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

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

I don't see how the cost of production would be nil. A new edition is needed. Cost would be the same as e=editions from academic houses.

I don't see how e'pub would be a solution.

Jonathan wrote: "William T. Vollmann - from the "Forum" in Fiction International 22 Pornography and Censorship (which also contains similar pieces from Raymond Federman, Rikki Ducornet, Delany and ot..."

A classic bit. It is also included in Expelled from Eden: A William T. Vollmann Reader.

Nick wrote: "**DEAL ALERT**
$300 from The Strand in NYC. Get it while it lasts!"

This amazing dealie is still up folks! Someone snag it!

Griffin wrote: "Just found this picture randomly. Wonder why Vollmann gave it up"

Sweet! I've never really seen anything connecting the two. Gaddis is kind of too recent for Bill's reading habits.

T.R. wrote: "Nope. Same seller.. Just raised it $45, LOL!"

At least they didn't withdraw it once someone had ordered it.

T.R. wrote: "$350 at Amazon! "

I'm seeing US$395 -- still a good price. Did someone here snag the $350 already?

OKAY!!! So I've set up a Daughter Group for our micro=Group Reading of parts of Volume VI of RURD--The Muslim World and North America. A few things to tidy up yet, but go ahead and dig in.
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

I'll have a schedule together shortly. Two essays per week starting around the 12th.

Griffin wrote: "I would love to be in on this group...haven't cracked RURD since July! Would be great to have an obligatory duty to it."

Even if for only a little itty bitty bit!

Alexander wrote: "So possibly nothing new from Vollmann in 2017? At least this gives me time to catch up... Almost done Last Stories.
RURD will be done eventually, I imagine.
then: YBRA; Rainbow Stories; and Poor Pe..."

Didn't we miss a Vollmann in '16 too? Time to catch up for sure. But I won't be surprised when one of his other publishers bring out something or other ; some artwork maybe.

I'll shoot for getting something set up on Friday.

Lisa wrote: "I am in too! I started reading RURD when I was pregnant but haven't been able to concentrate enough to proceed. Hopefully now that my son is a little bit older I can continue and participate!"

Should be do-able! There'll only be about a dozen essays. I'm thinking maybe about 2 per week (if I make a schedule).

T.R. wrote: "I'm in!!!"

Cool.

And just to clarify, there is no need to have read the first four volumes to read, understand, appreciate the final two volumes. These are all pretty much straight journalistic pieces. The only caveat is that pesky one about access.

Floating a suggestion for a short Vollmann reading group. Many of you now have a copy of RURD. Many of you wonder, Whatever happened to looking at things from both sides? Volume VI of RURD provides a small bit of material for doing just that. In this volume are sections on The Muslim World and North America (in which some Radical Right Wing stuff is essay'd). Reading the two sections together, and together with today's headlines, might provide some material by which we might work through some of what's going on. If there's interest, I'll set up threads--one per essay--for discussions.

Let me know. (might be til the weekend til I can get everything set up.)

Vollmanniac Hadrian had discovered a Chinese scholarly work on Vollmann by Qian Cheng :: 威廉.沃尔曼研究:后现代语境中的越界主题 .

Christopher Coffmann, editor of The Vollmann Critical Companion asked me to pass on the following ::

"Qian is a faculty member at Nanjing Normal University. I hosted her as a Visiting Scholar here at BU in the 2015-2016 academic year.

"Her book's English title is "A Study on William Vollmann: Transgression in the Postmodern Context." It was published by Xiamen University Press in 2012. The ISBN is 978-7-5615-4257-6. About 2/3 of the book is a critical study (written in English). The remainder is given over to her own translations of selections from WTV's writings into Chinese. While some of what's in the book will be familiar to WTV readers in the US from reviews, Hemmingson and McCaffery's book, interviews, etc., there are also some really interesting & valuable insights. I'm especially fond of her reading of Europe Central in relation to Parzival.

"As you can likely imagine, the audience for studies of WTV in China is fairly small, so I'm sure Qian would appreciate any interest in her work on the part of WTV readers around the globe.

"I snapped a photo of Qian and WTV a couple years back. You can see it here: https://bu.digication.com/ccoffman/Vo... "

So, it's 2/3 in English. Which means I'll slap down my $$$ for a copy if anyone here can help with the transaction. Pulled the trigger. Never ordered anything from China before....
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/756...

amazon now is listing February 2018. Which is at least something. But the $105 price has been removed. Maybe it'll become affordable?

Jeff wrote: "Ordered! Thanks a lot for this alert, Nick. I don't get a chance to see these books at so low a price in canadian dollars."

Excellent!

You've got the next one, Jonathan!

Chris wrote: "Just kidding of course. After being a fan of Bill's since the early days when we could get at least one book a year, things feel a bit slow now. This sudden burst of releases, even if over a five y..."

Yeah. I doubt that Viking wants to do more than a book every other year ;; but there's always Ecco and PowerHouse--possibly we might see some minor Vollmann from them in the odd years.

Kyle wrote: "This is exciting! I wonder how long it will end up being? Thanks you for posting this, I have been waiting on news about this one. I really think Vollmann is the perfect writer to tackle this issue."

There are only two options :: size of Poor People or size of Imperial. There is no in between.

Chris wrote: "the next dream probably won't be until at least 2023. "

Not necessarily, but very likely. I don't think either Dream is very far along. Cloud-Shirt is at least begun ;; The Poison-Shirt? I don't think he even knows what that one's about yet. But, of the three announced in that announcement, two are finished ; so no doubt he's got some time somewhere in there to at least work occasionally on the Dreams. Fingers=crossed.