Nathan "N.R."’s Comments (group member since Oct 28, 2012)

Nathan "N.R."’s comments from the William T Vollmann Central group.

Chris wrote: "Oh, 500 of those 1408 pages probably consist of footnotes, maps, drawings, pictures and references ;-)"

I hope he tips his new book designer well!

"A Good Death" in Harper's, Nov 2010, about his father's death -- anyone know if it's appeared elsewhere yet? (anyone send me a copy?

http://harpers.org/archive/2010/11/a-...

Jonathan wrote: "hm...Uk site still says 864 pages... "

Publisher has confessed to the larger number ::
http://www.penguin.com/book/the-dying...

Over in The Dying Grass thread, Russell reminded me to look for a thing and I found a thing. Jordan A Rothacker, who has a thing in the WTV Critical Companion, did a review of Last Stories ::

"An Unnecessary Defense of William T. Vollmann’s Last Stories and Other Stories", Oct 16, 2014.

"Poe, Lautreamont, Norse sagas, Japanese Hentai, surrealism, mythology, folklore, fairy tales, and the dark chaos of war are all influences and points of departure for Vollmann to direct and fire his own true voice like a weapon at death. With enough words in enough cultural voices maybe Vollmann will win; or die trying. It’s possible that this book just needs more word of mouth exposure, so I guess that’s what I’m doing here. Maybe this will be the book to make Vollmann a household name; people do like to be creeped-out and titillated from beyond the grave. You should read this book, it’s beautiful, and like the creeping vines of the story “Widow’s Weeds,” it will touch you everywhere."
http://asitoughttobe.com/2014/10/16/a...

Geoff wrote: "Nathan "N.R." wrote: ""Hardcover: 1408 pages""
That put a smile on my face!"

That's good. Because enjoy the smile while we can -- this is going to be a brutal novel.

An expensive book this will be -- US$55. Today, if you do amazon pre-orders with their pre-order price guarantee thing -- it's 43% off.

Also ::

"Hardcover: 1408 pages"

!!!!!!!!!

Just grab'd editor Daniel Lukes' twitter thing for an update --

First printing ran out and it looks like a pb is/will be scheduled for Summer 2016 at about half the price.
https://twitter.com/danielukes

Zak Smith is there too -- he's got the upcoming art exhibit with Bill.

Brian wrote: "Fantastic! I will do everything in my power to make the Saturday opening on the 24th."

I was hoping you'd say that!

Finally! Now something substantive about the rumors of a Vollmann art exhibit.

Steven Wolf Fine Arts
It’s My Job to Be A Girl
Zak Smith & William T. Vollmann
January 24 - Mar 7, 2015
Opening Reception: Saturday, January 24th, 6-9pm
http://www.stevenwolffinearts.com/dyn...

"It's My Job to Be a Girl, an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Zak Smith, and photos, watercolors and oil paintings by William T. Vollmann , may have the catchiest title of the year. Vollmann, a macho war correspondent and prolific novelist, initially began dressing up as a woman to enhance his understanding of the psychology of his female characters, though these "performances" went beyond mere research and led to his construction of a chubby alter ego he christened Dolores, portrayed here in various guises and mediums. (The Book of Dolores, a collection of paintings and photographs of her, was published last year.) Identifying with the feminine and the erotic, the outcast and disdained, his visual art, shown for the first time in a gallery show, features self-portraits of the artist exploring various aspects of femininity and the murky terrain of gender. He also has photographed and painted compassionate images of the prostitutes he encountered in combat zones and brothels while working on his journalism and fiction projects. Zak Smith, known for portraits of his friends in the porn industry, is also partial to sex workers as subjects in his intricate, cartoonish, comic book-styled paintings and small-scale, detail-packed ink-on-paper artworks such as the 193-piece series Drawings Made from Around the Time I Became a Porn Star. (Steven Wolf Fine Arts, Jan. 24-Mar. 7)
"
http://ebar.com/arts/art_article.php?...

Around these parts we probably know Smith more for his Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon's Novel Gravity's Rainbow.

Bumping the comment immediately above here for the sake of any of you in NYC who might have a small crush on William T. Vollmann -- Book Launch and Reading of the new WTV Critical Companion.

Direct link ::
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Jeff wrote: "Except cricket."

There's a paragraph about cricket in Finnegans Wake....

Jeff wrote: "How about writing your own book, Nathan? Seriously."

oh I hear ya and pretty much agree with you. I've probably done a book's worth of thinking on him these past few years since first putting on The Ice-Shirt. Just to get those thoughts organized some time. And I plan to begin rereading his books this year soon, chronologically. But first let's see what I can get together review-wise for this essay collection.... You have your copy yet? It's really pretty exciting.

and I might be able to make a visit to the archive in Ohio this summer for their exhibition. Looking forward to that!

So anyways, this volume is what I've been waiting for for years. The downside is that there are an additional 48 essays which could have been written and included. Only to say that these twelve essays demonstrate beyond any shadow of my doubt that there is an enormous amount of critical engagement with Vollmann's work yet to be done. For instance, there isn't anything about Vollmann's odd attitudes regarding journalistic ethics or an overview thing of the Seven Dreams project or Vollmann's reading of the Icelandic literature or or or... I should highlight Lukes' piece on "abject masculinity" in Vollmann's work which is kind of like a jumping off point for discussion of his books in relation to feminist critiques.

I nice podcast interview with Bill re: Last Stories. I've only heard a few minutes of it, but very promising ::

http://bookotron.com/agony/news/2014/...

Greg wrote: "Fyi, the kindle version of Genesis was on sale for $1.99 on 1-8-2015. I don't know how long it will last - but at that price, why not pick up a copy if you read ebooks."

Yes and thanks! I see some cheap-o pb's available at amazon too! Ninety nine US coppers!

Jeff wrote: "F. P.-P. also wrote a book on Markson, This Is Not a Tragedy: The Works of David Markson, which _is_ in english."

Yes! This should definitely be highlighted cuz we have a plentiful of Markson readers in these parts. .....just peeked inside, "translated by the author".... bodes well, if only Dalkey would take an interest in Vollmann.

William T. Vollmann: le Roman Historique en Question. Une Etude de The Rifles for our French Vollmanniacs. Sounds fascinating. Anyone with translation skills and contacts? This sounds like a rather intriguing study. Françoise Palleau-Papin also has an essay in William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion, "Imperial Photography."

From her book, here's the googlator version of the book blurb ::
"William T. Vollmann is a California Balzac. Besides his taste for the historical novel, it develops by deconstructing a model like Balzac renewed Walter Scott's novel, it also has the ambition to represent a company in its entirety. His work is developing a world-book, where each volume offers a facet of a wide panoramic view of history and your violence that a people can inflict upon another. He is interested in weight than the past and poverty are bringing to the individual. Each book can also be read separately as a variation on the same theme. Master of paradox and irresolution, he poses and dodge all at once the question of the relation to the historical heritage. It seeks to measure the responsibility of everyone in the choice of perpetuating or not the consequences of the past in the present. It has taken a public stand for the carrying of weapons and violence justified in the case of self-defense. He chose to title a novel The Rifles, to better highlight the tensions that arise between a position of principle and practice. The Rifles takes an American problem as Tony Tanner analysis in the novels of James Fenimore Cooper. The iconic rifle Deerslayer, the hero of the novel by Cooper sums up the contradiction between myth and reality. When Deerslayer relies on his gun, he "disturbs" [sic] the natural landscape in which it is located, and it appropriates its power to appoint. By introducing the sign of male violence, it deals with the nature even more irreparable injury in exercising its authority nomenclator "For bullets, Even more than names, are" disturbances "of nature. And No. Amount of passive poetic wonder at nature's scenes Either can conceal, or Compensate, For That. The "poet" leans On His rifle: the rifle disturb the poetry "It's such a disturbance between writing and ideology Vollmann explores in his novel..
It illustrates the consequences of the introduction of the rifle and the capitalist economy in Inuit society. The fur trade has enslaved Inuit colonizers who sell rifles and control the market, while the caribou, a remnant of an independent Aboriginal economy, disappears in unprecedented massacres. If the past haunts the present to the point of being inseparable, it is nevertheless a photograph of a meeting that this framework. The questions he asks in his non-fiction, where he leads a philosophical and historical reflection, also appear in his historical novels of a more poetic than discursively. We seek here to analyze his poetic and identify ideological issues it presupposes and built.
As Balzac, Vollmann is a prolific writer. Compulsive worker, this writer was born in 1959 succeeded in a few tens of years of writing to fill a library. Some of its wide projects, such as its reflection on violence, have been published both in full, in seven volumes, and release "Speed" of 734 pages. Most often restive conciseness, he refuses editorial cuts. On every occasion, his casual shirt and perfect courtesy accompany its firm determination. He preferred to experience a decline in its copyright rather than accept the reduction of the novel The Royal Family, along 780 pages. This novel undertakes a rewriting of Dante's Divine Comedy; he explores the underbelly of San Francisco described as hell. It describes a journey into the abjection and masochistic bondage perceived as an absolute gift of self, without any possible redemption ironic that the transformation of ghost protagonist. Besides the taste for provocation Vollmann and his desire to show the morality described as decorative and false, his relationship with his publishers are already part of the legend. Paul Slovak, his editor at Viking, must answer questions from journalists impressed by the enormous size of certain works. Letters to the editor were published either in the preface or in the book that Larry McCaffery and Michael Hemmingson spent it, Expelled from Eden: A William T. Vollmann Reader (McCaffery and Hemmingson. 311 ff). In one of them, Vollmann Slovak thank Paul for permission not to make major cuts in his long novels, with a mixture of ironic distance and pride. Not without humor, it lists the most voluminous books of world literary canon, as In Search of Lost Time, War and Peace or Moby Dick. He recalled that he could one day receive the Nobel Prize, calling themselves the heels "one who refuses cuts" unwillingly "a bleeding-hearted one-deleter - Nobel Prize Winner and potential" (McCaffery and Hemmingson : 319). It concludes with a false promise, vowing that the next book would be much shorter, which is not the case (Argall totals 747 pages). If publishers are ignoring is that the surprising amount and heterogeneous nature of its production do not harm the literary quality of the works."

James wrote: "Nice. I see the Franco contribution is living down to my expectations."

Last night I read the wonderful piece by Carla Bolte, Bill's book designer at Viking* since Argall. I'm disappointed that she won't be designing The Dying Grass.




*Reading this piece answers to that suggestion that Bill should just self-publish if he wants no=cuts to his books. Bolte should be recognized over and over again for making Bill's books so beautiful.

biblioklept's got a copy and you may want to follow his reading and comments ::
http://biblioklept.org/2014/12/30/wil...

William T. Vollmann: Writing America's Other Histories by Michael A. T. Mellor, forthcoming August 2015.

In William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion, Christopher K. Coffman has this to say, "Vollmann is increasingly attracting younger scholars, including many outside of the United States. Readers are advised, for instance, to search for a monograph (forthcoming, as of this writing) on Vollmann by Michael A. T. Mellor. Mellor approaches Vollmann in the context of both anthropology and literary criticism, and while his project has many merits, the most significant among them may be its willingness to treat Vollmann as something more than a novelist, as someone whose works can contribute n productive ways to conversations developing in disciplines beyond literary studies."(p20n51)