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Europe Central
Europe Central - TVP 2014
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Discussion - Week Two - Europe Central - p. 99 - 221
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Jim
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Sep 14, 2014 08:59AM
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Possible topics for discussion:-What do you think of the non-linear approach to storytelling in this book. Vollmann takes up various characters, their stories, their perspectives, but in doing so there's an overlap so that we seem to constantly be stepping back to earlier times, then getting reflections on later events. Between chapters we realize we could be starting again at any point in a broad span of a few decades, and there will be occasional authorial interjections about later developments in characters' lives, etc.
-What do you think of the Alexandrov version of "I" who shows ironic contempt for Akhmatova, Shostakovich, and a kind of envying love for Konatantinovskaya though he can be exceedingly cold towards her too. Meanwhile he actually knows and understands more than most do about the betrayals and hypocrisy within the soviet system that he serves, he can be privately cynical about it at the same time that he condemns and aids the persecution of those who are not properly faithful to the soviet ideals.
Non-linear approach to storytelling here? My quick thought:A linear approach to the multiple stories in this book could not work. If you pull the text apart and cut and paste the pieces together in chronological order you lose, along with POV, the impact on the reader. You're not even left with a textbook because the strong biases become meaningless and conflicting.
True, I wouldn't request that the book be made chronological, but doesn't it seem notably non-chronological. Leaning a bit on cinema terms, a more typical approach (again, I'm not expressing a desire for a typical approach) would do more in the way of "cross-cutting," going from one character's story and development to another's, with occasional "flashback's" in the way of remembrances, and so on. Maybe some rare foreshadowing. But Vollmann's approach groups by character or theme, with chronology often obscure or irrelevant, sometimes getting in to a rather subjective P.O.V., while other times stepping entirely out of the frame to give a historical perspective, mentioning beginnings before endings, this angle, that angle... this is mixed with a style that alternates sympathy with mockery, sincerity with ironic distance. At least, that's the impression I've gathered. It's disorienting and ambiguous... or polyvalent (I'm aiming at a definition that's more plural than ambivalent)...
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Alexandrov comes across as the voice of that communist striving for total égalité and fraternité amongst equals, which sounds good on paper, but is not possible due to the nature of human nature. Alexandrov becomes a kind of embittered hall monitor, always ready to report offenders and send them to the gulag, or worse. Not a bad device for this aspect of the story.
A yes, I can agree with that, he functions well as a device. I like getting a bit of the rat's perspective without necessarily making the rat a central protagonist. The danger isn't just an abstract institutional danger, it consists of people, and the narrative voice reminds us of lingering threat.By the way, I may be kind of floundering in the discussion of this, but heck I'm trying. Gotta get my head back in it.
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This feeling is caught well on page 22 with Stalin making this comment about Lenin's wife:
Just because she fucks Lenin doesn't mean I have to get up on my hind legs for her, he said to his understudy, Molotov, who quickly agreed: She understands nothing about politics. Nothing.
I temporarily set aside this book because I got a little po'd at Vollmann for the whole Shostakovich finger-banging Elena section (Opus 40), but I plan on rejoining the book this weekend. It's interesting, challenging, confusing, infuriating, and so on. Much like war in Central Europe...
One broad but pertinent question for those who are with us. Nuances elaborated: How do you feel about the book and the characters at this point. Do you feel for the people at all? Are you upset, disturbed, angry, or intrigued by events and their development, or are you rather indifferent. Does the book affect you? Does the author's approach frustrate or confuse you. Are you distanced from the characters, or intimate with them?I've cared about the people and circumstances so far, but some of the critiques have suggested others have not.
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Other topic, raising the issue of the sex. I hadn't thought about it for a while, but here's some reflections from my P.O.V. I may be strange, but I think I can say that I don't like sincere eroticism, but I may well like insincere eroticism. Or cynical eroticism. I'm not talking about goofy bondage stuff, which I don't understand. But, for instance, having just read some Zizek stuff, some of the crassness in the way Elena's sexuality is dealt with seems effective to me, because Elena can become: The always desired woman who can never be possessed, the emasculating woman, the woman who destroys sexual fantasy by rendering it material, soullessly. Yet there's a hint that some inaccessible soul within will always be out of reach. It's not that she can't be possessed in the sense that she can't be bedded. She can, perhaps easily for the right people. But she's a bit like Alice in Lost Highway, who can tell you while you're in the act of having sex with her "you'll never have me," and you know she's right.
The fantasy, when enacted and made real, goes from attractive to repellent. Shostakovich is weak and weaselly, and there's a mournful sense that maybe there could have been a better more fulfilling real love to be possessed if he had gone ahead and married her... but that too may be fantasy. Maybe, had there been no war, had there been no Stalinism, had there been no music, had Shostakovich not been married, still their love may have been an unattainable fantasy that teases and escapes them in the end. Among other things, Elena's ravenous promiscuity (and let's face it, Shotakovich's own selfish adventurousness) means she would unlikely be satisfied long term by any one person, and if she could be, it wouldn't be a man, and even if it could be a man... Shostakovich is hardly a man. For her too, perhaps, the most thrilling, romantic, love-tinged element of their passionate affair is that it's impossible. But then throw in all the circumstance, and it's even more impossible. Some sexiness is there, with it's halo of fantasy.
But Vollman's also there! And Alexandrov! And we! So, yeah, there's a highly uncomfortable voyeurism to it too, and it's also a crashingly painful and ugly spectacle in a way, even if it may also serve to titillate in a shadowy way.
The material aspect of it too, and the occasional crudeness of expression, lowers the act, or may. But I think that too has a little bit of spirit of the age to it. There's a blend of desperation with the fact we wish not to confront: that this same sex act is at the level of something to be traded for bread in a prison camp. With all the desire for a bit of love, maybe thrilling fantasy, there's also crass material bodies to be fucked, get their teeth knocked out, subsist on eating sawdust and cosmetics, and maybe get torn apart by shrapnel. Try to live a fantasy amidst all that, while your head is still aswirl with insane ideologies, masturbatory aesthetic pursuits, and the desire to be a hero, or at least a human, and not a shameful, guilt-ridden, wasted thing. And everyone around you is nuts in their own peculiar way. Is there a possibility for sanity for anyone here?
Zadignose wrote: "True, I wouldn't request that the book be made chronological, but doesn't it seem notably non-chronological. Leaning a bit on cinema terms, a more typical approach (again, I'm not expressing a desi..."Agree that chronology seems "often obscure or irrelevant" in Vollmann's approach, but dates are used throughout to make other points. What I was trying to get at, using the cut-and-paste exercise, was that in Europe Central psychological impact on the reader is more important than sequential clarity. I like that there are different ways readers can respond to text, depending on their own values. In that way I think your term "polyvalent" applies.
Zadignose wrote: "True, I wouldn't request that the book be made chronological, but doesn't it seem notably non-chronological. Leaning a bit on cinema terms, a more typical approach (again, I'm not expressing a desire for a typical approach) would do more in the way of "cross-cutting," going from one character's story and development to another's, with occasional "flashback's" in the way of remembrances, and so on. "James Joyce was the among the first ones who used fragmented narratives and fragmented stream of consciousness in literature. If I remember correctly, even being nearly blind, he still frequented the cinema houses to watch the first movies that used this approach. I know he actually watched Eisenstein's movie "The Battleship Potemkin" with the professional interest in fragmented narratives.
I personally find this novel very cinematographic, and it always is a tribute to this type of movies, especially when Vollmann is trying to capture the zeitgeist of the pre-war period.
It might be just an expression of personal preferences, but I find the chapters about Akhmatova more moving and more emotionally relatable. I am not sure whether it is a gender bias, or the fact the Akhmatova is one of my favorite poets in Russian literature.
If my memory still serves me right, Akhmatova is actually the one who advocated for gender equality in poetry, insisting that there are no poetesses and poets, but there are only POETS, using this word in a gender-neutral sense.
Fragmentation also is a term often used to describe Shostakovich's style of music. In that sense, the form of this fictional discourse is definitely meta, and because it is so meta, it is also very poetic - a three-dimensional presentation of the two-dimensional images because he is using words to imitate the style of his music, music through and by means of words.
P.S. I just finished part II, so I am awfully behind, and there is no way I can catch up as I am juggling several books, moving into a new house, and ... professional obligations (one should earn money to buy books, right:-)). I think I will keep reading slowly and post last :-)
Zulfiya wrote: "P.S. I just finished part II, so I am awfully behind, and there is no way I can catch up ...I think I will keep reading slowly and post last"I'm even farther behind than you. I'm still in the quagmire of "The Palm Tree of Deborah". This books does not hold my attention. Which is odd, because normally I would find the life of Shostakovich to be quite interesting.
I would call is a briar patch of plot lines. Sometimes it is challenging, sometimes it is sharp, and sometimes it is lyrical.
