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

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

James wrote: "Does anyone have a list of the Shostakovich recordings examined in the book?"

Mala? Did you get the pieces cataloged? Maybe I put together a Vollmann Soundtrack thread.

And, James, how was the listening experience qua listening? Musical? I don't listen to books, but how does listening to a Vollmann compare with other books you've listened to?

Time to read Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement, and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater in preparation for this photographic gender exploration. amazon's got Kissing the Mask available (to me, at lest) today at bargain price of US$12 for the hd.

Thanks Friend Paul for bringing this so quickly to our attention.

Hold on here a second. It would appear that there's been a significant influx of members here. Welcome one and all. Perhaps you'd add a note, introduce yourself; we are all only angels here. Something about what you know of Vollmann, what you've read, would like to read. Or drop a note in one of the book threads; a link to your review if you've got one or if you've got more. Anything. Happy to see you all around. And questions, those things are good.

Traveller wrote: "I just mentioned it because you asked if we were all BP members, Nathan."

No, just my round about way of informing folks that a Vollmann group reading was underway. We could set up group readings here for Vollmann's books as well if there is interest. Just as long as we can keep you feeling at home at WTV Central. ; )

Here's the youtube search page for Vollmann:

https://www.youtube.com/results?searc...

Of note are several Bookworm interviews (audio), Vollmann reading from Imperial and Riding Toward Everywhere (video), and Larry McCaffery discussing Vollmann at the MLA 2011 conference (low quality video).

If you haven't seen it yet, Hadrian has posted the entire Moral Calculus from RURD.

http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/3...

He has also created a goodreads list which contains the RURD bibliography, but I don't have that link at hand. http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/23...

Nick wrote: "In the Father and Crows Bookworm interview Vollmann mentions Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman - looks like a compelling read. Anyone else read it?"

I've got four Friends who have reviewed it -- Howl, Chris, David, and Jonfaith. I haven't scanned their reviews yet, but they are all reliable.

Louis-Jean wrote: "032c focuses on William T. Vollmann’s photography:
http://www.powerhousebooks.com/?p=1961"

That's pretty good. Looks like some excerpts from Imperial and Atlas. And some other stuff. thanks.

Anyone here not a member of Brain Pain? That group will be reading Vollmann's Seven Dreams, The Royal Family, and likely a few other books over the course of the next 2-3 years. Check the schedule here: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

That was fantastic until I saw that thing about it not being yours. Damn.

Members of Vollmann Central is why I get up in the mornings.

Welcome to The Cult, James!

I'm thinking maybe the Seven Dreams could be made into a mini-series of a nature with The Wire. Each season another Dream, another technology disrupting life. I'm also feeling some story and historical overlay with the mini-series Shogun in Fathers and Crows--Jesuits, traders, imperialist opening of new territory, a culture strange to the Europeans. But Shogun has the Jesuits already in Japan, while F&C beginnings with trading and the Black-Shirts waiting to descend.

Which is here:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3396333/?r...
It's the episode "Holiday Hell" of Life After People and consists of a minute or two of Bill talking about the Salton Sea in Imperial county. It's somewhere on the 'netz but I'm too lazy to dig it up again.

Vollmann has only a single entry in imdb. But he's written a screenplay for Whores for Gloria. Here's a thread for submitting film proposals based on Bill's books and other video/film-esque kinds of activities.

WTV knocked out a screenplay for Whores for Gloria in a few hours' time and sold it for somewhere between four and five figures. There is an excerpt of the screenplay in Expelled from Eden. It would take a talented director indeed to translate this thing he's calling a screenplay onto a screen, but I wish someone'd do it.

Intelligent, interpretative filmmakers would find muchmuch material in Bill's books. I wonder why they don't. Not just the whores, but the Dreams would provide fodder for an entirely new genre of American Western, providing a fully restored characterization to the Amerindians, for example. Something like Shogun could be made perhaps; Shogun with its Jesuits would seem to echo story-like with Fathers and Crows.

Louis-Jean wrote: "For me, Claro is a contemporary american literature seminar all by himself. Here's the blog, le Clavier cannibale:
http://towardgrace.blogspot.ca/"

Merci beaucoup. Either my French will get stretched or my googlator will get itself a work through.

That's some mighty fine word collage, Geoff. Rarely am I quoted so accurately.

Louis-Jean wrote: "Here some short anecdotes taken from the blog of Claro who translated Thirteen Epitaphs and The Royal Family in french:"

Thanks, Louis-Jean. Is there a link to that blog, or is it, naturally, not written in an English convenient for we mono-linguistic bugs?

And because props should always be given to a translator of Claro's stature, he would be known for Frenchifying many of those grand American book blocks. Aside from Vollmann, there's Gass, Pynchon, Rushdie, Danielewski, Leyner, Verhaeghen. The goodreads author/translator page I suspect is not very exhaustive.

The Quarterly Conversation interview:
http://quarterlyconversation.com/the-...

http://www.goodreads.com/author/list/...

http://www.amazon.fr/s/ref=ntt_athr_d...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christop...

Jim wrote: "Has he published any monographs of his visual art? "

Not anything other than what gets used in his other books, mostly sketches. And he's published a number of extremely limited-edition book objects. Oh, and there's his photography which shows up everywhere plus a volume of photos to accompany Imperial. But nothing dedicated to Vollamann as visual artist.

Jim wrote: "Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Jim wrote: "The good news is that Bill is still alive and will continue to write and publish books."

I was thinking too that WTV's life would make for a better bio than the one we got of DFW via Max.

Hopefully Vollmann won't destroy his unpublished writing before he dies. "

We have a pretty good indicator that he won't do that. He's already made a major archival dump at Ohio State University. http://library.osu.edu/finding-aids/r...