The writer William Vollman

[GilloD]

EB tends to be a fairly sophisticated set, so I was wondering if any of you guys were fans of William Vollman. He's very well respected in literary circles, but doesn't ever seem to get much play in the mainstream. His fiction is just. Astounding. His early work was exceedingly erudite, sort of Thomas Pynchon on drugs. It bordered on unreadable if it wasn't so strange as to become engaging. His non-fiction is like Ernest Hemmingway, but deeply real. He's rafted America's most polluted rivers, traveled the nation of box cars and lived with prostitutes. He even saved a child sex slave in Thailand.

He's astoundingly profilic, churning out hundreds of pages a year on shockingly diverse topics. Rising Up, Rising Down was his most comprehensive: 3500 pages on human violence, including an entire volume of maps. In the face of all this faux-global bullshit, stuff like "American Idol Gives Back", no one has given us a more accurate picture of the life of human beings and William Vollman has. I've been revisiting a lot of his work lately, stuff I found too dense or too strong-headed the first time out, and it's really been just. Incredible. He really is such a unique voice and such a powerful writer, I always feel like I've stumbled onto some amazing secret. Anyone else here a fan?

Books
    * Uncentering the Earth: Copernicus and the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (2006) (Part of the nonfiction series "Great Discoveries")
    * Poor People (2007)
    * Riding Toward Everywhere (2008)

[edit] References
Europe Central (Viking, 2005)

Rising Up and Rising Down (McSweeney's, 2003)

Expelled from Eden: A William T. Vollmann Reader (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2003)

Argall: A Book of North Americn Landscapes (Seven Dreams, Vol. 3) (Viking Press, 2001)

The Royal Family (Viking Press, 2000)

The Students of Deep Springs College, with Michael A. Smith and L. Jackson Newell (Lodima Press, November 2000)

The Atlas (Viking Press, 1996)

Open All Night by Ken Miller (photographs), Vollmann (quotes) (Overlook Press; reprint edition, August 1996)

Grand Street 53: Fetishes (Summer 1995), editor (Grand Street, 1995)

The Rifles: A Book of North Americn Landscapes (Seven Dreams, Vol. 6) (Viking Press, 1994)

Butterfly Stories: A Novel (Grove Press, 1993)

Thirteen Stories and Thirteen Epitaphs (Pantheon Books, 1993)

Fathers and Crows: A Book of North Americn Landscapes (Seven Dreams, Vol. 2) (Viking Press, 1992)

An Afghanistan Picture Show; or, How I Saved the World (Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1992)

Whores for Gloria (Pantheon Books, 1992)

The Ice Shirt: A Book of North Americn Landscapes (Seven Dreams, Vol. 1) (Viking Press, 1990)

The Rainbow Stories (Atheneum, 1989)

The Tale of the Dying Lungs (Vagabond Press, 1989), out of print

The Convict Bird: A Children's Poem (CoTangent, 1987), out of print

You Bright and Risen Angels (Atheneum, 1987)

- - - -

Awards

National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, 2003, Rising Up and Rising Down

Silver Medal Winner for Non-Fiction, 2001 California Book Awards, The Royal Family

PEN Center West Award, 1997, The Atlas

Whiting Writers Award, 1988

[Ganhyun]

Have never heard of him before this post, so will check his stuff out.

[Eric P]

have heard of, but have never read.

starting point?

[GilloD]

Have never heard of him before this post, so will check his stuff out.

There's an anthology of his work called "Exiled from Eden" that's worth checking out. It's hard to pick a place to start with Vollman. I began with "You Bright and Risen Angels". It's about 700 tiny-font pages of a war between men, bugs and electricity. I can't suggest you start there. Look for some of his magazine work, he's at his best when he trims a bit. His story of almost freezing to death in Canada is worth it, as is "Imperial" his tale about rafting the most polluted river in America.

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=ZM3mbNqzLvAC&dq=william+vollman&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=5GJGTz56gQ&sig=kVVF5GAhqsHfO9igcS_NGEgt8JI#PPR17,M1
This is the abridged version of Rising Up, Rising Down. It's nowhere near as good as the full thing, but might give you a taste.

[GilloD]

Poor People might be a good start. It's focused, if not always on point. I'd suggest an anthology just because his work is so diverse, it may help to get a feel for what "era" you should start with. Even when I don't like his writing, I feel like it's better than anything else being written. He just has this. Compulsion and it ends up on the page.

[GilloD]

Oh yeah, this is my favorite Vollman anecdote: "After graduating from college, Vollmann traveled to Afghanistan in 1982 to fight with the mujahideen; these experiences would form the basis for his first nonfiction work An Afghanistan Picture Show"

[Eric P]

while googling him i got this

http://www.depauw.edu/SFs/backissues/61/unjustneglect61.htm


Unjustly Neglected Works of Science Fiction

In May of 1992, we sent the following letter to 64 writers and critics of SF:

        Dear Friends,

        We have decided to conduct an old-fashioned de gustibus non disputandum est-style survey for SFS. Please list the 5-10 (or whatever) works of SF and/or authors that you feel are the most unjustly ignored or unknown by SF critics and scholars. Works can mean anything—novels, films, story collections, individual stories, real-world SF phenomena, etc. The survey is being sent to SFS consultants and friends, and we will print it once we get most of them back. The publication format will be the list of titles under the name of the contributor. We have two goals in mind: 1) lists like this are entertaining in their own right; and 2) we are conscious that SFS has concentrated on a sort of canon that has influenced other readers of SFS, and has led to a kind of self-reinforcing list of Great SF Works. We believe one good way to get out of our canonical rut is to alert other critics to the sorts of texts we would be especially interested in discussing. Please give some thought to your suggestions—we hope to have contributions collected by September or October.

        Thanks in advance,

        The Editors

By Spring of 1993, we had received 35 responses, which we publish below.

[GilloD]

while googling him i got this

http://www.depauw.edu/SFs/backissues/61/unjustneglect61.htm


Unjustly Neglected Works of Science Fiction

In May of 1992, we sent the following letter to 64 writers and critics of SF:

        Dear Friends,

        We have decided to conduct an old-fashioned de gustibus non disputandum est-style survey for SFS. Please list the 5-10 (or whatever) works of SF and/or authors that you feel are the most unjustly ignored or unknown by SF critics and scholars. Works can mean anything—novels, films, story collections, individual stories, real-world SF phenomena, etc. The survey is being sent to SFS consultants and friends, and we will print it once we get most of them back. The publication format will be the list of titles under the name of the contributor. We have two goals in mind: 1) lists like this are entertaining in their own right; and 2) we are conscious that SFS has concentrated on a sort of canon that has influenced other readers of SFS, and has led to a kind of self-reinforcing list of Great SF Works. We believe one good way to get out of our canonical rut is to alert other critics to the sorts of texts we would be especially interested in discussing. Please give some thought to your suggestions—we hope to have contributions collected by September or October.

        Thanks in advance,

        The Editors

By Spring of 1993, we had received 35 responses, which we publish below.

You Bright and Risen Angels is a great Sci-Fi novel under all of the pages and pages of digression and metaphysical happenings.

[Eric P]

i just bought You Bright and Risen Angels

sounded like an interesting place to start

[GilloD]

i just bought You Bright and Risen Angels

sounded like an interesting place to start

Good luck with it. It's reprsentative of his overall style, but his later work is much more real and grounded. I adore that book, but it was a real test.

http://www.quarterlyconversation.com/Vollmann-author.html

This is a great resource for this thread.

[Eric P]

got my copy of Angels today

good lord this book is large.  I wasn't anticipating that.

[MrAngryFace]

I only read Halo novels, sorry

[Eric P]

I only read Halo novels, sorry

there's a halo in this book

i mean, it mentions angels right on the cover

[MrAngryFace]

lulz