and lineage. Yet Sunnee isn't really poor, especially when her situation is comparatively assessed by her contemporaries; she has furniture at all. This is Vollmann's most powerful human study in the book, and they only get worse, or better as the case may be in context.
And Natalia. Such a sad Soviet case, mirroring Dostoevsky's Prince Mishkin in her unavoidable depravity. Then again, what if no police officer or local were to acknowledge her epileptic condition? Bad things happened to her as well. So many unfortunate tragedies, that to list them all, would be utterly tragic in itself. She's a bit more aware than Sunnee seems, albeit seemingly incapable of doing anything about it, her problem that is, the difficulty of not being able to adequately explain her illness.
Also ...
"If you hadn't gone to Chernobyl, what would your life be like today?
I would continue building houses, he shrugged. I would be able to have a decent job, and enough money."
If I hadn't been thrown into this horrible situation, one which seems to perpetuate itself in such an effortless manner, then maybe I could live well, be happier, eventually accomplish something, etc.
This in mind, Vollmann risks sounding like an overzealous bleeding heart; a privileged journalist merely snacking on the destitution of his subjects. But, as is the case with most of Vollmann's non-fiction, he manages to lacerate himself in the most naked, Bourdieuian sense. He offers meager financial aid, as he admits in a majority of the vignettes of Poor People, subsequently realizing that his help is frustratingly ineffectual. If he offers Sunnee money, then she will spend all of it on drink, even if the intention is to help Vimonrat with her education, even if Sunnee understands this. Which also seems like the typical Vollmann anti-solution; to comment upon a paradoxically convoluted social problem, offering, not answers and solutions, but useful commentary.
Both Sunnee and Natalia's predicaments stand as the strongest examples of poverty in the book. Vollmann proceeds to explore a world full of marginal fringe-dwellers and hopeless cases. He's sympathetic for sure, and his sympathy is honest, in that it confronts the impossibility of potential solutions. Capitalism never bodes well for a Vollmann subject, then again, neither does communism, or for that matter, unfortunate circumstances that can only be evaluated on ambiguous terms. Which works so well for a book that addresses such a difficult topic.
Poverty has so many dimensions of understanding. There is no universal definition that does it justice. Like so many of the world's ills and woes, it's a social malady that can, if nothing else, merely be reflected upon by some of the great thinkers of time. Vollman is one of them, traditionally and otherwise. Someone bold enough to address such complicated problems, yet honest enough to admit that he's not going to come up with a solution anytime soon. Who really has though? Appropriately enough, he cites Orwell in his introduction, and he definitely has his affinities with such morally upright thinkers such as Agee and Steinbeck, so is it really any wonder that Vollmann, much like his predecessors can merely offer helpful thoughts on the subject? Not really, because the joy in reading his books is in acquiring insight from a writer who has no delusions about what he is capable of when it comes to saving the world.
April 19, 2008
I didn't even finish this one. Fascinating premise (author travels the developing world, interviewing impoverished people and asking them, "why are you poor?"), but the writing was dense and overdone. Lots of navel-gazing, lots of focus on the writer's own internal monologue and personal journey; I would have preferred a more straightforward journalistic approach. The story should have been about the poor people, not about the writer's sophisticated liberal-arts-degree reactions to the poor people. Disappointing.
February 21, 2011
This is a fascinating read. William T. Vollmann travelled around the world asking people in poverty why they thought they were poor. The answer? Poor People. Impossible to summarize as the answers are as numerous & personal as human beings themselves are.
The answers seem shaped by location and culture, though, as well as by individual personality. Some answers? Karma, fate, political oppression, God's love/hate, personal failure, societal failure...the lists go on.
And along the way, Vollman tells the personal stories of some of the individuals he became involved with in his research. The stories rival-maybe surpass-much of what you could hope for in good fiction.
I loved this book. It's an important political and human document. It's also a very good read.
Read it.
The answers seem shaped by location and culture, though, as well as by individual personality. Some answers? Karma, fate, political oppression, God's love/hate, personal failure, societal failure...the lists go on.
And along the way, Vollman tells the personal stories of some of the individuals he became involved with in his research. The stories rival-maybe surpass-much of what you could hope for in good fiction.
I loved this book. It's an important political and human document. It's also a very good read.
Read it.
Read
April 8, 2023Video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbqrB...
May 5, 2020
A melancholic look into the harsh reality of impoverished people across the globe... or are they truly impoverished? Not only does Vollmann rip your heart out with some of these accounts, he also invites you to question whether they *should* rip your heart out, making you consider these poor people’s lives from their own “normalities” instead of from our own rich, privileged viewpoints. It has changed my worldview considerably.
November 5, 2012
As W. Vollmann travels the world to meet poor people, his interest never strays far from how he felt about this or that. It becomes quickly obvious that the "poor people" who are the supposed subject of this book are nothing more than a vehicle for the author to examine his aching conscience/consciousness. I was sick of this guy by the middle of the introduction, but kept trudging through hoping for who knows what. Aside from some mildly interesting travel-writing kind of exoticism, nothing redeeming ever appeared, least of all any analysis of poverty. As far as this guy is concerned, God made poor people so that William Vollman can examine his psyche in a public forum.
But its actually worse than that. What this is, is pornography, and the target demographic for the consumption of this pornography is mostly white middle class people. Only they would find the subject fascinating and exotic, being safely removed from it in real life. Only they would not mind the narrator's mock humility and fake self-awareness used to as great advantage as possible, since these are the characteristics of the class. And only they would miss the fact that nothing is offered as far as criticism and solutions go, because this is porn! What solutions could there be in porn, aside from how to make more porn.
"I can’t forgive mopers who expect sympathy for expecting sympathy for expecting sympathy and expect me to care." -John Dolan
But its actually worse than that. What this is, is pornography, and the target demographic for the consumption of this pornography is mostly white middle class people. Only they would find the subject fascinating and exotic, being safely removed from it in real life. Only they would not mind the narrator's mock humility and fake self-awareness used to as great advantage as possible, since these are the characteristics of the class. And only they would miss the fact that nothing is offered as far as criticism and solutions go, because this is porn! What solutions could there be in porn, aside from how to make more porn.
"I can’t forgive mopers who expect sympathy for expecting sympathy for expecting sympathy and expect me to care." -John Dolan
July 26, 2012
So, is it me or does this author rub anyone else the wrong way. At best he comes off as a pretentious hipster at worst a condescending jerk. I really found his writing style insufferable. Probably the best example I can cite is when he is describing a subject he is interviewing. The style is third person narrative, then smack dab in the middle of this he breaks the fourth wall so to speak and says of the subject "I took a picture for you". I get that in his mind he's thinking it's a great literary trick to make the reader feel as though they are personally connected to the author. In practice, it was a jarring transition that seemed hollow, calculated and manipulative. Also he spends too much time in his own head musing philosophically about the subjects. His stream of consciousness ramblings were not interesting or worth the time to slog through. All in all with all the jumping from style to style it created a disjointed mess of a book.
November 14, 2020
Vollmann will tell you he is a rich man in relation to his subjects--the so called "wretched of the earth"--both in relative and absolute terms of wealth. He seeks them out (the un- and underemployed, sex workers, unskilled laborers) where they reside, in situ as it were (under bridges, in tenements, and in tents) in desolate places all over the world, and interviews them: "Why are some people rich and some people poor?" and, "Do you consider yourself rich or poor?"
Vollmann is distinctly aware that his readership consists of rich people, not the poor about whom he writes. I struggle to make sense of his tone, which is simultaneously an abstracted bourgeois disgust of poverty combined with a high-minded egalitarianism that never quite obtains (and maybe cannot).
I say "I struggle" with his tone, but in truth I probably understand it too well. While I'm not rich in financial terms, I am rich in opportunities, social support, and education. Even so, I've also lived five years in an American slum: flanked on each side by crack houses. My bedroom windows afforded an unfettered view of the half-way house for pregnant teens across the way. If you'd compared my bank account with my neighbors in the slum at the time (supposing they were banked), we would have had roughly the same amount to our names. Despite our similar poverty, our similar location, they knew--and I knew--we were different. That's an incredibly uncomfortable fact to understand, let alone live with. After all, aren't we all humans, each of us with the same basic needs and wants, each of us trying to meet them as best we can?
My attitude towards poverty is deeply shaped by my experience in that community. When you live so close to it, it's not that you stop being bothered by the late night porch parties, or how they almost always devolve into screaming and domestic violence. That annoyance will persist. It's that, by living with and regularly talking to your neighbors--the ex-cons, the sex offenders, the teenage moms--you don't look down on them; you understand that each of them have suffered, often enormously, and are usually just getting by, poor and imperfectly.
Vollmann is distinctly aware that his readership consists of rich people, not the poor about whom he writes. I struggle to make sense of his tone, which is simultaneously an abstracted bourgeois disgust of poverty combined with a high-minded egalitarianism that never quite obtains (and maybe cannot).
I say "I struggle" with his tone, but in truth I probably understand it too well. While I'm not rich in financial terms, I am rich in opportunities, social support, and education. Even so, I've also lived five years in an American slum: flanked on each side by crack houses. My bedroom windows afforded an unfettered view of the half-way house for pregnant teens across the way. If you'd compared my bank account with my neighbors in the slum at the time (supposing they were banked), we would have had roughly the same amount to our names. Despite our similar poverty, our similar location, they knew--and I knew--we were different. That's an incredibly uncomfortable fact to understand, let alone live with. After all, aren't we all humans, each of us with the same basic needs and wants, each of us trying to meet them as best we can?
My attitude towards poverty is deeply shaped by my experience in that community. When you live so close to it, it's not that you stop being bothered by the late night porch parties, or how they almost always devolve into screaming and domestic violence. That annoyance will persist. It's that, by living with and regularly talking to your neighbors--the ex-cons, the sex offenders, the teenage moms--you don't look down on them; you understand that each of them have suffered, often enormously, and are usually just getting by, poor and imperfectly.
December 8, 2018
Quisiera creer que este libro mejora a las personas que lo leemos: nos vuelve más conscientes de la miseria que existe en el mundo; nos muestra los rostros, nombres e historias de las personas que con frecuencia apartamos de nosotros, personas a las que elegimos no ver; nos invita a pensar en por qué existe la pobreza y en cuáles son sus caminos; nos clava espinas de dolor en ese corazón insensible y gris... Sin embargo, Vollmann era consciente de que preferimos la anestesia. ¿Por qué no habríamos de hacerlo? Los pobres también la prefieren, así como anhelan la esperanza, el crack, el alcohol, las metanfetaminas. Los pobres también tienen elección. Los pobres también tienen belleza y libertad. Todas esas posibilidades hacen de este libro una obra magistral. No se limita a una contemplación altiva de un fenómeno ajeno. Se interna en los dédalos de arrabales y campamentos, así como en las mentes de algunas personas (pero también los pobres pueden cerrarnos las puertas en las narices -al menos, las puertas de sus mentes-). La prosa con que está escrita cada página es sencilla, pero no sacrifica la riqueza del lenguaje. Vollmann procura ser respetuoso con la interrogante: ¿por qué existen pobres? También respeta las distintas respuestas con las que se encuentra. Admite, además, que no tiene soluciones. Pero, sin lugar a dudas, este libro ya es un triunfo, al menos contra la invisibilidad. Que no volvamos a pasar por delante de un mendigo sin verlo y sin pensar "él también tiene una historia".
June 24, 2020
My response to the poor has been primarily negative and perhaps uninformed: When I see people in poverty in the U.S., my gut reaction is that they must be lazy, alcoholic, drug-addicted, or mentally unstable. Often, I cast judgment upon these people. My lofty assumption is that most of them are poor by choice, even if they don't realize it--that their situations are rooted in foolish decisions. Is this true? Probably some of the time. Is it always true? No.
Vollmann's approach to the poor is more balanced. In Poor People, he seeks to understand the causes of poverty--and they are elusive at best. However, this book succeeds particularly in revealing that poverty is not so easy to escape. It is systemic and offers no easy solutions. The poor are not necessarily poor because of laziness. Perhaps they were laid off and can't find more work. Perhaps the work they're qualified for provides only enough sustenance for a base, destitute survival. Or perhaps they are choked by disease, unable to combat it effectively. The only answer we have to the poor is "more aid, better directed." If nothing else, I see Poor People as a rallying call to generosity and care for the poor--generosity and care rooted in love for one's fellow man, not in delusions of superiority.
Vollmann's approach to the poor is more balanced. In Poor People, he seeks to understand the causes of poverty--and they are elusive at best. However, this book succeeds particularly in revealing that poverty is not so easy to escape. It is systemic and offers no easy solutions. The poor are not necessarily poor because of laziness. Perhaps they were laid off and can't find more work. Perhaps the work they're qualified for provides only enough sustenance for a base, destitute survival. Or perhaps they are choked by disease, unable to combat it effectively. The only answer we have to the poor is "more aid, better directed." If nothing else, I see Poor People as a rallying call to generosity and care for the poor--generosity and care rooted in love for one's fellow man, not in delusions of superiority.
February 17, 2015
Rambling, unfocused, disorganized, cynical at times and narcissistic, Vollmann seems more interested in putting himself between the reader and the ‘poor person’ being interviewed. Shallow and fragmented, I was expecting something more along a Studs Terkel treatment; this was Stud Terrible.
May 13, 2022
conceptually sound but condescends in equal parts to its subject and reader. there’s humility in his prose but you just can’t help but get the feeling that Vollmann sees himself as a bit of a saint from time to time. also sentences like “i support every suggestion made by the UN” made me start wondering - does anyone have a conspiracy count on whether or not Vollmann is a possible spook? between the Mujahideen stuff and his multiple encounters with the fbi (not to mention his almost thousand page fbi folder that is public knowledge) and his travel to certain, um, problem regions we’ll say, i just couldn’t shake the suspicion
June 16, 2015
One's opinion of this book will depend a great deal on how much credit one is willing to grant to Vollmann's intent and his occasionally distracting style of conversational writing. This is not a journalistic essay (Vollmann states this early on), nor a policy piece, though there are elements of both here. Vollmann often diverges into contemplation of his own role as a comparatively rich man in a world overwhelmed with nameless, faceless poor.
Vollmann's book goes some way toward assigning faces to the underclass, not just in the U.S., but around the globe. Among the stories here are some startling, disturbing passages, particularly the chronicle of a town in Kazakhstan whose residents are being slowly poisoned by oil & gas refineries, to the extent that the entire town is being prepared for burial. Vollmann also chronicles the effects of prostitution and drug addiction on the homeless, including those who occupy a parking lot outside of his residence.
Vollmann spends a lot of this book contrasting his situation with those with whom he converses. Vollmann is also not shy about sharing his own motivations for writing the book. Some readers will find his writing style intrusive and self-satisfied; I find him to be an extraordinarily honest and brave writer, one willing to risk his own safety to hear a story. (He writes about several of these circumstances, including a mugging.)
The book is accompanied by a gallery of 128 photographs of men, women, and children around the world who live in conditions of extreme poverty. This portfolio alone makes the book worthwhile. It is not an uplifting book, to be sure, and Vollmann offers no solutions to the problem of economic inequality, a problem that has only increased since the book's publication. But Vollmann's examination of these people will remind the reader, if only temporarily, of the existence of an entire population of the underclass. Those willing to entertain Vollmann's musings will find much of value here.
Vollmann's book goes some way toward assigning faces to the underclass, not just in the U.S., but around the globe. Among the stories here are some startling, disturbing passages, particularly the chronicle of a town in Kazakhstan whose residents are being slowly poisoned by oil & gas refineries, to the extent that the entire town is being prepared for burial. Vollmann also chronicles the effects of prostitution and drug addiction on the homeless, including those who occupy a parking lot outside of his residence.
Vollmann spends a lot of this book contrasting his situation with those with whom he converses. Vollmann is also not shy about sharing his own motivations for writing the book. Some readers will find his writing style intrusive and self-satisfied; I find him to be an extraordinarily honest and brave writer, one willing to risk his own safety to hear a story. (He writes about several of these circumstances, including a mugging.)
The book is accompanied by a gallery of 128 photographs of men, women, and children around the world who live in conditions of extreme poverty. This portfolio alone makes the book worthwhile. It is not an uplifting book, to be sure, and Vollmann offers no solutions to the problem of economic inequality, a problem that has only increased since the book's publication. But Vollmann's examination of these people will remind the reader, if only temporarily, of the existence of an entire population of the underclass. Those willing to entertain Vollmann's musings will find much of value here.
January 4, 2013
يتناول الكاتب الفقر
ويجول بلدان العالم ويقابل الفقراء ليسألهم
لماذا أنتم فقراء ؟
ماأسباب الفقر؟
وهل للاغنياء ذنب لوجود الفقراء
ذكر فيه الكاتب قصص كثير من الفقراء الذين قابلهم
ويتساءل ما إذا كان هناك فقر نسبي وفقر ذاتي
وهناك فقير ولكن هناك من هو افقر منه
وهناك من هو فقير ولكنه لا يجد نفسه كذلك
ونجد تعدد أسباب الفقر فمنها سببها المرض وبعضها عدم وجود الوظيفة وأخرى
بسبب عدم وجود مأوى والاسبااب مختلفة وكثيرة ويجمعها شيء واحد وهو الفقر
في الحقيقة
توقعت المحتوى اكثر إثراء ومع ذلك لا بأس به
اعطيه 3 نجوم للمحتوى
ونجمة للصور
ويجول بلدان العالم ويقابل الفقراء ليسألهم
لماذا أنتم فقراء ؟
ماأسباب الفقر؟
وهل للاغنياء ذنب لوجود الفقراء
ذكر فيه الكاتب قصص كثير من الفقراء الذين قابلهم
ويتساءل ما إذا كان هناك فقر نسبي وفقر ذاتي
وهناك فقير ولكن هناك من هو افقر منه
وهناك من هو فقير ولكنه لا يجد نفسه كذلك
ونجد تعدد أسباب الفقر فمنها سببها المرض وبعضها عدم وجود الوظيفة وأخرى
بسبب عدم وجود مأوى والاسبااب مختلفة وكثيرة ويجمعها شيء واحد وهو الفقر
في الحقيقة
توقعت المحتوى اكثر إثراء ومع ذلك لا بأس به
اعطيه 3 نجوم للمحتوى
ونجمة للصور
July 6, 2007
What better way to pontificate on both poverty at the global level and the individual level than travel the world talking to poor people and asking them why they are poor? Vollmann indeed does exactly that.
Poor People is an easily readable book. For those of you seeking anecdotes from poor people, this book is for you.
Poor People is an easily readable book. For those of you seeking anecdotes from poor people, this book is for you.
December 27, 2023
Like a 3.9
Often brilliant but sometimes a little frustrating. It’s a bit of a disjointed book, with some chapters feeling like they naturally build towards poignant conclusions and others feeling like outside essays thrown in the middle. The writing is always superb and I think what makes this special is Vollmann’s inclusion of himself as a self aware narrator. He’s so aware of the criticisms that this type of book may elicit that it ultimately becomes a tight-rope act between honest portrayals of the people he’s interviewing and an incredibly self-critical reflection of the ‘journalist’ relationship with his subjects and a ‘rich man’s’ relationship with ‘poor people’. It is so uniquely his perspective. Top this off with a lot of philosophical musings about what it means to be poor and how we perceive the sufferings of others and you get something far more complex than just a series of oral histories. Does it always work perfectly? Maybe not, but the effort here is unique.
Standout chapter is the one in a Kazakh oil town. Incredibly well realized, human, and devastating.
Often brilliant but sometimes a little frustrating. It’s a bit of a disjointed book, with some chapters feeling like they naturally build towards poignant conclusions and others feeling like outside essays thrown in the middle. The writing is always superb and I think what makes this special is Vollmann’s inclusion of himself as a self aware narrator. He’s so aware of the criticisms that this type of book may elicit that it ultimately becomes a tight-rope act between honest portrayals of the people he’s interviewing and an incredibly self-critical reflection of the ‘journalist’ relationship with his subjects and a ‘rich man’s’ relationship with ‘poor people’. It is so uniquely his perspective. Top this off with a lot of philosophical musings about what it means to be poor and how we perceive the sufferings of others and you get something far more complex than just a series of oral histories. Does it always work perfectly? Maybe not, but the effort here is unique.
Standout chapter is the one in a Kazakh oil town. Incredibly well realized, human, and devastating.
Read
March 9, 2025Enquête subjective ET systématique sur l'auto perception de la pauvreté. Ça a l'air long, c est long. La posture de fausse naïveté m'agace. Est-ce une posture américaine ? Pourtant les visites et les rencontres ont de l intérêt. Mais je n aime pas où se place l'auteur. Et je n aime pas être là où il me place: convoquant la pitié comme s il m apprenait quelque chose, et sans assumer d indiquer les responsabilités de la pauvreté.
May 1, 2022
I would never have heard of this book if I hadn't had to study it in my English class (a class I resented taking because I already have a degree in English Literature and didn't understand why that couldn't be considered when I went back to school again). In any case I am now glad I took this class because I got to read two books I had never heard of and reread Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow.
Anyway, this is a great reflection on poverty in the world, and how hypocritical we are when we look at poor people and judge them based on our own preconceived notions.
Must read!
Anyway, this is a great reflection on poverty in the world, and how hypocritical we are when we look at poor people and judge them based on our own preconceived notions.
Must read!
September 20, 2008
While not the sociological inquiry that more rigorous (read: academic) minds might require to be satisfied, I appreciate Vollman's reflections and noodlings on the concept of poverty. He is aware that he is open to accusations of 21st-century Levi-Strauss-ism, which in my opinion excuses a multitude of sins.
Vollman's greatest asset is his approach. He uses a four-way mirror to "show" the poor people across the globe. This mirror is comprised of: Vollman's first-person reflections; his reportage of the subjects' first-person accounts of poverty; his reportage of his translators' assessment of the subjects' poverty; and finally, the subjects' photographs which are left open to the reader's interpretation of the subject's material impoverishment and emotional state.
What I enjoy most particularly is Vollman's sensitivity to his subject and subjects. He owns his feelings of pity, shame and disgust, and is the first to admit that his project is neither exhaustive nor definitive.
Vollman's project emerges as a very human look at a huge philosophical concept -- what poverty is, and how poverty is manifested and interpreted around the world. His goal appears to be to measure poverty by whether and how it impoverishes the human spirit. I find this an enriching way to look at poverty, as it takes the burden off of lack of material wealth and puts it squarely on what one might call holistic economy -- how and where culture (political, religious, etc.) can mitigate--or intensify--the pain of impoverishment.
Though the book is long (500+ pp, I think), it moves quickly. The sheer range of subjects keeps my interest even after Vollman's point is made.
Vollman's greatest asset is his approach. He uses a four-way mirror to "show" the poor people across the globe. This mirror is comprised of: Vollman's first-person reflections; his reportage of the subjects' first-person accounts of poverty; his reportage of his translators' assessment of the subjects' poverty; and finally, the subjects' photographs which are left open to the reader's interpretation of the subject's material impoverishment and emotional state.
What I enjoy most particularly is Vollman's sensitivity to his subject and subjects. He owns his feelings of pity, shame and disgust, and is the first to admit that his project is neither exhaustive nor definitive.
Vollman's project emerges as a very human look at a huge philosophical concept -- what poverty is, and how poverty is manifested and interpreted around the world. His goal appears to be to measure poverty by whether and how it impoverishes the human spirit. I find this an enriching way to look at poverty, as it takes the burden off of lack of material wealth and puts it squarely on what one might call holistic economy -- how and where culture (political, religious, etc.) can mitigate--or intensify--the pain of impoverishment.
Though the book is long (500+ pp, I think), it moves quickly. The sheer range of subjects keeps my interest even after Vollman's point is made.
June 10, 2012
I was so interested in the premise of this book - a worldwide exploration of why people are poor. The poverty Vollman relates is shocking, but I was continually distracted by the writer as the narrator. It was ok towards the beginning if a little haphazard, but towards the end I felt like he just crashed and burned.
Ultimately, what I remember about this book is the author's continual reflections on himself, the drug use (I thought this book was about poor people?), and some random half-told story about a motorcycle rider who taught him things. He would never name what things specifically, but used examples like scuba diving or skydiving. It was exceedingly strange.
The pictures at the end of the book had the potential to be striking and haunting. But in the author's hands, even these fell flat. Perhaps without his rambling narrative, they would have had more power.
Overall, I couldn't even tell you what this was about. Poor people, yes - although only some of the time. The rest could have benefitted from some serious editing. Speaking of which, I found multiple typos and the pictures referenced in the text were wrong on several occassions, which disrupted what little flow the author may have had going. Not a fan of this one.
Ultimately, what I remember about this book is the author's continual reflections on himself, the drug use (I thought this book was about poor people?), and some random half-told story about a motorcycle rider who taught him things. He would never name what things specifically, but used examples like scuba diving or skydiving. It was exceedingly strange.
The pictures at the end of the book had the potential to be striking and haunting. But in the author's hands, even these fell flat. Perhaps without his rambling narrative, they would have had more power.
Overall, I couldn't even tell you what this was about. Poor people, yes - although only some of the time. The rest could have benefitted from some serious editing. Speaking of which, I found multiple typos and the pictures referenced in the text were wrong on several occassions, which disrupted what little flow the author may have had going. Not a fan of this one.
September 8, 2010
Ths is Vollmann's own travelogue series of interviews with poor people all over the globe. I began reading this in August with a view toward the November 2008 election and it just reduces me to tears sometimes because the kinds of suffering offered here are so unbelievably balanced by the gratitude that some of the poor feel that they still have so MUCH!. We are talking destitute here. ON the other hand, when I see the kinds of injustice inflicted on these people by most of the rest of us by implication and by our governments directly, I am enraged. This is Vollmann's gift; his ability to get out of the way and record the voices of those he speaks about directly in his non-fiction work.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 203 reviews