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

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

Joshua Cohen reviews The Book of Dolores ::

"Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? William T. Vollmann Dresses In Drag, Finds His Feminist Side" [sic! he's been feminist for years and years ;; this would be something different], New York Observer, 15Oct2013 ::

'“When I put on my dress and prosthetic breasts, it felt frightening to go out into the night. This was, as a good friend would say, information. Precisely which other information I sought by becoming Dolores is not entirely transparent to me, but I might have learned it, or other things, in the course of this experiment. For a summation, I refer interested parties to the novel, which is called How You Are.”

'Now this is balls. Not that William T. Vollmann, the most compelling and compulsive novelist of his generation (b. 1959) has published a book of photographs and drawings documenting his attempts to pass as a woman named Dolores, but that in the commentary to the images he has referred readers to another book of his not yet published—a book that required him to do his research in drag. How You Are, a novel detailing the transformation of Mr. Vollmann into Dolores, hasn’t been bound yet, and, given the author’s process of editing by accretion—layers of prose like concealer on bald plots—might not even be finished, but The Book of Dolores certainly exists: 200 full-color, glossy pages of cross-dressing decline, hard-covered and soft of belly.' --
http://observer.com/2013/10/do-ya-thi...

amazon currently has a pretty generous look=inside.

Jeff wrote: "Nathan (and others), here's a link that may be helpful:
https://bu.digication.com/ccoffman/Vo...
"

OH. That's good. Thanks. This kind of thing is (long over-?) due.

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Yes, not to forget Michael Hemmingson's bibliography from 2011 :: William T. Vollmann: An Annotated Bibliography."

I've got a brief review of the Hemmingson's bibliography :: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

My biggest gripe is that he doesn't catalog reviews of Vollmann's books ;; exhaustive cataloging would be exhausting, but selective selecting of select reviews would be illuminating -- until the pen-men/women at universities get their pens vollmann-direct'd, MOST of the intelligent conversation about Vollmann's books has been taking place in reviews and such ;; for example, this long piece by goodsreader Jeff Bursey :: http://www.electronicbookreview.com/t... :: is one of the longer things written about Vollmann, and but it still looks like a book review.

Update on the Ohio State University archive holdings of the Vollmann stuff ::

There are actually two sets of archives, two web=pages of stuff ::

The first one, acquired between 1992 and 2001 contains 49 boxes, spanning the years 1980-2000 :: http://library.osu.edu/finding-aids/r...

The second one, acquired 2005-6 contains 46 boxes, spanning the years 1977-2007 :: http://library.osu.edu/finding-aids/r...

Not quite sure. From the Ohio State Archive at http://library.osu.edu/finding-aids/r... I see two items from Deep Springs ; a lecture on The Royal Family in 2001/2 (really, only an invitation for the lecture) and what appears to be a transcript of "Some Thoughts on Neglected Water traps" (date?) which was printed in the book "The Students of Deep Springs College" and republished in Expelled from Eden ;; but neither seems to be what he's talking about in the Picture Show preface.

Yes, not to forget Michael Hemmingson's bibliography from 2011 :: William T. Vollmann: An Annotated Bibliography.

A few items quickly dug=up ::

A cheap bibliography ::
http://www.paperbackswap.com/William-...

Three entries under "Thesis and Dissertations" ;;
--Anderson, Allen S. William T. Vollmann: An Annotated Bibliography. San Diego State University, 1996. [the worldcat entry :: http://www.worldcat.org/title/william...]
--Soloff, Edward. Transformations in "Seven Dreams: a book of North American Landscapes" by William T. Vollmann University of New York at Stony Brook, 1999.
--Lybarger, Jeremy. Black & White: The Violent Humor of William T. Vollmann's The Rainbow Stories. New York University, 2008.



The WTV archive at Ohio State University, materials from 1998-2005 :: http://library.osu.edu/finding-aids/r...



And here's a curious thing ; in regards to WTV's journalism ::

"Outrider: William T Vollmann, Tony Tanner, and the Private Extremes of an Anti-Journalism" by Matthew Thomson, U of New South Wales
pdf:: http://www.ialjs.org/wp-content/uploa...

I've made comment in the past that the DFW academic=mill is in high gear -- criticisms, studies, dissertations, probably DFW courses, ETC. In my never humble opinion, I think the DFW mill is operating at the expense of a potentially very fruitful WTV=mill. Here's a thread to provide for links and resources to specifically academic treatment of WTV's work.

Note :: MOST links and such will belong in that other resource thread. This one for dissertations, etc. So how long will it remain mostly an empty thread?

LA Times review of RURD ::

http://articles.latimes.com/2004/feb/...

Much more stuff there too ::
http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/w...

An ocean of streams of rivers of stuff about Sir Vollmann at the LA Times ::

http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/w...

Harper's has posted a few images from Vollmann's FBI file ::

http://harpers.org/blog/2013/08/pages...

"By all accounts, VOLLMANN is exceedingly intelligent and possessed with an enormous ego." --FBI-person

Aloha wrote: "BTW, I came here to find that article on his encounter with the FBI. "

The links are ::
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

But the article itself is behind a pay-wall at Harper's.

Novelist Jeff Bursey has three review pieces of Vollmann's work.

'"A realm forever beyond reach": William Vollmann's Expelled from Eden and Poor People' which also discusses RURD and Riding Toward Everywhere ::
http://www.electronicbookreview.com/t...

A review of Michael Hemmingson's book William T. Vollmann: A Critical Study and Seven Interviews
http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2010sp...

Review of Riding Toward Everywhere (pdf) ::
http://www.jeffbursey.com/downloads/R...

Fathers and Crows is a book which, at one point in his career, Bill was most proud of. And it over-flows into his other books. Fathers and Crows can't help but appear in what may be every section of his massive Rising Up Rising Down. I'm quite happy to have read through his story of this corner of USofA history prior to undertaking his massive ethical work. I'm not sure which one supplements which, but F&C, despite being a very weird book and at times frustrating for the reader of average historical=fictions, is important for the future Vollmann scholar to read early in their reading of Bill's books. [as noted earlier, RURD also functions as Bill's own background study for the writing of Europe Central]

Two articles in two days serves as my introduction to Vollmann-under-the-Editor's-blade and I've gotta say that that is quite enough. Indeed, I was beginning to think that RURD is a bit long winded, but let me, The Reader, do my picking and choosing which paragraphs I wanna read and which I wanna skip (myself, I can't even skip the pub-info page).

At any rate, in these two articles I detect a new Vollmann project in the works--a contemporaneous thing about what it's like being an american ;;; something which in combination with the Seven Dreams might look like a kind of diptych. And we need something like this because Vollmann has seen americans through the eyes of lots of not-americans (are they therefore Unamericans?); what americans lack in our insulationism is a view of ourselves as seen by an=other.

Geoff wrote: "Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Harpers was just about awful"
Yeah, I read it in about 15 minutes, shrugged, said a quick "meh" to myself and then got on with my day."

Yep. If you don't have access to the article, good Vollmaniacs, just do a Google=News search and you'll get most of the "content" of the piece; the "content" being about the only thing the Harpers editors were interested in. It's pretty much all here :: https://www.google.com/#fp=1802ab89cf...

Kinda related to the Unabomber thing? But today another Vollmann piece, thanks to Friend Proustitute ;; this one from BookForum, "Let's Get Lost : A novelist and inveterate traveler seeks life off the grid".

http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/020_...
[and no pay=wall]

Makes me wonder, between this one and the FBI article, what his next non-fic book is going to look like.

Too I know that Bill has scaled back his writing over the years, and that his non-fic tends in a different direction than does his fic, and I've not ever read one of his edited magazine pieces before, but that one from Harpers was just about awful ; it can't help but be better with the editor's slash-and-burn suppressed.

My gods!!! Now they'll think I am/was/mighthavebeen the Unabomer :: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2... [I do have a college degree, so that might qualify me for a file]

James wrote: "Been reading about this all day. I wouldn't mind a copy of the Harper's full article, is it available in the UK?"

I don't know about that; but perhaps you could buy an e-copy? I don't know.

My memory is that the FBI was looking for the Unabomber for a long time and sent out a very wide net. As Bill mentions, once a suspect for crime x, very likely to be treated as a suspect for crime y.

The RURD you've ordered is the abridged. It should serve very well for an intro to many of Bill's questions; the unabridged just doesn't stop once it gets started.

I should make the snarky comment, too, that folks who think that Bill's books need an editor should read Bill in the periodicals, where editors have free rein to slash and burn as they please. This piece in Harpers is about eight pages ; but it may well turn out to be 58 pages when it finds its way into one of his books.