/lit/ - Literature

and bumping

europe central

>>6246323
I started with Whores for Gloria because it's short. I don't really recommend that.

Rainbow Stories might be a good place, or one of the Seven Dreams (not Argall, obviously). Europe Central could be good but It's not super similar to his usual stuff.

>>6246326
Has anyone on /lit/ read this or know anyone that has?

>>6249319
i've got the whole set, working my way through it right now. i like his stories but he spends a lot of time apologizing for his own perceived shortcomings of his work (which are true, but come on dude you're doing this a lot) and sometimes it veers off into weird paragraphs about things like the percentages of false rape accusations and borders on fedora tipping shit i'd expect to see on here.

>>6249338
what's the structure like (aside from pic related) what do you mean by "stories"?

>>6250166
he frames his moral calculus with stories of things he experienced in war torn countries during his time as a journalist as well as other random stories he uses to make a point, like the first volume opens up with him musing on the paris catacombs and confronting the sheer amount of death within, which leads to his experience at a morgue talking with the staff and expounding on whether death has meaning in specific contexts. When he's not using his personal experiences to frame his ideas he uses conflicts from pretty much every era of human existence and references a lot of political literature to make his points.

>>6250208
I know this is a stupid question, but it's an enormous book, so I want to ask:
why will I get out of reading this? What does Vollmann offer in this fucking thing that other non-fiction writers offer?

>>6250554
oops
*what

>>6250554
his perception of what violence is, its meaning as well as its causes and effect.

>>6250554
i like reading his experiences and seeing how they've shaped his outlooks on violence, hes got some really beautiful passages that are a bit sappy or melodramatic but very sincere, if you feel like you need to read it because it's 'canon' in some way or because it's this behemoth rarely read, don't. read it because you're interested. read the abridged version and then read the full set if you like it enough.

>>6246323
He's not a beautiful man, but he's my man.

>>6251091
ᵀʰᵃᶰᵏ ʸᵒᵘ!

>>6251098
Love Ya!

>>6251114
I see you.

>>6246323

Third-rate Pynchon desperate to impress with quantity rather than quality. Critics taken in by sheer volume: 20 books written before the age of 50, including Rising Up and Rising Down, 3,300 pages; Europe Central, 811 pages; The Royal Family, 780 pages; Imperial, 1,344 pages. Grist for dissertation mills, intends not to be read but admired, motivated by the same incessant logorrhea as David Kirby and Albert Goldbarth in poetry. Consistent strain of misogynist sadomasochism overlooked by awed critics. Hunting down prostitutes (especially Southeast Asian prostitutes) has been uber-nerdish preoccupation, both in life and writing. Stepped into the breach left by Pynchon's long silences, determined to churn out a full Pynchon a year. Encapsulates ethical vacuity of American fiction after the collapse of 1970s postmodernism. Any moral meaning is buried in indigestible compendiums of graceless sentences. His few readable pieces are those heavily edited by conventional magazines (such as his Taliban piece edited 40 times by the New Yorker). Intentionally kills narrative with digression, to prove his superiority over other writers. His travel books follow Orientalist conventions--the coy outsiderness--despite his radical pomo self-image. Myth of Vollmann the Nobelist has been assiduously cultivated--by himself! Among his notes to his poor Viking editor, Paul Slovak, on being advised to cut his books: "I actually believe I have a shot at winning the Nobel Prize"; "Almost never do I read the final product"; "I believe that this book is worthy of standing in the shadow of Gibbon"; "It should be classed in the canon of great books."

>>6251119
Be my son?

>>6251171
lol wtf?

>>6251171
Are you single?

>>6251122
Isn't that the guy who slammed contemporary criticism and then chickened out of writing the planned follow-up article about contemporary writers whom he actually likes? Seems kind of cowardly.

>>6251185
kik?

>>6251339
Do you have a fax machine?

>>6251171
>>6251339
>>6251356
Get a room!

>>6251339
I would like to make sex if you have available holes.

>>6251407
You go psycho?

>>6251122
Wow this is a flame and a half.
Are those real quotes? From where?
What makes Rising Up/Down bad?

>>6252351
It's a pretty good criticism of Vollman tbh.

He's an odious man, and a terrible writer.

Riding Toward Everywhere was a fun book about train hopping. Vollman lite but a good intro to his work

>>6246323
dat nigga ugly as shit

>>6252351
Some Huffington Post article about the 15 most overrated contemporary American writers. It's amusing but not very substantial. Caused a it of a stir a few years ago. He also burned Junot Diaz, Michael Cunningham, Jonathan Safran Foer and Louise Gluck, among others.