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

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

Eric wrote: "it's all in the chronology from Expelled from Eden."

Damn. Why I've not shelled out for that one yet? I'll rely on your copy in the meantime. Just give me an "EfE" and I'll shut up with my second guessing.

Eric wrote: "Yeah, I'm not sure, either; do know, though, that he dedicated Ice-Shirt to her. "

As if I know much of his personal life, but I assumed that his wife he hadn't met yet in 1990, and the dedication was to a girlfriend of the time. I don't know. I don't know.

Post anything you know about Bill's influences here--literary or otherwise.

Open All Night features photographs by Ken Miller, who shows up in some of Bill's books, and excerpts from Bill's earlier writings. Meet some of the characters in photographic flesh which you have already met in literary flesh.

Bill is also an artist. He has created a number of collectors-only Book Objects which sell for several 1000's of $$$$. A wikipedia listing of them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_...

Somewhere is some info about this side of Bill's creative work which I will eventually post.

Eric wrote: "Don't hurt to have a doctor-wife, either. "

That's true. But I think they've only been married 10 or 12 years, but I'm not sure.

Expelled from Eden: A WTV Reader, edited by Michael Hemmingson and Larry McCaffery, is an above average Reader, including as it does much material not collected elsewhere in book form. Essential for background knowledge about Bill and his books.

Eric wrote: "Nathan "N.R." wrote: "copies sold in excess of 500."

Makes you wonder just how well (or rather unwell) his books sell."

I made that up. But apparently, this one got more attention than his books usually do. That is to say, it sold to people who didn't already have a WTV fetish. He knows that his books don't sell; he makes his money on the journalism.

Into the Forbidden Zone: A Trip Through Hell and High Water in Post-Earthquake Japan, ebook only, is the only thing prolific WTV published in 2011-12.

Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater is the short version of the title.

"They Just Want to Look in the Mirror--William T. Vollmann Becomes a Woman" by WTV:
http://www.vice.com/read/they-just-wa...

Imperial is a portrait of Imperial County, California. It is a behemoth of a book. There exists also a photo companion book.

Riding Toward Everywhere -- Have you caught out with the Vollmann Train yet?

Poor People is a documentation of answers to the question, "Why are you poor?"

Uncentering the Earth: Copernicus and the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, part of the "Great Discoveries" series which also includes a book by DFW, is perhaps the most forgettable of Bill's books. Or maybe not.

Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means is Vollmann's non-fiction magnum opus. It is a legend. Should you find the seven volume edition for less than $US200, please buy it and I'll reimburse you upon shipment. The abridgement is widely available.

An Afghanistan Picture Show: Or, How I Saved the World ought to count as Bill's first book, begun in 1982. It is his sixth (?) published volume. The first in what we might think of as his 'do-gooder' series. It is slated, finally, for a paperback release in 2013.

The Royal Family is a fantastic novel. Love Trilogy.

Butterfly Stories, part of his Love Trilogy.

Whores for Gloria is the first publication of Bill's infamous Love Trilogy. It is a thematic trilogy, not a chronological or narrative trilogy.

Bill isn't known for writing about virgins, but I'll ask, "With which volume did you lose your Vollmann cherry?"

I lost mine in the hyperborean The Ice-Shirt. Fortunately, that week coincided with happy nuptials and we have lived in wedded bliss hence and always.