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Europe Central
In this magnificent work of fiction, William T. Vollmann turns his trenchant eye to the authoritarian cultures of Germany and the USSR in the twentieth century. Assembling a composite portrait of these two warring leviathans and the terrible age they defined, the narrative intertwines experiences both real and fictional—a young German who joins the SS to expose its crimes, two generals who collaborate with the enemy for different reasons, the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich laboring under Stalinist oppression. Through these and other lives, Vollmann offers a daring and mesmerizing perspective on human actions during wartime.
811 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
628 people are currently reading
16666 people want to read
About the author
William T. Vollmann
99 books1,446 followersWilliam Tanner Vollmann is an American author, journalist, and essayist known for his ambitious and often unconventional literary works. Born on July 28, 1959, in Los Angeles, California, Vollmann has earned a reputation as one of the most prolific and daring writers of his generation.
Vollmann's early life was marked by tragedy; his sister drowned when he was a child, an event that profoundly impacted him and influenced his writing. He attended Deep Springs College, a small, isolated liberal arts college in California, before transferring to Cornell University, where he studied comparative literature. After college, Vollmann spent some time in Afghanistan as a freelance journalist, an experience that would later inform some of his works.
His first novel, You Bright and Risen Angels (1987), is a sprawling, experimental work that blends fantasy, history, and social commentary. This novel set the tone for much of his later work, characterized by its complexity, depth, and a willingness to tackle difficult and controversial subjects.
Vollmann's most acclaimed work is The Rainbow Stories (1989), a collection of interlinked short stories that explore the darker sides of human nature. His nonfiction is equally notable, particularly Rising Up and Rising Down (2003), a seven-volume treatise on violence, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Over the years, Vollmann has continued to write prolifically, producing novels, short stories, essays, and journalistic pieces. His work often delves into themes of violence, poverty, and the struggles of marginalized people. He has received several awards, including the National Book Award for Fiction in 2005 for Europe Central, a novel about the moral dilemmas faced by individuals during World War II.
Vollmann is known for his immersive research methods, often placing himself in dangerous situations to better understand his subjects. Despite his literary success, he remains somewhat of an outsider in the literary world, frequently shunning public appearances and maintaining a low profile.
In addition to his writing, Vollmann is also an accomplished photographer, and his photographs often accompany his written work. Painting is also an art where's working on, celebrating expositions in the United States, showing his paintings. His diverse interests and unflinching approach to his subjects have made him a unique voice in contemporary American literature.
Vollmann's early life was marked by tragedy; his sister drowned when he was a child, an event that profoundly impacted him and influenced his writing. He attended Deep Springs College, a small, isolated liberal arts college in California, before transferring to Cornell University, where he studied comparative literature. After college, Vollmann spent some time in Afghanistan as a freelance journalist, an experience that would later inform some of his works.
His first novel, You Bright and Risen Angels (1987), is a sprawling, experimental work that blends fantasy, history, and social commentary. This novel set the tone for much of his later work, characterized by its complexity, depth, and a willingness to tackle difficult and controversial subjects.
Vollmann's most acclaimed work is The Rainbow Stories (1989), a collection of interlinked short stories that explore the darker sides of human nature. His nonfiction is equally notable, particularly Rising Up and Rising Down (2003), a seven-volume treatise on violence, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Over the years, Vollmann has continued to write prolifically, producing novels, short stories, essays, and journalistic pieces. His work often delves into themes of violence, poverty, and the struggles of marginalized people. He has received several awards, including the National Book Award for Fiction in 2005 for Europe Central, a novel about the moral dilemmas faced by individuals during World War II.
Vollmann is known for his immersive research methods, often placing himself in dangerous situations to better understand his subjects. Despite his literary success, he remains somewhat of an outsider in the literary world, frequently shunning public appearances and maintaining a low profile.
In addition to his writing, Vollmann is also an accomplished photographer, and his photographs often accompany his written work. Painting is also an art where's working on, celebrating expositions in the United States, showing his paintings. His diverse interests and unflinching approach to his subjects have made him a unique voice in contemporary American literature.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 447 reviews
March 30, 2023
Vollmann’s language is rich and strawberry cream creamy, language that, without too much ado, could be transcribed into T.S. Elliot-style poetry since his themes hit on damaged humanity, the power of history and fragmentation, and that’s fragmentation as in Dada, as in Hannah Höch and John Heartfield photomontage, a form of art Adolf Hitler especially despised. And with this quote from Mein Kampf “I go the way that Providence dictates, with the assurance of a sleepwalker." the novel repeatedly refers to Hitler as the sleepwalker.
I particularly enjoy the author’s vivid image of those old black rotary telephones having ten eyes, “that octopus whose ten round eyes, each inscribed with a number, glare through you at the world.” and then linking the telephone with sleepwalker Hitler: “The sleepwalker in the Reich Chancellery could tell you (not that he would) they’re his eyes, lidless, oval, which imparts to them a monotonously idiotic or hysterical appearance."
It’s that fluid yet deadly interplay of objects with the human, as if Hitler is so omnipresent he is looking at all Nazis under his command as well as the entire population of Europe through the ten eyes of each and every black telephone, 1930s-1940s ubiquitous device par excellence. “The sleepwalker’s all eyes” And in terms of using his eyes, let's not forget Hitler spent many years dedicated to the visual arts, drawing and painting as a near-starving artist in Vienna.
Reading the first section Steel in Motion I catch initial glimpses of the novel’s stunning historical references, for example: “Barrage balloons swim in the air, finned and fat like children’s renderings.” Bulls-eye, WTV! Perfect simile; that’s exactly what those barrage balloons looked like, balloon used by the British to defend against air attacks – the cables holding up the balloon would damage enemy aircraft.
“Steel imbued with the sleepwalker’s magic sight, illuminates itself as it comes murdering." Again, Europe Central shares much with the photomontage of artists like Hannah Höch and John Heartfield, a steely emphasis on the intertwining of humans with technologies, for example, another image of the octopus-telephone: “From the anus-mouth behind the dial.”
Vollmann soaks the black gadget for all its worth, telephone as the eyes and anus of Hitler. Yet again, another striking quote: “Don’t trust any technicians who assure you that this brain is “neutral” – soon you’ll hear how angrily the receiver jitters in its cradle.”
The author picks up on Marshall McLuhan -- the media is the message. It’s as if in Europe Central the gadgets and all that steel exude a life of their own and are manipulating humans as their flesh-and-blood pawns. “Behind the wall, rubberized black tentacles spread across Europe.” Ominous, ominous – 20th century technology as the strangling octopus, throttling, choking, crushing humans as if a school of helpless little fish in an ocean of unforgiving tentacles.
Then, in the section entitled The Saviors: A Kabbalistic Tale, the author uses Aristotelian compare and contrast in presenting Fanya Kaplan with N.K.Krupskaya,, two women who saw themselves as good Marxist comrades marching shoulder to shoulder with other like-minded comrades toward the land of final synthesis as in Hegel-turned-on-his-head thesis-antithesis-synthesis. And age twenty-eight special for both Ks, Kaplan and Krupskaya, since Krupskaya at age twenty-eight married Lenin and Kaplan at age twenty-eight shot him. And each woman, as per vintage photos, were stunning as a twenty-year-old, but, oh my goodness, did women age quickly back then, especially when sent to prison or Siberia for years of hard labor.
N.K.Krupskaya - At age twenty-eight she married Lenin
Fanya Kaplan - At age twenty-eight she shot Lenin
Anyway, Vollmann packs in historical facts and lyrical images as if he were stuffing twenty-five pounds of potatoes into a ten pound sack, for example, we read the following of the last four days in Fanya Kaplan’s life after she shot Lenin: “a huddle of twenty-four grey subterranean hours like orphaned mice; and in the flesh of every hour a swarm of useless moments like ants whose queen has perished; and within each moment an uncountable multitude of instants resembling starpointed syllables shaken out of words."
If you were counting, that’s three tightly packed in similes. I read a Paris Review interview where Vollmann relates how at one time in his life he was writing sixteen hours a day. Now that’s a writer on fire! . . . and perhaps on cocaine, speed, or, at least, caffeine.
For the narrator of Europe Central, people stand tall like a certain letter of the alphabet, ideas glow like a letter, words hum like a letter, which reminds me of that Georges Perec quote: “Is the aleph that place in Borges from which the entire world is visible simultaneously, anything other than an alphabet?”
And these Europe Central times are times for men and women of action, as in the action-packed words of Comrade N. V. Krylenko “We must execute not only the guilty. Execution of the innocent will impress the masses even more.” Ironically, Comrade Krylenko would himself be shot – I wonder if the masses were impressed.
However, nobody could ever doubt Comrade Krylenko was a revolutionary who took his revolution seriously. And equally ironic, through all the revolutionary slaughter, one of N. K. Krepskaya’s very favorite books was Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.
And there’s a scene of N. K. Krepskaya meeting Fanya Kaplan in a prison cell that provides a stroke of Latin American-style magical realism: "Then the letters disappeared into the woman's mouth. Krupskaya was speechless. The woman began to glow more and more, until the light from her was as white and pure as a page of the Torah."
One of my favorite parts of the novel is all the references to Dimitri Shostakovich and his music. For example: “Best listened to in a windowless room, better than best an airless room – correctly speaking a bunker sealed forever and enwrapped in tree-roots – the Eighth String Quartet of Shostakovich (Opus 110) is the living corpse of music, perfect in its horror. Call it the simultaneous asphyxiation and bleeding of melody.”
To gain a keener insight and feeling for this novel, I listened to this and other Shostakovich string quartets repeatedly during my reading. All in all, a great novel, but I must say not a novel exactly to my taste since I found, for one thing, the shifting first-person narrator (who, at points, could be the voice of the entire continent of Europe) at a huge emotional distance from the other characters. I contrast this with another 800 page novel set in Europe and Russia during WWII: The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell, a novel where the first-person narrator was a member of the Nazi SS. The evil of Littell's novel is so real, so immediate, so powerful, I had to listen to the audiobook while taking my walks and let the evil run down my legs and out the bottom of my feet. Europe Central is an encyclopedic literary monument to an incredible time in 20th century European history but, for me, Vollmann’s novel lacks the power of Littell’s.
William T. Vollmann
June 2, 2016
"The majority of my symphonies are tombstones."
― Dmitry Shostakovich in William T. Vollmann, Europe Central
"We have a Motherland and they have a Fatherland. Their child is Europe Central."
― William T. Vollmann, Europe Central
This book, THIS book.
This book reminds me of some mad Nazi experiment (or Soviet torture) grafting the madness of Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and the darkness of Littell's The Kindly Ones. From the first chapter it grabs you grotesquely by the balls and just won't let go. Vollmann wants to hear you scream and then wants to write the score of your scream, the ghost notes of your warped night tremors.
The spine, the backbone, of this novel is woven the life/stories/stutters of Dmitry Shostakovich (yes THAT Shostakovich) writing his opus of lust, his opus of war, his opus of death. Fighting, passively, always passively against the crushing weight of Soviet oppression. The more the institution would grind on him, push him down, the more his art would squirt out. Art finds a way. There is the love triangle between Shostakovich and Elena Konstantinovskaya and Roman Karmen. This is Vollmann bending history to fit his novel. He isn't trying for close. He isn't aiming for clarity. He is composing with this novel. He is grooving.
The way I floated with this novel was to imagine it as a giant expressionist painting with Shostakovich in the center (or perhaps, a symphony or musical development? Others have said yes, so I'd recommending reading their reviews if you prefer a symphony to an expressionist painting). It is full of demons and parables. Full of Totenkopfverbändes decorated with rubies, snow, skeletons, zombies, bombs and planes. There are mass graves and one can get quickly lost in death and the cold. There is a certain direction, only because time and history both have a direction, to the painting. It is scrolling left to right. But reading Vollmann is not a journey of art. It is a dream, a nightmare. It is a primal scream trying to clear out the cobwebs of the 20th century. It is Hieronymus Bosch's Purgatory, Hell, and all three panels of the triptych Garden of Earthly Delights sewn together with teeth, hair, and cobwebs and repainted by a German Expressionist or Soviet "nonconformist" artist.
'Europe Central' isn't history, but history isn't history. When so many people were killed, buried, burned -- we lose all sense of identity and truth. In Central Europe/Europe Central during that period right before, during, and after WWII myth seems almost as appropriate as any official history. The demons that whistle to you at night are just as convincing as the frozen chickens of day.
Again, I'm trying to wrap my head around it all. It is crazy. I am crazy. Two of the quotes from the book that helped me the most were:
"According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, our planet's most pronounced topographical features compromise an approximate mirror image of the crust's underside. The steppes of the Ukraine thus roof the crating platforms which replicates them, while the Ural Mountains not only project into the sky, but in equal measure stab down like gabblers trained upon the magma on which our contest uneasily slither. To me, the thought that this world is doubled within its own red, liquid hell is a profoundly unnerving one. Chaos seethes beneath my feet" (page 694).
“Most literary critics agree that fiction cannot be reduced to mere falsehood. Well-crafted protagonists come to life, pornography causes orgasms, and the pretense that life is what we want it to be may conceivably bring about the desired condition. Hence religious parables, socialist realism, Nazi propaganda. And if this story likewise crawls with reactionary supernaturalism, that might be because its author longs to see letters scuttling across ceilings, cautiously beginning to reify themselves into angels. For if they could only do that, then why not us?” (27).
I will end this now, before I get swallowed up again by Vollmann's Airlift Idylls and Steel in Motion one more time and fail to find my way to the surface again.
― Dmitry Shostakovich in William T. Vollmann, Europe Central
"We have a Motherland and they have a Fatherland. Their child is Europe Central."
― William T. Vollmann, Europe Central
This book, THIS book.
This book reminds me of some mad Nazi experiment (or Soviet torture) grafting the madness of Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and the darkness of Littell's The Kindly Ones. From the first chapter it grabs you grotesquely by the balls and just won't let go. Vollmann wants to hear you scream and then wants to write the score of your scream, the ghost notes of your warped night tremors.
The spine, the backbone, of this novel is woven the life/stories/stutters of Dmitry Shostakovich (yes THAT Shostakovich) writing his opus of lust, his opus of war, his opus of death. Fighting, passively, always passively against the crushing weight of Soviet oppression. The more the institution would grind on him, push him down, the more his art would squirt out. Art finds a way. There is the love triangle between Shostakovich and Elena Konstantinovskaya and Roman Karmen. This is Vollmann bending history to fit his novel. He isn't trying for close. He isn't aiming for clarity. He is composing with this novel. He is grooving.
The way I floated with this novel was to imagine it as a giant expressionist painting with Shostakovich in the center (or perhaps, a symphony or musical development? Others have said yes, so I'd recommending reading their reviews if you prefer a symphony to an expressionist painting). It is full of demons and parables. Full of Totenkopfverbändes decorated with rubies, snow, skeletons, zombies, bombs and planes. There are mass graves and one can get quickly lost in death and the cold. There is a certain direction, only because time and history both have a direction, to the painting. It is scrolling left to right. But reading Vollmann is not a journey of art. It is a dream, a nightmare. It is a primal scream trying to clear out the cobwebs of the 20th century. It is Hieronymus Bosch's Purgatory, Hell, and all three panels of the triptych Garden of Earthly Delights sewn together with teeth, hair, and cobwebs and repainted by a German Expressionist or Soviet "nonconformist" artist.
'Europe Central' isn't history, but history isn't history. When so many people were killed, buried, burned -- we lose all sense of identity and truth. In Central Europe/Europe Central during that period right before, during, and after WWII myth seems almost as appropriate as any official history. The demons that whistle to you at night are just as convincing as the frozen chickens of day.
Again, I'm trying to wrap my head around it all. It is crazy. I am crazy. Two of the quotes from the book that helped me the most were:
"According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, our planet's most pronounced topographical features compromise an approximate mirror image of the crust's underside. The steppes of the Ukraine thus roof the crating platforms which replicates them, while the Ural Mountains not only project into the sky, but in equal measure stab down like gabblers trained upon the magma on which our contest uneasily slither. To me, the thought that this world is doubled within its own red, liquid hell is a profoundly unnerving one. Chaos seethes beneath my feet" (page 694).
“Most literary critics agree that fiction cannot be reduced to mere falsehood. Well-crafted protagonists come to life, pornography causes orgasms, and the pretense that life is what we want it to be may conceivably bring about the desired condition. Hence religious parables, socialist realism, Nazi propaganda. And if this story likewise crawls with reactionary supernaturalism, that might be because its author longs to see letters scuttling across ceilings, cautiously beginning to reify themselves into angels. For if they could only do that, then why not us?” (27).
I will end this now, before I get swallowed up again by Vollmann's Airlift Idylls and Steel in Motion one more time and fail to find my way to the surface again.
September 24, 2014
(Thank You, Bill, for Another) God Almighty Tome
[An Interpolation Upon an Enquiry by Steven Moore]
Now it’s for sale,
Don’t be deterred.
This thousand-page,
Half-million-word
War effort had
To be contrived
In breath-taking,
Large scale detail,
So it could be
Desired as
A maximal
Unholy grail.
We college grads
And desk-bound males
Now type away
Inside the whale,
So that we can
All adulate
The moral scope
Of Vollmann's tale.
Hence, we honour
Its mighty length,
And shower it
With lavish praise.
A Novel Calculus
"Europe Central" followed closely on the heels of "Rising Up and Rising Down", Vollmann's analysis of the moral calculus of violence.
Part of the non-fiction work applied the calculus to the specific circumstances of several persons of interest.
This novel, assuming that is a correct descriptor, takes real life people/participants and uses them to construct a narrative about real life events, most of which are the most pivotal events of the twentieth century.
It is a huge and hugely ambitious creative and interpretative exercise, if not necessarily or strictly (only) an exercise in fiction.
It has more in common with a documentary re-enactment than most literary fiction. Like a documentary, we might know some or all of the facts, what matters is how the issues are personalised and presented to us:
"I suppose that when one dedicates oneself sincerely enough to anything, one personalises it."
You can think of this novel as a panoramic film in full technicolor.
None of this is intended as a criticism. If there is any meaningful role for Post-Modernism, one would be to blur the distinction between fiction and reality.
Fictionalised History
The historical aspects of the novel are thoroughly researched by Vollmann and his assistants (shades of Andy Warhol?), and therefore presumably reliable, except where he identifies otherwise in the notes and comments, or where he allows himself the freedom of historical or moral judgement.
You don't need to have much or any prior knowledge of the events portrayed in the novel to appreciate their significance or the writing.
Vollmann places us in the heart of the relevant action. All we have to respect is the importance of these events in world history. If there ever comes a time when their primacy fades, may the gods help civilisation on earth.
That said, in the fictional aspects of the reconstruction, Vollmann can't help but inject a few of his own preoccupations (against the historical evidence), and it is here that the novel is weakest and occasionally most gratuitous, but more of that later. It is a relatively minor personal gripe, and one that didn't ultimately detract from my enjoyment of the novel.
Doppelgänger States (Non-Fraternal, Non-Identical Twins)
The narrative structure of "Europe Central" explores a parallelism between World War II Germany and the Soviet Union.
Pretty soon, you realise that there is little difference in the social and personal dynamics in each nation, despite their vastly different socio-political systems.
Ultimately, they are both "well-ordered zones". Centralised power works the same way everywhere. (Vollmann recognises that this point has already been made by Vassily Grossman in his novel, "Life and Fate".)
Hitler/Stalin wield absolute power, with limited input by those around them. Nobody is prepared to question or contradict them, for fear of reprisal, and reprisal means death.
In the case of Germany:
"Fate has sent Germany a great genius: Adolf Hitler. We must obey his will."
In the case of Stalin:
"It's not enough to love Soviet power. Soviet power must also love you."
Hitler/Stalin take ultimate responsibility for everything. Vision, strategy, tactics, execution. Especially execution.
Gargantuan and Panzercruel Struggle
Once Hitler revoked the Non-Aggression Pact in June, 1941, Germany and the Soviet Union were destined to fight to the death, if not with the assistance of allies, then alone.
The success of one state and political system would inevitably mean the extinguishment of the other.
Germany had conquered most of continental Europe. Britain was under attack. The United States had not entered the war.
Churchill was reluctant to start a new western front on the continent, forcing Stalin to fight off Hitler without support.
If Germany had prevailed, it would have meant the end of Communism.
However, if the Soviet Union could prevail, it would mean the end of Fascism.
The Anglo-American nations thought they could sit back and wait for the result.
Capitalism Tries to Crash the Party
Only when Stalin got the upper hand at Stalingrad and started the march to Berlin did the Allies realise that they would lose Europe to Soviet Communism, if they didn't initiate Operation Overlord at Normandy:
"[The Soviets] have a Motherland and [the Germans] have a Fatherland. Their child is Europe Central."
Communism in Europe would have meant the loss of a market for Anglo-American goods and services on the continent. Normandy occurred only when it became necessary to protect capitalist interests.
Thus, Normandy wasn't primarily one part of a two-pronged attack on Germany, but a preemptive attempt to avoid the global revolution that might have resulted from the successful self-defence of the Soviet Union.
Firelit Rapture
Vollmann personalises the moral issues by focussing on the lives and dilemmas of a number of key players on both sides of the ideological divide.
Ironically, both Fascism and Communism purported to usher in a new cultural era, one which, in the words of Heidegger, would require the old to be burned in order to make way for the new. The Volk, the People, the Proletariat looked on in "firelit rapture".
Vollmann explains the moral purpose of the novel in terms of parable:
"These stories are not as rigorously grounded in historical fact as my 'Seven Dreams' books. Rather, the goal here was to write a series of parables about famous, infamous and anonymous European moral actors at moments of decision."
Some of the protagonists are military, others are creative (musicians, sculptors, poets and translators).
Under both ideologies, individual freedom is compromised, ostensibly in the interests of the collective. This might be understandable in the context of the war effort or attempts to defend against a civil war or rebuff a counter-revolution. However, arguably, it would not be tolerable in a modern western pluralistic democracy during a time of peace.
Answering the Call
Vollmann uses the black-cabled tentacles of the cephalopodic telephone network not just as a vehicle for communication, but as a symbol of the centralisation of political culture and the enforcement of social conformity.
Totalitarianism emphasises collective duty at the expense of personal liberty. Vollmann speculates that people start to content themselves with the role of servant rather than aspiring to be their own master:
"To regard the fulfillment of duty rather than personal responsibility as the highest virtue, indicates a primal need for yielding oneself up."
In the armed forces, there are command structures that ensure that obedience to authority occurs (subject now to the rejection of the Nuremberg defence). Civilians are safe as long as they keep their head down and don't transgress.
However, intellectuals and artists are the most problematical. They tend to be individualistic and non-conformist.
Vollmann shows us two cultures and contexts in which individualists must bow to the collective, or face dire consequences. Thus, we see Socialist Realism being imposed in the Soviet Union, while in Germany, we see the Nazis attacking Degenerate Art. At least in wartime, outliers are pulled back into the herd. Those who won't or don't comply are ostracised, abandoned, exiled and/or liquidated.
Shostakovich's Threat to Cultural Harmony
Representative of the creative dilemma is the composer Shostakovich. In the absence of words, you would think that music would be harder to judge in terms of ideological conformity. However, Shostakovich's formal innovation sees him described as a selfish and anti-democratic individualist, a free spirit, a formalist, a revisionist, a right-wing deviationist:
"This gets to the root of what makes intellectuals dangerous. We use them to add newness to life, which is what keeps it bearable, but newness shouldn't mutate into utter alienation..."
Despite his popularity with the public, Shostakovich becomes alienated from authority. He fails to toe the Party line. He is seen as preoccupied with the "expression of self". His compositions are out of harmony with the remainder of the Party-credentialled fraternity. His works are doubly dissonant and disharmonious.
Whistle Blower to the Holocaust
One of the German parallels to Shostakovich is the SS officer Kurt Gerstein, a technician who leaks to the Church and the Swiss Consul evidence of the methods of the Holocaust that he is partly responsible for administering.
It's not disclosed just how much reliable intelligence the West acquired about the Holocaust before the end of the War.
Whatever, the West took no credible action. Gerstein's whistle-blowing attempts weren't appreciated and, tragically for him, did not avoid the death penalty being imposed on him by the Allies.
Imaginary Love Triangles
Perhaps Vollmann's greatest creative contribution to the historical narrative is his extrapolation of the sex lives of several of the protagonists.
In most cases, he acknowledges that his speculation is pure fiction. Indeed, he posits that the key emotional and sexual relationship between Shostakovich and Elena continued throughout the rest of their lives, notwithstanding common ground that it lasted only for a short period relatively early in their lives.
Despite the amount of space devoted to Shostakovich, I think Elena is the pre-eminent character of the novel. In many ways, "Europe Central" is the story of a woman, if not the women of Europe.
Europa ist Elena überhaupt. She is one third of two separate love triangles, one a heterosexual relationship with two males and, the other, a lesbian relationship with two women.
Vollmann's women occupy numerous roles: they oscillate between Joan of Arc, virgin, whore, artist, activist, translator, partisan, judge and executioner:
"Do you ever feel that there's a woman somewhere at the centre of things, a goddess?"
Men are trapped in their world of power and aggression. Vollmann represents women as some kind of way out, a pathway to individual authenticity. His design for the novel might even be similar to Shostakovich's perception of his music:
"It's about...how love could have been if the world weren't full of vile things...I sometimes feel that my love for her is the only thing that's genuine about me."
Love and Death
This exploration of love as well as tenderness balances the overwhelming detail about the war in the novel.
However, it also contributes a more nuanced tone to Vollmann's normal subject matter and style.
Of course, Vollmann being Vollmann, he occasionally goes overboard in how he deals with the sexual subject matter.
At times, it just seemed to be gratuitous. For example, I couldn't work out how quite explicit private acts between the protagonists could be related by the voyeuristic agent, Comrade Alexandrov, even though, as far as I could determine, he can't possibly have witnessed them. (I assume he wasn't just sexing up the security files!)
Still, my concerns about this aspect of the writing didn't detract from the substance of the novel, my enjoyment of it or a sense that it deserved both the National Book Award and five stars.
Don't let the war setting or the length of the novel deter you. This is one of the great novels about the twentieth century.
ADDED EXTRAS:
Abandoned Draft First Paragraph
Even then there was something aboutthe nameless Asian girl Ah Kum Elena which rendered her an object of respect obsessive desire. A young girl with jet-black reddish-blonde bangs, it was she who returned his wallet manhood to him. In the hallway of their apartment building, he kissed her cheeks lips nipples. He wanted to tell her that her earlobes breasts were as white and sweet as saccharin Viasma gingerbread. Minutes later, in her bedroom, his manhood love, agony, and strangely erotic pain detonated inside her him. Something came alive in the next room. It was her the squat black mother phone squid octopus. The god of the Signal Corps…
Tischfernsprecher, Schwarzes Bakelitgehäuse
[Apologies to Van Morrison]
William, we were down
On our knees, in the days
Before rock and roll.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2GpE...
Treaty of Versailles
A vindictive peace
Makes for an even worse war
The next time around.
Iron Grip
The dictator of
A state under siege grips it
Like a drowning man.
Soldier with a Camera
One can represent
Us all, just as well as the
Whole contains the one.
Lust in Translation
You mustn't
Desist,
For I insist
That you'll be-
Witched,
By this
Funny
Cunni-
Linguistic
Tryst
Betwixt
Lina and
Elena.
Gender Central
[Vera, Lina, Nina, Elena]
Europe is woman,
Delicious as gingerbread,
Just like Elena.
Zoya
Russia was Zoya.
Between the breasts of Zoya,
It won its freedom.
Post-Modern Self-Assessment by the Author
You besmirch yourself
With ugly behavior, then
Speak beautiful words.
Exegesis
Basic format
Nice example
Of quotation
Followed by an
Explanation
Leading to some
Excitation
And a starry
Incantation
Rounded off with
Annotation
Footnote endnote
Ibid op cit
Und so weiter.
Bill Vollmann Interviewed by Tony Dushane for Bookslut
"You know in 'Europe Central' it’s too easy just to say, 'Oh, the Nazis were terrible, the Stalinists were awful.' And that’s true, but where do you go from there? If you can realize the deeper truth, which is not only that were they terrible, but if I were born in that time and place, I probably would’ve been one. And even if I resisted with all my being, I would still have characteristics of one, no matter what I did."
http://www.bookslut.com/features/2005...
Fanya Kaplán's attempt to assassin Lenin on August 30, 1918 I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIfl1...
Fanny was executed without trial on September 3, 1918.
Fanya Kaplán's attempt to assassin Lenin II
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDpiX...
Created by 1.618 Films at Georgia Institute of Technology in 2007
Fanya Kaplán's attempt to assassin Lenin III
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eiNP...
German anti-war artist Käthe Kollwitz
http://dearkitty1.wordpress.com/2014/...
The Execution of Zoya
Vollmann (or his grubby, voyeuristic amanuensis, Comrade Alexandrov) describes this photo of Zoya after her hanging as "one which presents to us her naked corpse in the snow, her head arched back as if in sexual ecstasy..."
SOUNDTRACK:
Keith Jarrett - "Prelude and Fugue No 7 in A major" (Dmitri Shostakovich)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bE_OeCL...
[An Interpolation Upon an Enquiry by Steven Moore]
Now it’s for sale,
Don’t be deterred.
This thousand-page,
Half-million-word
War effort had
To be contrived
In breath-taking,
Large scale detail,
So it could be
Desired as
A maximal
Unholy grail.
We college grads
And desk-bound males
Now type away
Inside the whale,
So that we can
All adulate
The moral scope
Of Vollmann's tale.
Hence, we honour
Its mighty length,
And shower it
With lavish praise.
A Novel Calculus
"Europe Central" followed closely on the heels of "Rising Up and Rising Down", Vollmann's analysis of the moral calculus of violence.
Part of the non-fiction work applied the calculus to the specific circumstances of several persons of interest.
This novel, assuming that is a correct descriptor, takes real life people/participants and uses them to construct a narrative about real life events, most of which are the most pivotal events of the twentieth century.
It is a huge and hugely ambitious creative and interpretative exercise, if not necessarily or strictly (only) an exercise in fiction.
It has more in common with a documentary re-enactment than most literary fiction. Like a documentary, we might know some or all of the facts, what matters is how the issues are personalised and presented to us:
"I suppose that when one dedicates oneself sincerely enough to anything, one personalises it."
You can think of this novel as a panoramic film in full technicolor.
None of this is intended as a criticism. If there is any meaningful role for Post-Modernism, one would be to blur the distinction between fiction and reality.
Fictionalised History
The historical aspects of the novel are thoroughly researched by Vollmann and his assistants (shades of Andy Warhol?), and therefore presumably reliable, except where he identifies otherwise in the notes and comments, or where he allows himself the freedom of historical or moral judgement.
You don't need to have much or any prior knowledge of the events portrayed in the novel to appreciate their significance or the writing.
Vollmann places us in the heart of the relevant action. All we have to respect is the importance of these events in world history. If there ever comes a time when their primacy fades, may the gods help civilisation on earth.
That said, in the fictional aspects of the reconstruction, Vollmann can't help but inject a few of his own preoccupations (against the historical evidence), and it is here that the novel is weakest and occasionally most gratuitous, but more of that later. It is a relatively minor personal gripe, and one that didn't ultimately detract from my enjoyment of the novel.
Doppelgänger States (Non-Fraternal, Non-Identical Twins)
The narrative structure of "Europe Central" explores a parallelism between World War II Germany and the Soviet Union.
Pretty soon, you realise that there is little difference in the social and personal dynamics in each nation, despite their vastly different socio-political systems.
Ultimately, they are both "well-ordered zones". Centralised power works the same way everywhere. (Vollmann recognises that this point has already been made by Vassily Grossman in his novel, "Life and Fate".)
Hitler/Stalin wield absolute power, with limited input by those around them. Nobody is prepared to question or contradict them, for fear of reprisal, and reprisal means death.
In the case of Germany:
"Fate has sent Germany a great genius: Adolf Hitler. We must obey his will."
In the case of Stalin:
"It's not enough to love Soviet power. Soviet power must also love you."
Hitler/Stalin take ultimate responsibility for everything. Vision, strategy, tactics, execution. Especially execution.
Gargantuan and Panzercruel Struggle
Once Hitler revoked the Non-Aggression Pact in June, 1941, Germany and the Soviet Union were destined to fight to the death, if not with the assistance of allies, then alone.
The success of one state and political system would inevitably mean the extinguishment of the other.
Germany had conquered most of continental Europe. Britain was under attack. The United States had not entered the war.
Churchill was reluctant to start a new western front on the continent, forcing Stalin to fight off Hitler without support.
If Germany had prevailed, it would have meant the end of Communism.
However, if the Soviet Union could prevail, it would mean the end of Fascism.
The Anglo-American nations thought they could sit back and wait for the result.
Capitalism Tries to Crash the Party
Only when Stalin got the upper hand at Stalingrad and started the march to Berlin did the Allies realise that they would lose Europe to Soviet Communism, if they didn't initiate Operation Overlord at Normandy:
"[The Soviets] have a Motherland and [the Germans] have a Fatherland. Their child is Europe Central."
Communism in Europe would have meant the loss of a market for Anglo-American goods and services on the continent. Normandy occurred only when it became necessary to protect capitalist interests.
Thus, Normandy wasn't primarily one part of a two-pronged attack on Germany, but a preemptive attempt to avoid the global revolution that might have resulted from the successful self-defence of the Soviet Union.
Firelit Rapture
Vollmann personalises the moral issues by focussing on the lives and dilemmas of a number of key players on both sides of the ideological divide.
Ironically, both Fascism and Communism purported to usher in a new cultural era, one which, in the words of Heidegger, would require the old to be burned in order to make way for the new. The Volk, the People, the Proletariat looked on in "firelit rapture".
Vollmann explains the moral purpose of the novel in terms of parable:
"These stories are not as rigorously grounded in historical fact as my 'Seven Dreams' books. Rather, the goal here was to write a series of parables about famous, infamous and anonymous European moral actors at moments of decision."
Some of the protagonists are military, others are creative (musicians, sculptors, poets and translators).
Under both ideologies, individual freedom is compromised, ostensibly in the interests of the collective. This might be understandable in the context of the war effort or attempts to defend against a civil war or rebuff a counter-revolution. However, arguably, it would not be tolerable in a modern western pluralistic democracy during a time of peace.
Answering the Call
Vollmann uses the black-cabled tentacles of the cephalopodic telephone network not just as a vehicle for communication, but as a symbol of the centralisation of political culture and the enforcement of social conformity.
Totalitarianism emphasises collective duty at the expense of personal liberty. Vollmann speculates that people start to content themselves with the role of servant rather than aspiring to be their own master:
"To regard the fulfillment of duty rather than personal responsibility as the highest virtue, indicates a primal need for yielding oneself up."
In the armed forces, there are command structures that ensure that obedience to authority occurs (subject now to the rejection of the Nuremberg defence). Civilians are safe as long as they keep their head down and don't transgress.
However, intellectuals and artists are the most problematical. They tend to be individualistic and non-conformist.
Vollmann shows us two cultures and contexts in which individualists must bow to the collective, or face dire consequences. Thus, we see Socialist Realism being imposed in the Soviet Union, while in Germany, we see the Nazis attacking Degenerate Art. At least in wartime, outliers are pulled back into the herd. Those who won't or don't comply are ostracised, abandoned, exiled and/or liquidated.
Shostakovich's Threat to Cultural Harmony
Representative of the creative dilemma is the composer Shostakovich. In the absence of words, you would think that music would be harder to judge in terms of ideological conformity. However, Shostakovich's formal innovation sees him described as a selfish and anti-democratic individualist, a free spirit, a formalist, a revisionist, a right-wing deviationist:
"This gets to the root of what makes intellectuals dangerous. We use them to add newness to life, which is what keeps it bearable, but newness shouldn't mutate into utter alienation..."
Despite his popularity with the public, Shostakovich becomes alienated from authority. He fails to toe the Party line. He is seen as preoccupied with the "expression of self". His compositions are out of harmony with the remainder of the Party-credentialled fraternity. His works are doubly dissonant and disharmonious.
Whistle Blower to the Holocaust
One of the German parallels to Shostakovich is the SS officer Kurt Gerstein, a technician who leaks to the Church and the Swiss Consul evidence of the methods of the Holocaust that he is partly responsible for administering.
It's not disclosed just how much reliable intelligence the West acquired about the Holocaust before the end of the War.
Whatever, the West took no credible action. Gerstein's whistle-blowing attempts weren't appreciated and, tragically for him, did not avoid the death penalty being imposed on him by the Allies.
Imaginary Love Triangles
Perhaps Vollmann's greatest creative contribution to the historical narrative is his extrapolation of the sex lives of several of the protagonists.
In most cases, he acknowledges that his speculation is pure fiction. Indeed, he posits that the key emotional and sexual relationship between Shostakovich and Elena continued throughout the rest of their lives, notwithstanding common ground that it lasted only for a short period relatively early in their lives.
Despite the amount of space devoted to Shostakovich, I think Elena is the pre-eminent character of the novel. In many ways, "Europe Central" is the story of a woman, if not the women of Europe.
Europa ist Elena überhaupt. She is one third of two separate love triangles, one a heterosexual relationship with two males and, the other, a lesbian relationship with two women.
Vollmann's women occupy numerous roles: they oscillate between Joan of Arc, virgin, whore, artist, activist, translator, partisan, judge and executioner:
"Do you ever feel that there's a woman somewhere at the centre of things, a goddess?"
Men are trapped in their world of power and aggression. Vollmann represents women as some kind of way out, a pathway to individual authenticity. His design for the novel might even be similar to Shostakovich's perception of his music:
"It's about...how love could have been if the world weren't full of vile things...I sometimes feel that my love for her is the only thing that's genuine about me."
Love and Death
This exploration of love as well as tenderness balances the overwhelming detail about the war in the novel.
However, it also contributes a more nuanced tone to Vollmann's normal subject matter and style.
Of course, Vollmann being Vollmann, he occasionally goes overboard in how he deals with the sexual subject matter.
At times, it just seemed to be gratuitous. For example, I couldn't work out how quite explicit private acts between the protagonists could be related by the voyeuristic agent, Comrade Alexandrov, even though, as far as I could determine, he can't possibly have witnessed them. (I assume he wasn't just sexing up the security files!)
Still, my concerns about this aspect of the writing didn't detract from the substance of the novel, my enjoyment of it or a sense that it deserved both the National Book Award and five stars.
Don't let the war setting or the length of the novel deter you. This is one of the great novels about the twentieth century.
ADDED EXTRAS:
Abandoned Draft First Paragraph
Even then there was something about
Tischfernsprecher, Schwarzes Bakelitgehäuse
[Apologies to Van Morrison]
William, we were down
On our knees, in the days
Before rock and roll.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2GpE...
Treaty of Versailles
A vindictive peace
Makes for an even worse war
The next time around.
Iron Grip
The dictator of
A state under siege grips it
Like a drowning man.
Soldier with a Camera
One can represent
Us all, just as well as the
Whole contains the one.
Lust in Translation
You mustn't
Desist,
For I insist
That you'll be-
Witched,
By this
Funny
Cunni-
Linguistic
Tryst
Betwixt
Lina and
Elena.
Gender Central
[Vera, Lina, Nina, Elena]
Europe is woman,
Delicious as gingerbread,
Just like Elena.
Zoya
Russia was Zoya.
Between the breasts of Zoya,
It won its freedom.
Post-Modern Self-Assessment by the Author
You besmirch yourself
With ugly behavior, then
Speak beautiful words.
Exegesis
Basic format
Nice example
Of quotation
Followed by an
Explanation
Leading to some
Excitation
And a starry
Incantation
Rounded off with
Annotation
Footnote endnote
Ibid op cit
Und so weiter.
Bill Vollmann Interviewed by Tony Dushane for Bookslut
"You know in 'Europe Central' it’s too easy just to say, 'Oh, the Nazis were terrible, the Stalinists were awful.' And that’s true, but where do you go from there? If you can realize the deeper truth, which is not only that were they terrible, but if I were born in that time and place, I probably would’ve been one. And even if I resisted with all my being, I would still have characteristics of one, no matter what I did."
http://www.bookslut.com/features/2005...
Fanya Kaplán's attempt to assassin Lenin on August 30, 1918 I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIfl1...
Fanny was executed without trial on September 3, 1918.
Fanya Kaplán's attempt to assassin Lenin II
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDpiX...
Created by 1.618 Films at Georgia Institute of Technology in 2007
Fanya Kaplán's attempt to assassin Lenin III
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eiNP...
German anti-war artist Käthe Kollwitz
http://dearkitty1.wordpress.com/2014/...
The Execution of Zoya
Vollmann (or his grubby, voyeuristic amanuensis, Comrade Alexandrov) describes this photo of Zoya after her hanging as "one which presents to us her naked corpse in the snow, her head arched back as if in sexual ecstasy..."
SOUNDTRACK:
Keith Jarrett - "Prelude and Fugue No 7 in A major" (Dmitri Shostakovich)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bE_OeCL...
September 17, 2014
4.5/5
If you have no interest at all in learning massive amounts about World War II, this book is not for you. As a matter of fact, if you are not in the mood for facts and quotations and references galore packaged in a semi short story fashion, refer to the previous statement. However, if you are alright with that sort of thing, you are in for a treat.
I will admit, I panicked a little bit once I realized how jam packed this book is with historical trivia. As if that wasn't intimidating enough, the writing loves its metaphors and imagery, and often descends into extended fantastical meanderings. Lots of eagles and octupuses and letters formed in physical settings. It was definitely overwhelming at the beginning, and contributed to the lengthy amount of time I took to finish the book.
What helped me get my bearings and start to enjoy the book was the decision to interpret the phantasmagoric quality to the writing as the author's effort to convey just how crazy this time was. I have no idea if that's what the author intended, but it seemed to work. In fact, a prime example of this is the map insert at the beginning, which consists of an outline of Europe covered in names of military operations, as well as nearly nonsensical warlike doodles. The further you get in the book, the more ridiculously brutal the events become, especially during the parts concerning Shostakovich. He of all the characters most clearly comprehends the menace that surrounds everyone, but more importantly he understands that despite objections to the contrary, none of it makes any sense. And it never will.
Throughout the book, there are a number of characters whose morals are challenged, who are forced into compromising situations and decisions by the murderous chaos surrounding them. Some of them, like the Berlin sleepwalker, are thought by many to have a hand in the chaos, but they are in truth just as trapped by historical events as the rest of them. The only difference is their position, and how willing they are to disengage from reality in order to do what needs to be done. If this doesn't makes sense, to those who wish to know, the sleepwalker is . And as previously mentioned, there is little to no rhyme or reason to why these people need to go through these trials. It just is.
Personally, I found the learning experience amazing, as I had known nothing about the SS officer who had persistently worked against the machinations of the concentration camps, or that there was a female lawyer known as the 'Red Guillotine' who condemned many to death in the name of the workers of the USSR. Generals switch from Russia to Germany and back again, and the fighters below them march on into oblivion. And of course there was the monumental focus on Shostakovich, whose romantic obsession may not have been nearly as strong as the book made it out to be, but whose experiences under Stalin and the Soviet Republic can't be denied.
Not only was the author thorough in writing all these people in, he also had a real talent at conveying that deep feeling of resignation of wartime; it's the one that sinks deep into the bones and leaves one viewing flowers in the snow and corpses in the street as one and the same. A brilliant example of this is the Shostakovich's Opus 110, which is described as containing the screams of women and the moans of rockets, along with a whole host of other unearthly cries and shrieks that only war and its sufferings can bring to life.
Now that I've finished the book, I'm strongly reminded of The Kindly Ones; both are stories that use unconventional descriptive prose to talk about morally objectionable and unimaginably violent subjects. In fact, people who had trouble with getting past the brutal parts in The Kindly Ones may have better luck with this book, although as previously mentioned, there are gigantic amounts of historical references. Again, if that's your sort of thing, go for it. You won't be disappointed.
PS: There was very little mention of the US, and what little there was was coupled with either contempt or hatred. Somewhat refreshing in an odd sense.
If you have no interest at all in learning massive amounts about World War II, this book is not for you. As a matter of fact, if you are not in the mood for facts and quotations and references galore packaged in a semi short story fashion, refer to the previous statement. However, if you are alright with that sort of thing, you are in for a treat.
I will admit, I panicked a little bit once I realized how jam packed this book is with historical trivia. As if that wasn't intimidating enough, the writing loves its metaphors and imagery, and often descends into extended fantastical meanderings. Lots of eagles and octupuses and letters formed in physical settings. It was definitely overwhelming at the beginning, and contributed to the lengthy amount of time I took to finish the book.
What helped me get my bearings and start to enjoy the book was the decision to interpret the phantasmagoric quality to the writing as the author's effort to convey just how crazy this time was. I have no idea if that's what the author intended, but it seemed to work. In fact, a prime example of this is the map insert at the beginning, which consists of an outline of Europe covered in names of military operations, as well as nearly nonsensical warlike doodles. The further you get in the book, the more ridiculously brutal the events become, especially during the parts concerning Shostakovich. He of all the characters most clearly comprehends the menace that surrounds everyone, but more importantly he understands that despite objections to the contrary, none of it makes any sense. And it never will.
Throughout the book, there are a number of characters whose morals are challenged, who are forced into compromising situations and decisions by the murderous chaos surrounding them. Some of them, like the Berlin sleepwalker, are thought by many to have a hand in the chaos, but they are in truth just as trapped by historical events as the rest of them. The only difference is their position, and how willing they are to disengage from reality in order to do what needs to be done. If this doesn't makes sense, to those who wish to know, the sleepwalker is . And as previously mentioned, there is little to no rhyme or reason to why these people need to go through these trials. It just is.
Personally, I found the learning experience amazing, as I had known nothing about the SS officer who had persistently worked against the machinations of the concentration camps, or that there was a female lawyer known as the 'Red Guillotine' who condemned many to death in the name of the workers of the USSR. Generals switch from Russia to Germany and back again, and the fighters below them march on into oblivion. And of course there was the monumental focus on Shostakovich, whose romantic obsession may not have been nearly as strong as the book made it out to be, but whose experiences under Stalin and the Soviet Republic can't be denied.
Not only was the author thorough in writing all these people in, he also had a real talent at conveying that deep feeling of resignation of wartime; it's the one that sinks deep into the bones and leaves one viewing flowers in the snow and corpses in the street as one and the same. A brilliant example of this is the Shostakovich's Opus 110, which is described as containing the screams of women and the moans of rockets, along with a whole host of other unearthly cries and shrieks that only war and its sufferings can bring to life.
Now that I've finished the book, I'm strongly reminded of The Kindly Ones; both are stories that use unconventional descriptive prose to talk about morally objectionable and unimaginably violent subjects. In fact, people who had trouble with getting past the brutal parts in The Kindly Ones may have better luck with this book, although as previously mentioned, there are gigantic amounts of historical references. Again, if that's your sort of thing, go for it. You won't be disappointed.
PS: There was very little mention of the US, and what little there was was coupled with either contempt or hatred. Somewhat refreshing in an odd sense.
February 6, 2017
This is a rewarding read about the conflict between the regimes of Hitler and Stalin over the fate of Europe in World War 2 told from the perspective of a broad set of emblematic characters. As pointed out in the excellent review by Ian, Vollmann carries over in this novel his deep concerns with the moral calculus behind violence as explored in his non-fiction work preceding this, “Rising Up and Rising Down.” The central characters and their major concerns include:
--Dmitri Shastakovich, a Russian classical composer who struggles with freedom of expression under the repressive Soviet regime, is inspired by an abiding love for a mistress he had in the mid-30s (Elena, whose incursion on their marriage wife Nina tolerated for the greater good), and wavers between producing “program” music to please Stalin’s enforcers (such as his Seventh Symphony’s representation of the defeat of the Fascist armies at the Siege of Leningrad) and the more abstract pieces that capture for him the angst and suffering of life in these times which tend to get denounced for decadent formalism.
Like the poet Akhmatova, who also was at the Siege of Leningrad, Shastakovich was credited with inspiring the hope and resilience of the city and the world beyond to resist the onslaught of the Fascist war machine
--Roman Karmen, a photojournalist and creator of film documentaries used for Soviet propaganda, who, despite being a loyal Communist Party member , is brave, energetic, and cheerful about life; although he was married to Dmitri’s love Elena for a period, he works well with Dmitri on some film projects.
This "soldier with a camera" went to the most dangerous battles to document the war with the Nazis and loved capturing the common people in documentaries before and after the war; first to film the liberation of a concentration camp
--Kathe Kollwitz, a German socialist artist who lost much of her family in World War 1 and achieved admiration for her portraits of ravaged or starving women and children both in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Kollwitz drawing from 1934, "Death Seizing a Woman"
Kollwitz self-portrait
--Andrei Vlasov, one of the key commanding generals for Soviet forces at the successful defense of Moscow in 1941, but after being imprisoned by the Germans after the defeat of his forces in the attempt to break the Siege of Leningrad in Spring 1942, he collaborated with Nazi efforts to create an anti-Bolshevik revolt within the Red Army; eventually executed by the Soviets after the war for treason
--Friedrich Paulus, a German general in command of the Sixth Army at the Siege of Stalingrad in 1942-43 whose Axis forces of Wehrmacht and Romanian solders were ordered by Hitler to fight to the last man; they sustained losses of about 250,000 before the remaining 90,000 soldiers and volunteers were captured, most of which dies in Siberian labor camps; Paulus was named Field Marshal on the day of his capture as a reward for his expected suicide, but his Catholicism forbade that and he lived on, eventually supporting an anti-Fascist group among imprisoned German officers and testifying against key Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials.
An emaciated General Paulus trying to maintain dignity at the time of capture at Stalingrad, the turning point toward defeat of Nazi Germany; the 5-month battle led to 1.1 million casualties for the Soviets and about 800,000 for the Axis forces
--Kurt Gerstein, a junior SS officer and assistant to Eichmann’s implementation officer for the Final Solution who worked as a liaison to deliver and monitor effectiveness of prussic acid and Zyklon B poisons at the Jewish death camps; as one who suffered at the extermination of a sister-in-law as a mentally defective and a Christian, he mentally assumed the role as a “spy for God”, seeing himself as keeping his hand clean while collecting evidence of the evil plan, but he failed to get various ministers or foreign consuls to convey that knowledge effectively to significant powers.
--Hilde Benjamin (aka the “Red Guillotine”), a judge in East Germany after the war who pronounced the death sentence on many a political prisoner charged as an enemy of the proletarian communist cause; her vengeful attitude reflected her persecution as a German socialist during the war and the death of her Jewish husband in prison.
You can see from this range of characters how much the scope and moral dimensions of the war could be covered from a narrative of their actions and personal lives. The challenge, and the exhilaration, of reading their stories comes from the radical modes of presentation used by Vollmann. He bounces in and out of viewpoints, sometimes slipping between first and third person from the subject’s mind, between first person present or past tense from an anonymous observer or friend, and periodically coming out of the page to either an anonymous omniscient frame or as Vollmann himself. Some sections are fairly linear in time, but often there is foreshadowing and fracturing of the temporal sequencing. In a few sections, there is hallucinatory drift as the many metaphors take over. In one section, the whole war is compressed in mind of Hitler (whom he calls the sleepwalker throughout), who perceives the history of the Third Reich as fulfilling the German myths portrayed in Wagner’s Ring Cycle operas. In a section on the Battle of Kurst, the largest tank battle in history, we get a cartoon-like presentation of a telephone communications soldier riding on and on as all of his friends with the Panzers are lost step by step until it is just him and an old one-legged mystical volunteer are left advancing undaunted on foot with no ammunition.
Vollmann characterizes what he is writing as parables, not as any attempt at reconstructing actual events. He gives plenty of references to most events in the book, but in the case of the idealized, lasting love between Dmitri and Elena, he admits to complete fabrication. He saw Europe as a woman (Europa in myth), and Elena as an emblem for her. He oddly portrayed her as bisexual, which in a coda at the end of the book he justified as an attempt to make her universally beloved. He acknowledges the wonderful novel “Life and Fate” by Vasily Grossman for most effectively demonstrating the “moral equation of Stalinism and Hitlerism,” claiming the concept to be his starting point.
An elusive theme in the book concerns the role of the telephone in shaping the modern mentality and facilitating the extension of totalitarian control. Characters like Shastakovich are continually paranoid over state police listening on the line. The course of action of whole armies can be changed with an order from Hitler or Stalin’s headquarters. Words and letters also often played with for special significance. For example, the German word for secret, Gehern, frequently will suddenly obscure written speech. After an early section of the book where Lenin’s wife draws out the radical Jewish woman who inflicted a wound which will eventually kill her husband, Vollman accounts for bringing perspectives of the mystical Kabbalah into his writing as follows:
And if this story crawls with reactionary supernaturalism, that might be because the author longs to set letters swelling across ceilings, cautiously beginning to reify themselves into angels. For if they could do that, why not us?
By far the largest set of metaphors employed throughout this book are musical in nature. Shostakovich tried to capture the horrors of war and repression as well as the redemption and hope of love in his compositions. Thus, whenever we as readers are treated to his stream-of-consciousness, any sound or rhythm from the world are constantly being transmuted into scoring of notes and instruments in a particular key or tempo, whether the moans or movements of lovemaking, the knock of the secret police at the door, the scream of the tortured or bludgeoned, or the clank of a tank or blasts of an antiaircraft gun. But in other sections, the characters experiencing such sounds often are reminded of musical forms too, in many cases because they all have heard his transmutations or that of Wagner; alternatively, Vollmann intervenes to say Shastokovich will use the sound in his future work. And most often the piece that is projected to capture the whole epoch is his Opus 110 (String Quartet # 8), completed in 1960. Somehow he believed he could counter the evil in the world with his music. I have to admit I am a musical ignoramus, and I can only feel a glimmer of what is supposed to be distilled there when I listen to it on YouTube.
Vollmann’s prime hero here gets the foreground towards the end of the novel. He is often accused of self-indulgent excess (the only one I read, “The Dying Grass”, about the U.S. Army’s chase of Nez Perce Chief Joseph, was 1,200 pages long). However, despite my deficient musical perception, I loved the compression of the book’s themes and the whole cataclysm of the war into his imagined construction of his Opus 110 by the composer. Here are some samples:
At this point the music …expands and expands, breaking out of Leningrad’s concentric rings of death, …but there is neither joy in it or even escape; it expands like an ascending aerial view of Dresden’s roofless windowlessness and immense fishbones, half-untoothed combs, upon blinding white rubble-gravel, window-holed brickfronts shattered into runes and swastikas. …
And whenever there’s any beauty at all in Opus 110, it’s dismembered; it drips with death like shitty guts hanging out of a woman’s marble-white torso (this perish all enemies of Hitler and Stalin’s power). And death oozes out of the silences between notes, too, the silences ofsecret Nazi documents (Geheim), the eight-beat rest which hung between himself and Maxim when the boy confessed to having denounced him at school …Some notes of Opus 110 get coffined up in chords, while others, solo, coffinless, become Leningraders falling one by one into the snow to die.
As for the rhythm, if you’ve ever been present when our Blackshirts in Berlin or their NKVD cadres in Leningrad are beating enemies of the people, you’ll know how it is, the screams alternating with gasps. What’s that sound? That’s the allegro molto.
…And Shostakovich, entering the negative spaces beneath the piano’s black keys at last, extends his front line beyond music into a perfect hell where his life, dekulakization and Operation Barbarossa become one.
Even more for the hungry mind tucked in here:
Most of my readings about World War 2 deal with the events in Western Europe and the Pacific. My mind was resistant to dwelling among the lives of avatars of the Nazi and Soviet regimes. This tour from the perspective of figures caught up in war in Central and Eastern Europe helped me see how many were struggling to act with honor and survive through compromise with their moral calculus. Only the “Red Guillotine” character among the personalities of focus felt truly despicable. I think we all crave a framework like Vollmann brilliantly creates to hold this pinnacle of suffering of the 20th century in our souls without judging the human species as unworthy of existing.
--Dmitri Shastakovich, a Russian classical composer who struggles with freedom of expression under the repressive Soviet regime, is inspired by an abiding love for a mistress he had in the mid-30s (Elena, whose incursion on their marriage wife Nina tolerated for the greater good), and wavers between producing “program” music to please Stalin’s enforcers (such as his Seventh Symphony’s representation of the defeat of the Fascist armies at the Siege of Leningrad) and the more abstract pieces that capture for him the angst and suffering of life in these times which tend to get denounced for decadent formalism.
Like the poet Akhmatova, who also was at the Siege of Leningrad, Shastakovich was credited with inspiring the hope and resilience of the city and the world beyond to resist the onslaught of the Fascist war machine
--Roman Karmen, a photojournalist and creator of film documentaries used for Soviet propaganda, who, despite being a loyal Communist Party member , is brave, energetic, and cheerful about life; although he was married to Dmitri’s love Elena for a period, he works well with Dmitri on some film projects.
This "soldier with a camera" went to the most dangerous battles to document the war with the Nazis and loved capturing the common people in documentaries before and after the war; first to film the liberation of a concentration camp
--Kathe Kollwitz, a German socialist artist who lost much of her family in World War 1 and achieved admiration for her portraits of ravaged or starving women and children both in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Kollwitz drawing from 1934, "Death Seizing a Woman"
Kollwitz self-portrait
--Andrei Vlasov, one of the key commanding generals for Soviet forces at the successful defense of Moscow in 1941, but after being imprisoned by the Germans after the defeat of his forces in the attempt to break the Siege of Leningrad in Spring 1942, he collaborated with Nazi efforts to create an anti-Bolshevik revolt within the Red Army; eventually executed by the Soviets after the war for treason
--Friedrich Paulus, a German general in command of the Sixth Army at the Siege of Stalingrad in 1942-43 whose Axis forces of Wehrmacht and Romanian solders were ordered by Hitler to fight to the last man; they sustained losses of about 250,000 before the remaining 90,000 soldiers and volunteers were captured, most of which dies in Siberian labor camps; Paulus was named Field Marshal on the day of his capture as a reward for his expected suicide, but his Catholicism forbade that and he lived on, eventually supporting an anti-Fascist group among imprisoned German officers and testifying against key Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials.
An emaciated General Paulus trying to maintain dignity at the time of capture at Stalingrad, the turning point toward defeat of Nazi Germany; the 5-month battle led to 1.1 million casualties for the Soviets and about 800,000 for the Axis forces
--Kurt Gerstein, a junior SS officer and assistant to Eichmann’s implementation officer for the Final Solution who worked as a liaison to deliver and monitor effectiveness of prussic acid and Zyklon B poisons at the Jewish death camps; as one who suffered at the extermination of a sister-in-law as a mentally defective and a Christian, he mentally assumed the role as a “spy for God”, seeing himself as keeping his hand clean while collecting evidence of the evil plan, but he failed to get various ministers or foreign consuls to convey that knowledge effectively to significant powers.
--Hilde Benjamin (aka the “Red Guillotine”), a judge in East Germany after the war who pronounced the death sentence on many a political prisoner charged as an enemy of the proletarian communist cause; her vengeful attitude reflected her persecution as a German socialist during the war and the death of her Jewish husband in prison.
You can see from this range of characters how much the scope and moral dimensions of the war could be covered from a narrative of their actions and personal lives. The challenge, and the exhilaration, of reading their stories comes from the radical modes of presentation used by Vollmann. He bounces in and out of viewpoints, sometimes slipping between first and third person from the subject’s mind, between first person present or past tense from an anonymous observer or friend, and periodically coming out of the page to either an anonymous omniscient frame or as Vollmann himself. Some sections are fairly linear in time, but often there is foreshadowing and fracturing of the temporal sequencing. In a few sections, there is hallucinatory drift as the many metaphors take over. In one section, the whole war is compressed in mind of Hitler (whom he calls the sleepwalker throughout), who perceives the history of the Third Reich as fulfilling the German myths portrayed in Wagner’s Ring Cycle operas. In a section on the Battle of Kurst, the largest tank battle in history, we get a cartoon-like presentation of a telephone communications soldier riding on and on as all of his friends with the Panzers are lost step by step until it is just him and an old one-legged mystical volunteer are left advancing undaunted on foot with no ammunition.
Vollmann characterizes what he is writing as parables, not as any attempt at reconstructing actual events. He gives plenty of references to most events in the book, but in the case of the idealized, lasting love between Dmitri and Elena, he admits to complete fabrication. He saw Europe as a woman (Europa in myth), and Elena as an emblem for her. He oddly portrayed her as bisexual, which in a coda at the end of the book he justified as an attempt to make her universally beloved. He acknowledges the wonderful novel “Life and Fate” by Vasily Grossman for most effectively demonstrating the “moral equation of Stalinism and Hitlerism,” claiming the concept to be his starting point.
An elusive theme in the book concerns the role of the telephone in shaping the modern mentality and facilitating the extension of totalitarian control. Characters like Shastakovich are continually paranoid over state police listening on the line. The course of action of whole armies can be changed with an order from Hitler or Stalin’s headquarters. Words and letters also often played with for special significance. For example, the German word for secret, Gehern, frequently will suddenly obscure written speech. After an early section of the book where Lenin’s wife draws out the radical Jewish woman who inflicted a wound which will eventually kill her husband, Vollman accounts for bringing perspectives of the mystical Kabbalah into his writing as follows:
And if this story crawls with reactionary supernaturalism, that might be because the author longs to set letters swelling across ceilings, cautiously beginning to reify themselves into angels. For if they could do that, why not us?
By far the largest set of metaphors employed throughout this book are musical in nature. Shostakovich tried to capture the horrors of war and repression as well as the redemption and hope of love in his compositions. Thus, whenever we as readers are treated to his stream-of-consciousness, any sound or rhythm from the world are constantly being transmuted into scoring of notes and instruments in a particular key or tempo, whether the moans or movements of lovemaking, the knock of the secret police at the door, the scream of the tortured or bludgeoned, or the clank of a tank or blasts of an antiaircraft gun. But in other sections, the characters experiencing such sounds often are reminded of musical forms too, in many cases because they all have heard his transmutations or that of Wagner; alternatively, Vollmann intervenes to say Shastokovich will use the sound in his future work. And most often the piece that is projected to capture the whole epoch is his Opus 110 (String Quartet # 8), completed in 1960. Somehow he believed he could counter the evil in the world with his music. I have to admit I am a musical ignoramus, and I can only feel a glimmer of what is supposed to be distilled there when I listen to it on YouTube.
Vollmann’s prime hero here gets the foreground towards the end of the novel. He is often accused of self-indulgent excess (the only one I read, “The Dying Grass”, about the U.S. Army’s chase of Nez Perce Chief Joseph, was 1,200 pages long). However, despite my deficient musical perception, I loved the compression of the book’s themes and the whole cataclysm of the war into his imagined construction of his Opus 110 by the composer. Here are some samples:
At this point the music …expands and expands, breaking out of Leningrad’s concentric rings of death, …but there is neither joy in it or even escape; it expands like an ascending aerial view of Dresden’s roofless windowlessness and immense fishbones, half-untoothed combs, upon blinding white rubble-gravel, window-holed brickfronts shattered into runes and swastikas. …
And whenever there’s any beauty at all in Opus 110, it’s dismembered; it drips with death like shitty guts hanging out of a woman’s marble-white torso (this perish all enemies of Hitler and Stalin’s power). And death oozes out of the silences between notes, too, the silences ofsecret Nazi documents (Geheim), the eight-beat rest which hung between himself and Maxim when the boy confessed to having denounced him at school …Some notes of Opus 110 get coffined up in chords, while others, solo, coffinless, become Leningraders falling one by one into the snow to die.
As for the rhythm, if you’ve ever been present when our Blackshirts in Berlin or their NKVD cadres in Leningrad are beating enemies of the people, you’ll know how it is, the screams alternating with gasps. What’s that sound? That’s the allegro molto.
…And Shostakovich, entering the negative spaces beneath the piano’s black keys at last, extends his front line beyond music into a perfect hell where his life, dekulakization and Operation Barbarossa become one.
Even more for the hungry mind tucked in here:
Most of my readings about World War 2 deal with the events in Western Europe and the Pacific. My mind was resistant to dwelling among the lives of avatars of the Nazi and Soviet regimes. This tour from the perspective of figures caught up in war in Central and Eastern Europe helped me see how many were struggling to act with honor and survive through compromise with their moral calculus. Only the “Red Guillotine” character among the personalities of focus felt truly despicable. I think we all crave a framework like Vollmann brilliantly creates to hold this pinnacle of suffering of the 20th century in our souls without judging the human species as unworthy of existing.
December 2, 2015
Recommended for: Vollmanniacs, music & history lovers.
" The majority of my symphonies are tombstones."
D. D. Shostakovich
Europe Central is Vollmann's imaginative take on 20th century's twin evils of Stalinism & Nazism as witnessed during the horrific years of the second world war. A book that wraps itself in Kabbalah mysticism, Germanic myths & legends; is not your 'typical' history book – for starters, you don't get to hate Hitler!
Most people will stop reading after the chapter Opus 40, wondering, is this about the war or musical themes! Brace yourself, there's also full dissection of Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony & it all makes thematic sense cause this is a book where war sometimes is presented in musical terms & music in martial ones – Hitler after all, presents himself as a Wagnerian hero & the final evocation of Opus 110 brings into sharp focus, perhaps the main thesis, that in a repressive, brutal, totalitarian regime; Art maybe shaped & defined by the circumstances but ultimately great art transcends it & thus, while dictators like Stalin & Hitler, have rightly been consigned to the dustbins of history, Shostakovich's music lives on!
Europe Central will give readers a new understanding into this genius composer's work & to me that's the single, biggest achievement of this book.
The narrative gives broad brush strokes of general state of affairs in both USSR & Germany & then zooms in on key personages to highlight those concerns — so you get German Jewish artist Käthe Kollwitz whose work is exploited by the communists for propaganda purpose, poetess Anna Akhmatova: "...an aloof mannequin. That was how we liked her! Unfortunately, her presence electrified any crowd. To me, this proves that we hadn't been sufficiently strict with her. An aloof mannequin she might have been, as still as water under ice, but our task was to freeze her solid, in this we never succeeded: after all, Akhmatova was the poet of "Requiem" ...which I'm sorry to say I've heard on the lips of students, prisoners, prostitutes, peasants and kerchiefed factory women," and of course Shostakovich, whom the Soviet State willy-nilly made toe the official line but whose work remained subversive for those who had "the ears to hear it!".
Think of the condition of dissidents in China & the situation in Syria & you'll get a faint idea of what life under Soviet communism and German fascism could be like! Almost makes one grateful for democracy!
There's a wealth of war trivia & details to warm the heart of any student of military science but what's remarkable is the presentation of it — juxtaposes the war narratives of both sides & lets the readers see how similar General Vlasov & Field Marshal Paulus' moral predicaments are — their ill-clad, ill-equipped, starving men dying because their megalomaniac leaders won't allow a retreat!
"In olden times, wars were waged by heroes who admired one another but found themselves forced by fate or blood revenge to do each other harm. In our time, we fought for hateful ogres against other ogres equally hateful. From a practical point of view, can't it be argued that nothing has changed?"
Balance Stalin's 'Great Purge,' the 'Red Terror,' his Siberian retreats called the 'Gulags,' his NKVD orchestrated sudden 'disappearance' of members of intelligentsia in Black Marias, the mass graves, Collectivization – against Hitler's sleepwalking an entire generation of Germans into the abyss of madness, the 'Final Solution'— and it's hard to say who's the bigger monster – the writer rightly lets History judge them.*
As he says in his bookslut interview** : "You know in Europe Central it’s too easy just to say, "Oh, the Nazis were terrible, the Stalinists were awful." And that’s true, but where do you go from there? If you can realize the deeper truth, which is not only that were they terrible but if I were born in that time and place, I probably would’ve been one. And even if I resisted with all my being, I would still have characteristics of one, no matter what I did.(...) So if you were born in the third Reich, and all you ever heard was that Germany was the greatest and the Jews were very dangerous and poisonous and Slavs were inferior and this and that, maybe you could, if you were really compassionate and brave, throw some of that off. But deep down, you would probably still feel somewhat good about Germany. You know you would still think, oh Germany is a really progressive place and probably the rest of the world is a little primitive. That’s probably the best you could do."
Vollmann's narrative choice here is very interesting — sometimes impressionistic, sometimes surreal, the narratives overlap – the Russian narrator Comrade Alexandrov reminded me of the intelligence guy in Lives of Others (do watch it), but the German narrator was the tricky one - a shape shifter, a myth, a ghost, a Pynchonesque figure (yes there's a rocket!)— the narration altered so seamlessly from one to the other that you don't realize when it turned omniscient & when dear Mr.Vollmann chipped in!
Any book on literary fiction, worth its salt, would tell you to pay attention to what comes in the middle, the heart of a book, so to speak— the Holocaust comes in the middle in EC — but Vollmann doesn't go for your tear ducts, there's no sensationalising or cheapening of this tragedy — a few brutal sentences, here & there, & you get the picture.
This is my first Vollmann. Two of my fav writers— Graham Greene & Joseph Conrad are hugely political but whereas Greene's world weariness is relieved by his humour, Conrad's dominated by his moral vision — I don't remember laughing while reading Europe Central, maybe a chuckle here & there but that's about it — Vollmann is so deadly earnest & he refuses to judge even though EC was written as "a series of parables about famous, infamous and anonymous European moral actors at moments of decision."
Also don't get me started about the 'repetitions' -- after a while, I stopped counting the line "Elena, you're lucky you didn't marry me."! ( Maybe he used it as a leitmotif).Vollmann turned Shostakovich into such a neurotic, that at times I wondered if I was reading about Woody Allen!
The second half of the book runs at breakneck speed covering too much ground – the division of Germany, political reprisals in East Germany, the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall, & ending with the start of the Cold War – it's a huge canvas! Give this book proper time & attention.
If I've to recommend it to someone, I'd ask them to read the five- paged Zoya chapter or the 50 pages Kurt Gerstein one called Clean Hands. In fact, there are so many powerful chapters here – the last two chapters, Lost Victories ( the loser's need for postmortem) & The White Nights of Leningrad ( where Vollmann the artist takes over, it's so visually stunning!), remain in the mind long after the book is closed.
My interest in Vollmann was piqued when I read in an article that he made DFW insecure & that the latter envied his prolific output - Wallace was constrained by his agoraphobia whereas Vollmann has always gone to the source of his inspiration – the Arctic, the druggies, the prostitutes. May the wellspring of his inspiration never run dry!
And now your reward for reading this loooong review:
Feast your eyes on the
Links for Europe Central:
NYT review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/boo...
(**) Bookslut interview:
http://bookslut.com/features/2005_11_...
Empathy for the Devil: More Tender But No Less Ambitious, William T. Vollmann Opens a New Chapter in His Already Prolific Career With Europe Central | Baltimore City Paper:
http://www2.citypaper.com/arts/story....
Featured Author series on NYT: William T. Vollman- The New York Times Book Review
Contains discussion of most of his books: A must read.
http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2004/0...
WTV's profile on NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/06/boo...
( *) "The moral equation of Stalinism with Hitlerism is nothing new. V. Grossman made that best in his novel Life and Fate. Here it's merely a point of departure."
From Vollmann's notes on EC.
June 12, 2014
”All magic spells fail without belief. We enforced belief.”
~~
Europe Central is another monstrous book from Vollmann; monstrous in size, content, language, implications, critique of humanity, world-historical analysis. Let’s get something out of the way at the outset: This book is a masterpiece (horrifying, painfully beautiful, profound); if you’re a writer you wish you could have written this; and no one could have written this book in these early years of the 21st century except Vollmann. In many ways it contains everything Vollmann was working through in his career up to this point: The Seven Dreams are here, Rising Up and Rising Down is here, and most especially, You Bright and Risen Angels is here. (I was going to attempt an abstract that tried to situate EC as the missing second half of YBaRA, but that never came to fruition; it’s not like I’m getting paid for my time here; I’ve got other concerns.) There was a recent discussion with a certain other Vollmanniac about “early”, “middle”, and “late” Vollmann, if distinctions such as these need or could be made at this point, and the conclusion Vollmanniac #1 came to is that everything before The Ice-Shirt is “early” Vollmann, and Imperial signified the beginning of “late” Vollmann- need I say that by definition everything in between would be considered “middle”? Well then, Europe Central, from 2005, can be seen as the node of transition out of “middle” and into “late” Vollmann. This thesis makes itself clear to me in the confidence, knife-edged clarity, control, precision, and (strange to say, in a book this massive and yes, excessive) economy of the language employed to tell the stories told here. Vollmann’s prose in EC is absolutely mastered; not unwieldy, not frivolous; and for all the digressions into surrealistic imagery, impressionism, dreamlandscapes, worlds of the phantasmic dead, sexualized nightmare visions, hypnagogic fire-eaten rubble of war-wasted cities, this book feels absolutely (and appropriately) “composed.”
One of the most interesting questions one should ask about Europe Central is just who is narrating this beast? Comrade Alexandrov? The Stasi? A Dreamer of History? (And who might that be? A Sleepwalker? A Realist?) Shostakovich? Gerstein? Paulus? Vlasov? Hilde Benjamin, who is the Law? Totalitarian Ideology? Time-Unstuck Death, where all souls commingle and whisper? Are we watching one of Roman Karmen’s films? All Of The Above? Reader of this review, I am asking you to help me answer this question...
Modeling its form on Danilo Kiš’s A Tomb For Boris Davidovich (which, if you haven’t read, please to be correcting that oversight posthaste), EC takes the structure of that book (interrelated bursts of prose explicating the gruesome hypocrisies and corrupted reality of life under totalitarianism and war, ranging in length from a few pages to the size of a healthy novella) and, as Vollmann tends to do, maximalizes it, expands that idea into infinity. (Oh! another candidate for narrator of EC: Infinity!) What we have then is a panoptic or panoramic view, episodic and thus epic, internal and external to these people who actually lived, told in and outside of their voices, filtered through a web of fear and ideological distortions (wait! another candidate for narrator: Fear-Warped Space-Time!) rooted in historical event (”These stories are not as rigorously grounded in historical fact as my Seven Dreams books. Rather, the goal here was to write a series of parables about famous, infamous and anonymous European moral actors at moments of decision. Most of the characters in this book are real people. I researched details of their lives as carefully as I could. However, this is a work of fiction. Poetic justice has I hope been rendered, both to them and to their historical situations…”) but ascending in widening gyres (like a V-Rocket!) and flame-blooming into that Greatest Fiction that acts as superstructure to all succeeding fictions: History.
(And thus the enigmatic voice of EC, that shifting, slithering, metamorphosizing, never-static, all-static (dead end of a blown out telephone receiver) hissing demonic overtones, the dopplering voice of time collapsing into itself as it passes…)
Another candidate for narrator of EC: Moral Ambiguity in the Time of Terror!
Or, what does “survival” mean in a wolfhound age? We are shown all of these characters at moments of fatal choice, when their epoch had become a mass murderer, when ethics became a boot stamping on a human face forever, and they were, in various guises, taken before the door of the Law and told “choose or die.” These were days when music became the wavering pitch of a bomb’s descent and the atonal screaming of women and children burning. Years when there was no great distinction between ruins of blood and bone and charred buildings. This was a fairytale time when steel rivers began to creep throughout Europe, Russia, Africa and on eastward, spreading flame and desolation. How did this happen? When might this happen again? And what is it that makes human beings capable not only of composing beautiful books and paintings and symphonies, but also of composing air raids and gas chambers and flamethrowers and panzer divisions and the heaven-sent (weeping strains of the music of the spheres can still be heard) burning of Dresden or Guernica or Stalingrad?
”Dresden is Europe Central, the walled kingdom in the middle of the past! Every day here begins once upon a time.”
The uniting thread of these stories might be: threnody. As sure as Shostakovich’s unkillable heart was hiding in the body of a destroyed piano. Is he dead even today? We can hear the past in shards of music and fading photographs. Europe Central might be an opera, but its stage set is composed of the rubble of the real, and its orchestra is performing interpretations of songs that are best not lost or forgotten among the wreckage of History.
~~
Europe Central is another monstrous book from Vollmann; monstrous in size, content, language, implications, critique of humanity, world-historical analysis. Let’s get something out of the way at the outset: This book is a masterpiece (horrifying, painfully beautiful, profound); if you’re a writer you wish you could have written this; and no one could have written this book in these early years of the 21st century except Vollmann. In many ways it contains everything Vollmann was working through in his career up to this point: The Seven Dreams are here, Rising Up and Rising Down is here, and most especially, You Bright and Risen Angels is here. (I was going to attempt an abstract that tried to situate EC as the missing second half of YBaRA, but that never came to fruition; it’s not like I’m getting paid for my time here; I’ve got other concerns.) There was a recent discussion with a certain other Vollmanniac about “early”, “middle”, and “late” Vollmann, if distinctions such as these need or could be made at this point, and the conclusion Vollmanniac #1 came to is that everything before The Ice-Shirt is “early” Vollmann, and Imperial signified the beginning of “late” Vollmann- need I say that by definition everything in between would be considered “middle”? Well then, Europe Central, from 2005, can be seen as the node of transition out of “middle” and into “late” Vollmann. This thesis makes itself clear to me in the confidence, knife-edged clarity, control, precision, and (strange to say, in a book this massive and yes, excessive) economy of the language employed to tell the stories told here. Vollmann’s prose in EC is absolutely mastered; not unwieldy, not frivolous; and for all the digressions into surrealistic imagery, impressionism, dreamlandscapes, worlds of the phantasmic dead, sexualized nightmare visions, hypnagogic fire-eaten rubble of war-wasted cities, this book feels absolutely (and appropriately) “composed.”
One of the most interesting questions one should ask about Europe Central is just who is narrating this beast? Comrade Alexandrov? The Stasi? A Dreamer of History? (And who might that be? A Sleepwalker? A Realist?) Shostakovich? Gerstein? Paulus? Vlasov? Hilde Benjamin, who is the Law? Totalitarian Ideology? Time-Unstuck Death, where all souls commingle and whisper? Are we watching one of Roman Karmen’s films? All Of The Above? Reader of this review, I am asking you to help me answer this question...
Modeling its form on Danilo Kiš’s A Tomb For Boris Davidovich (which, if you haven’t read, please to be correcting that oversight posthaste), EC takes the structure of that book (interrelated bursts of prose explicating the gruesome hypocrisies and corrupted reality of life under totalitarianism and war, ranging in length from a few pages to the size of a healthy novella) and, as Vollmann tends to do, maximalizes it, expands that idea into infinity. (Oh! another candidate for narrator of EC: Infinity!) What we have then is a panoptic or panoramic view, episodic and thus epic, internal and external to these people who actually lived, told in and outside of their voices, filtered through a web of fear and ideological distortions (wait! another candidate for narrator: Fear-Warped Space-Time!) rooted in historical event (”These stories are not as rigorously grounded in historical fact as my Seven Dreams books. Rather, the goal here was to write a series of parables about famous, infamous and anonymous European moral actors at moments of decision. Most of the characters in this book are real people. I researched details of their lives as carefully as I could. However, this is a work of fiction. Poetic justice has I hope been rendered, both to them and to their historical situations…”) but ascending in widening gyres (like a V-Rocket!) and flame-blooming into that Greatest Fiction that acts as superstructure to all succeeding fictions: History.
(And thus the enigmatic voice of EC, that shifting, slithering, metamorphosizing, never-static, all-static (dead end of a blown out telephone receiver) hissing demonic overtones, the dopplering voice of time collapsing into itself as it passes…)
Another candidate for narrator of EC: Moral Ambiguity in the Time of Terror!
Or, what does “survival” mean in a wolfhound age? We are shown all of these characters at moments of fatal choice, when their epoch had become a mass murderer, when ethics became a boot stamping on a human face forever, and they were, in various guises, taken before the door of the Law and told “choose or die.” These were days when music became the wavering pitch of a bomb’s descent and the atonal screaming of women and children burning. Years when there was no great distinction between ruins of blood and bone and charred buildings. This was a fairytale time when steel rivers began to creep throughout Europe, Russia, Africa and on eastward, spreading flame and desolation. How did this happen? When might this happen again? And what is it that makes human beings capable not only of composing beautiful books and paintings and symphonies, but also of composing air raids and gas chambers and flamethrowers and panzer divisions and the heaven-sent (weeping strains of the music of the spheres can still be heard) burning of Dresden or Guernica or Stalingrad?
”Dresden is Europe Central, the walled kingdom in the middle of the past! Every day here begins once upon a time.”
The uniting thread of these stories might be: threnody. As sure as Shostakovich’s unkillable heart was hiding in the body of a destroyed piano. Is he dead even today? We can hear the past in shards of music and fading photographs. Europe Central might be an opera, but its stage set is composed of the rubble of the real, and its orchestra is performing interpretations of songs that are best not lost or forgotten among the wreckage of History.
Read
July 4, 2013Put down on p221. I hesitate to write any sort of review, as I decided not to carry on, which is rare for me. I have not, for this reason, given it any stars.
So the question is, why? WTV has got a lot of love from GR reviewers I respect greatly, and the subject matter should be right up my alley. Yet, somehow, I found myself growing increasingly irritated, and continually "thrown out" from the text, such that I quickly exhausted both my interest and my enjoyment.
I cannot "review" this book, as I have not completed it. However, I can explain why I have put it down, what it was in those pages which so vigorously rubbed me the wrong way. To keep things short and simple I will just state the following:
1. WTV has taken biographical information about some key, and not so key, characters from the period and inserted some invented elements of his own/taken quotes out of context etc. This should not have irritated me, as I have a fondness for fictionalised history, and yet it did, mainly because I knew the sources well enough to see where he had copied parts, or invented things and, as such, it made it impossible for me to fully "enter" the text. I was continually saying to myself, "wait, that’s not right!", or feeling that the characterisation felt "wrong". I also felt that it was his "additions" that were problematic in their content, and reflected more of the author than the character. For me, what is interesting about writing/reading historical fiction is trying to inhabit an entirely alien and impossibly Other's worldview (and failing, obviously), much of the passages I read seemed not even to bother to try (this is possibly an overly bitchy comment, and not really deserved).
2. I found the sex scenes, and the detail of language used within them, jarring. I have no problem with the erotic, it is just that it did not work in the context.
3. The prose was at times fantastic, but was also often clunky, confused and, as far as I am concerned, in need of some editing. This comes down to taste and, of course, just as with music, the fact that I did not like the prose, does not mean it is in any way objectively bad.
4. I found his conclusions/comments/metaphysical digressions trite and unoriginal (and I am aware this is unfair as I only read a small portion of the novel, and much was from the "perspective" of the characters). This may be harsh, and it may well be that that points 1-3 above meant I was much more inclined to notice and be critical of this.
5. Finally, he references, and was inspired by, the work of Danilo Kiš. DK is a master of precision and control, and of the "making-new" of the historical. A Tomb for Boris Davidovich is fable-like in its exactness, in its meticulousness and concision, EC is not. From this reader's perspective, WTV suffers from his own comparison in the same way as Lars von Trier did at the start of Antichrist when he dedicated the film to Tarkovsky.
However, I must reiterate that all of the above is very much a personal response. I respect the views of my fellow GR reviewers far too much to suggest that WTV is, in any way, a bad writer per se , or that this book is not worth trying. Nor has it put me off him in general, I am likely to give both The Royal Family and Fathers and Crows a go at some point.
So the question is, why? WTV has got a lot of love from GR reviewers I respect greatly, and the subject matter should be right up my alley. Yet, somehow, I found myself growing increasingly irritated, and continually "thrown out" from the text, such that I quickly exhausted both my interest and my enjoyment.
I cannot "review" this book, as I have not completed it. However, I can explain why I have put it down, what it was in those pages which so vigorously rubbed me the wrong way. To keep things short and simple I will just state the following:
1. WTV has taken biographical information about some key, and not so key, characters from the period and inserted some invented elements of his own/taken quotes out of context etc. This should not have irritated me, as I have a fondness for fictionalised history, and yet it did, mainly because I knew the sources well enough to see where he had copied parts, or invented things and, as such, it made it impossible for me to fully "enter" the text. I was continually saying to myself, "wait, that’s not right!", or feeling that the characterisation felt "wrong". I also felt that it was his "additions" that were problematic in their content, and reflected more of the author than the character. For me, what is interesting about writing/reading historical fiction is trying to inhabit an entirely alien and impossibly Other's worldview (and failing, obviously), much of the passages I read seemed not even to bother to try (this is possibly an overly bitchy comment, and not really deserved).
2. I found the sex scenes, and the detail of language used within them, jarring. I have no problem with the erotic, it is just that it did not work in the context.
3. The prose was at times fantastic, but was also often clunky, confused and, as far as I am concerned, in need of some editing. This comes down to taste and, of course, just as with music, the fact that I did not like the prose, does not mean it is in any way objectively bad.
4. I found his conclusions/comments/metaphysical digressions trite and unoriginal (and I am aware this is unfair as I only read a small portion of the novel, and much was from the "perspective" of the characters). This may be harsh, and it may well be that that points 1-3 above meant I was much more inclined to notice and be critical of this.
5. Finally, he references, and was inspired by, the work of Danilo Kiš. DK is a master of precision and control, and of the "making-new" of the historical. A Tomb for Boris Davidovich is fable-like in its exactness, in its meticulousness and concision, EC is not. From this reader's perspective, WTV suffers from his own comparison in the same way as Lars von Trier did at the start of Antichrist when he dedicated the film to Tarkovsky.
However, I must reiterate that all of the above is very much a personal response. I respect the views of my fellow GR reviewers far too much to suggest that WTV is, in any way, a bad writer per se , or that this book is not worth trying. Nor has it put me off him in general, I am likely to give both The Royal Family and Fathers and Crows a go at some point.
October 10, 2019
Quattro mesi fa…
Dico: “Ho visto che hai dato cinque stelle a Europe Central , ma non l’hai commentato. Puoi dirmi qualcosa di più?”.
Risponde: “Che dire di Europe Central? Che ci vuole un bel coraggio a scrivere un libro così e a farlo poteva essere solo uno scrittore americano. Ci vuole anche un bel coraggio a leggerlo con quel registro cupo, ossessivo, che non si ferma mai e quella ininterrotta cascata di metafore.
Mi è piaciuto? non lo so, ho premiato la maestria nel condurre il gioco dei tanti attori, delle tante voci, ma al tempo stesso, da lettore europeo, ho temuto continuamente di sprofondare nella melma del revisionismo: è difficile considerare in un'ottica di epica certi pericolosissimi fili di Arianna. Il capitoletto "Il sonnambulo", quella descrizione di Hitler portata in quel modo, credo siano alcune delle pagine più belle della letteratura americana d'oggi. In qualche modo, anche se diversissimo nell'impianto, mi ha ricordato "Le Benevole" di Littell, libro che ho amato tantissimo.
Adesso che ho finito il libro penso che questo sia un commento perfetto, racchiuso in poche (felici poche!) righe. Che altro posso aggiungere io? Forse solo un pizzico di musica, ecco.
https://youtu.be/JlMHjo7Jwhk
Dico: “Ho visto che hai dato cinque stelle a Europe Central , ma non l’hai commentato. Puoi dirmi qualcosa di più?”.
Risponde: “Che dire di Europe Central? Che ci vuole un bel coraggio a scrivere un libro così e a farlo poteva essere solo uno scrittore americano. Ci vuole anche un bel coraggio a leggerlo con quel registro cupo, ossessivo, che non si ferma mai e quella ininterrotta cascata di metafore.
Mi è piaciuto? non lo so, ho premiato la maestria nel condurre il gioco dei tanti attori, delle tante voci, ma al tempo stesso, da lettore europeo, ho temuto continuamente di sprofondare nella melma del revisionismo: è difficile considerare in un'ottica di epica certi pericolosissimi fili di Arianna. Il capitoletto "Il sonnambulo", quella descrizione di Hitler portata in quel modo, credo siano alcune delle pagine più belle della letteratura americana d'oggi. In qualche modo, anche se diversissimo nell'impianto, mi ha ricordato "Le Benevole" di Littell, libro che ho amato tantissimo.
Adesso che ho finito il libro penso che questo sia un commento perfetto, racchiuso in poche (felici poche!) righe. Che altro posso aggiungere io? Forse solo un pizzico di musica, ecco.
https://youtu.be/JlMHjo7Jwhk
March 4, 2022
4.75 stars
“In olden times, wars were waged by heroes who admired one another but found themselves forced by fate or blood revenge to do each other harm. In our time, we fought for hateful ogres against other ogres equally hateful.”
This is Vollmann focussing on mid-century Eastern Europe. The eastern front in the Second World War is at the centre of the book and Vollmann switches between a Soviet perspective and a German one. There are multiple voices on both sides, including Shostakovich, Roman Karmen, Anna Akhmatova, two generals (Paulus and Vlasov) and numerous others. Vollmann is very clear this is a work of fiction, saying that his seven dreams books are much more historical. I’m not sure I’m going to give him that, but he is known for his meticulous research. There is certainly an underying skeleton of historical fact and the book contains a mind-boggling array of facts and historical detail.
Vollmann examines the differing fanaticisms of the Nazis and Soviets and the timelines of the fifty different stories range from the 1930s to as late as the 1970s, although most focus on the War. This is almost a series of novellas. Some of them concern Shostakovich, his music and his tense and difficult relationship with the state and the party. Special attention is paid to Opus 110:
“Best listened to in a windowless room, better than best in an airless room—correctly speaking, a bunker sealed forever and enwrapped in tree-roots—the Eighth String Quartet of Shostakovich (Opus 110) is the living corpse of music, perfect in its horror. Call it the simultaneous asphyxiation and bleeding of melody. The soul strips itself of life in a dusty room.”
There is also an examination of the holocaust through the eyes of Kurt Gerstein, a rather contradictory SS officer. We get a lot of responses to totalitarianism.
The novel also pivots around the Battle of Stalingrad, exploring its mythic status and the reactions of the generals involved:
“at Stalingrad it was not only the Russian will, but the whole world’s assessment of Germany’s power which was at stake. To withdraw from the field of battle would be an admission or defeat which though it might be acceptable to a detached and calculating military professional, was unthinkable “in the cosmic orientation of world power forces,” as Schwerin von Krosigk might have put it”
This work is challenging and for many authors this would be their magnum opus. It’s probably average length for Vollmann and nowhere near the over three thousand pages of his reflection on violence Rising Up and Rising Down. It does help to have a little background knowledge before reading this, but there are lots of notes and sources. Having studied all this in the historical context some forty years ago, I did appreciate Vollmann’s approach to this and got a good deal out of it. I still think Grossman’s Life and Fate is better, but this is good.
“In olden times, wars were waged by heroes who admired one another but found themselves forced by fate or blood revenge to do each other harm. In our time, we fought for hateful ogres against other ogres equally hateful.”
This is Vollmann focussing on mid-century Eastern Europe. The eastern front in the Second World War is at the centre of the book and Vollmann switches between a Soviet perspective and a German one. There are multiple voices on both sides, including Shostakovich, Roman Karmen, Anna Akhmatova, two generals (Paulus and Vlasov) and numerous others. Vollmann is very clear this is a work of fiction, saying that his seven dreams books are much more historical. I’m not sure I’m going to give him that, but he is known for his meticulous research. There is certainly an underying skeleton of historical fact and the book contains a mind-boggling array of facts and historical detail.
Vollmann examines the differing fanaticisms of the Nazis and Soviets and the timelines of the fifty different stories range from the 1930s to as late as the 1970s, although most focus on the War. This is almost a series of novellas. Some of them concern Shostakovich, his music and his tense and difficult relationship with the state and the party. Special attention is paid to Opus 110:
“Best listened to in a windowless room, better than best in an airless room—correctly speaking, a bunker sealed forever and enwrapped in tree-roots—the Eighth String Quartet of Shostakovich (Opus 110) is the living corpse of music, perfect in its horror. Call it the simultaneous asphyxiation and bleeding of melody. The soul strips itself of life in a dusty room.”
There is also an examination of the holocaust through the eyes of Kurt Gerstein, a rather contradictory SS officer. We get a lot of responses to totalitarianism.
The novel also pivots around the Battle of Stalingrad, exploring its mythic status and the reactions of the generals involved:
“at Stalingrad it was not only the Russian will, but the whole world’s assessment of Germany’s power which was at stake. To withdraw from the field of battle would be an admission or defeat which though it might be acceptable to a detached and calculating military professional, was unthinkable “in the cosmic orientation of world power forces,” as Schwerin von Krosigk might have put it”
This work is challenging and for many authors this would be their magnum opus. It’s probably average length for Vollmann and nowhere near the over three thousand pages of his reflection on violence Rising Up and Rising Down. It does help to have a little background knowledge before reading this, but there are lots of notes and sources. Having studied all this in the historical context some forty years ago, I did appreciate Vollmann’s approach to this and got a good deal out of it. I still think Grossman’s Life and Fate is better, but this is good.
September 6, 2020
A Thunderous Urgency Rumbles Through this Novel
How Murder Could Seem a Mercy
In his 2005 National Book Award winning novel, Vollmann alternates narratives between Nazi Germany and the former U.S.S.R. (via Shostakovich). At a frenetic pace--despite its over 800 pages--he demonstrate how these bloody totalitarian regimes forced their citizens to make no-win moral decisions.
Pure Evil appears to get much more delight from splintering and destroying the innocent’s souls than in murdering their bodies.
A chilling reminder of what time and fading history have somewhat obscured.
How Murder Could Seem a Mercy
In his 2005 National Book Award winning novel, Vollmann alternates narratives between Nazi Germany and the former U.S.S.R. (via Shostakovich). At a frenetic pace--despite its over 800 pages--he demonstrate how these bloody totalitarian regimes forced their citizens to make no-win moral decisions.
Pure Evil appears to get much more delight from splintering and destroying the innocent’s souls than in murdering their bodies.
A chilling reminder of what time and fading history have somewhat obscured.
February 5, 2019
I usually like to know as little as possible in advance about the books I read. I like being surprised, and I enjoy the process of discovery, especially for those books that take a novel approach, or sidestep literary conventions. However, I feel that in the case of Europe Central, I could have used a brief introduction or primer. Some prior exposure would have helped me reach an understanding and appreciation of this novel more quickly. Like many readers I struggled early on, and seriously contemplated abandoning it. I think the reason for this initial resistance arose to some degree from my own misaligned expectations and lack of patience, but more substantially from an inability to form a conception of the novel’s shape and intent. Throughout the first several chapters, I wasn’t really sure what I was reading: perhaps a loose collection of short stories, or could there be a narrative though-line forming, or maybe the concept is more impressionistic? Without something firm to grasp, I felt a growing friction with the novel. I was unable to form a connection, or differentiate its central narratives from its peripheral (which is important for a novel of this length).
The opening is strong. Steel In Motion is fluid, intriguing and enigmatic, introducing the metaphor of the telephone, the centre of operations that is “Europe Central”, which is a recurring motif throughout the novel. The seven chapters following are presented essentially as standalone short stories. Some are powerful and moving; others are less compelling. Some bear only a tangential connection to the events of the Second World War. Opus 40 introduces Shostakovich, whose character rather than being another fleeting presence, turns out to be the backbone of the novel (though I wasn’t aware of this at the time). I admit that I found the early Shostakovich chapters quite dull. Of what significance were the private life, artistic desires and sexual relations of this Russian composer in the context of a conflict in which people were dying horribly in their millions? I found the parallels being drawn between the features of his compositions and his personal and political life to be extremely tenuous and unconvincing, not to mention excessive.
I was drawn in when the action moved closer to the military conflict itself. The Sleepwalker places us into the mind of Hitler. Breakout, The Last Field-Marshal and Clean Hands explore questions of culpability within the military command structure, in an environment where moral responsibilities are at direct odds with unquestioning loyalty. These chapters were perhaps the turning point for me; the moment of connection. From here, the novel moves from strength to strength. Ecstacy is a short yet beautiful expression of unrequited love, which though forming part of the Shostakovich narrative, could just as easily be read as a standalone piece (Something about the use of a book as a vicarious proxy for oneself was reminiscent of scenes in The Magic Mountain). The surprising Airlift Idylls is an intense piece of surrealist prose, which for me was a return to the promise of the novel’s opening.
As the various characters and motifs are referenced, reprised and recombined in later chapters, the novel begins to realise a sort of thematic unity, despite the seeming lack of connectedness between some of the stories. I regretted my earlier dismissal of the Shostakovich story, which is the centrepiece of the novel, the point around which its themes spin and coalesce. The gestalt of the novel is built not on a singular narrative, but rather on the products of these associations.
In the lengthy Opus 110 and the final few chapters, we reach the resolution of the Shostakovich narrative. Though I’m still not entirely convinced by the musical analysis, which implies something all too conscious about the composition, the second movement of his Opus 110 is certainly something remarkable (listen to it!), and I am certain that it does in fact contain all that Vollmann attributes it.
Throughout the novel I was troubled by the question of historical accuracy. The novel relies almost entirely on actual events and real historical figures. These are extensively researched (with sources cited), but the truth is treated very lightly. Even being aware of this I still retained some apprehension and found it difficult to abandon myself entirely. I understand there is always a balance to be struck in historical novels between accuracy and literary license, but the fact is that a novel like this can slot imperceptibly into one’s own recollection of learned history making it difficult to later tease apart what was fact and what was fiction. So while I understand that historical accuracy was not the author’s intention here, I am not entirely comfortable with the outcome.
As you can imagine I'm conflicted about this rating. My experience with the novel was less than wonderful at times, yet in many ways I feel it deserves the maximum score nonetheless. So take the rating with all of the above as caveat. I found Europe Central to be an extremely rewarding experience, but it needs to be approached with patience, and the right expectations.
The opening is strong. Steel In Motion is fluid, intriguing and enigmatic, introducing the metaphor of the telephone, the centre of operations that is “Europe Central”, which is a recurring motif throughout the novel. The seven chapters following are presented essentially as standalone short stories. Some are powerful and moving; others are less compelling. Some bear only a tangential connection to the events of the Second World War. Opus 40 introduces Shostakovich, whose character rather than being another fleeting presence, turns out to be the backbone of the novel (though I wasn’t aware of this at the time). I admit that I found the early Shostakovich chapters quite dull. Of what significance were the private life, artistic desires and sexual relations of this Russian composer in the context of a conflict in which people were dying horribly in their millions? I found the parallels being drawn between the features of his compositions and his personal and political life to be extremely tenuous and unconvincing, not to mention excessive.
I was drawn in when the action moved closer to the military conflict itself. The Sleepwalker places us into the mind of Hitler. Breakout, The Last Field-Marshal and Clean Hands explore questions of culpability within the military command structure, in an environment where moral responsibilities are at direct odds with unquestioning loyalty. These chapters were perhaps the turning point for me; the moment of connection. From here, the novel moves from strength to strength. Ecstacy is a short yet beautiful expression of unrequited love, which though forming part of the Shostakovich narrative, could just as easily be read as a standalone piece (Something about the use of a book as a vicarious proxy for oneself was reminiscent of scenes in The Magic Mountain). The surprising Airlift Idylls is an intense piece of surrealist prose, which for me was a return to the promise of the novel’s opening.
As the various characters and motifs are referenced, reprised and recombined in later chapters, the novel begins to realise a sort of thematic unity, despite the seeming lack of connectedness between some of the stories. I regretted my earlier dismissal of the Shostakovich story, which is the centrepiece of the novel, the point around which its themes spin and coalesce. The gestalt of the novel is built not on a singular narrative, but rather on the products of these associations.
In the lengthy Opus 110 and the final few chapters, we reach the resolution of the Shostakovich narrative. Though I’m still not entirely convinced by the musical analysis, which implies something all too conscious about the composition, the second movement of his Opus 110 is certainly something remarkable (listen to it!), and I am certain that it does in fact contain all that Vollmann attributes it.
Throughout the novel I was troubled by the question of historical accuracy. The novel relies almost entirely on actual events and real historical figures. These are extensively researched (with sources cited), but the truth is treated very lightly. Even being aware of this I still retained some apprehension and found it difficult to abandon myself entirely. I understand there is always a balance to be struck in historical novels between accuracy and literary license, but the fact is that a novel like this can slot imperceptibly into one’s own recollection of learned history making it difficult to later tease apart what was fact and what was fiction. So while I understand that historical accuracy was not the author’s intention here, I am not entirely comfortable with the outcome.
As you can imagine I'm conflicted about this rating. My experience with the novel was less than wonderful at times, yet in many ways I feel it deserves the maximum score nonetheless. So take the rating with all of the above as caveat. I found Europe Central to be an extremely rewarding experience, but it needs to be approached with patience, and the right expectations.
March 26, 2009
William Vollman's Europe Central was, for me, a very slow burn. I spent the first two hundred pages of this sprawling, kaleidescopic epic on the emotional sidelines, wryly observant, interested but not overly engaged. Vollman's characters, I thought, were intriguing, but also annoying. His prose was full of vivid detail, but a bit overblown. It was the kind of thing, I found myself thinking, that I would have enjoyed better in high school, when drama needed to be proclaimed from on high with cannon fire in order to get my attention. Do we really need, I wondered, another novel about World War II?
And then I realized that I had begun thinking almost constantly about the moral dilemmas presented in the novel. Vollman has devoted years to thinking about the "moral calculus" utilized by human beings in situations of extremity, about the ways in which people make decisions in crisis, and how that plays out in a larger pattern of violence and history. All that thinking really pays off as he draws his fictionalized portraits of historical figures from mid-century Russia and Germany; these are people placed in crucial but impossible situations, people to whom dilemmas are posed with no answer remotely "right," and Vollman traces their moral and emotional arcs with great care. I think Europe Central would make a perfect fiction companion to Rising Up and Rising Down, the same author's nonfiction examination of violence and its ramifications. Here, even more than in the factual case studies of Rising Up, the reader observes at close hand - from inside the subject's head, in fact - the protracted struggle to balance necessity and morality, to make sense of the insane circumstances in which he finds himself, to create and apply some version of a moral code. Since the novel spans decades - late 1930's to mid-1970's - the reader has time, too, to witness the effects of the passage of time, the slow (or, sometimes, lightning-quick) revisions that the characters must make to their moral codes under the weight of events, emotions, or simply old age.
Europe Central features a wide swath of characters, from artists and poets (most prominently the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich) to generals and spies. Although I'm generally not a fan of military fiction, this book surprised me: for my money, the most compelling episodes were two long pieces devoted to generals (the Russian Vlasov and the German Paulus) who each defected to the opposite side. Vollman's portrait of two giant powers, both irrationally fixed on the idea of Total War - no retreat under any circumstances - communicates the claustrophobic plight of military professionals trained to practice battle-craft as a strategic art. The chain of command dictates that both Vlasov and Paulus must follow orders, and their leaders' commitment to Total War means that the orders will never permit retreat, even for strategic purposes. Even when their respective armies are starved, surrounded, frozen and out of fuel and ammunition, they are ordered to succeed, and punished for disobeying orders. What's more, the cult of personality surrounding Hitler means that Vollman's Paulus must never doubt the ultimate wisdom of his Führer's orders, or his entire moral universe will crumble. It's fascinating to watch this tension between Paulus's false faith and his professional's knowledge of the battlefield play out in test after test. Will he defy orders when he knows the battle is unwinnable? When he realizes that successful escape is impossible? When he understands that all his men will likely die pointless deaths? In each of these scenarios Paulus remains ferociously loyal; it is only when he witnesses the casualness with which Hitler expects him to take his own life that his internal walls begin to crumble. His ultimate decision, to allow himself to be taken alive by the Soviets, is one that would never occur to me as a betrayal, especially after the grueling fighting he led. But by his own moral lights, he has betrayed his Führer and his former self, and must conceptualize himself anew as a Russian collaborator. All of his assumptions are suddenly up for reconsideration. His bitterness at being treated so unreasonably combines with his more objective misgivings - and, of course, the pressure of the Soviet propaganda machine - and he becomes a vocal critic of the government he'd almost died to defend.
All of the characters in Europe Central are deeply flawed, if not downright unlikeable. After all, many of them are working to strengthen two of the most oppressive nation-states in living memory: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Russia. Many of the episodes are narrated by semi-faceless mid-level functionaries in the Nazi or Communist parties, men who have been completely indoctrinated in the nonsensical bigotry of the party line. Even those characters who don't support their country's favored brand of totalitarian oppression are endowed by Vollman with irritating mannerisms and/or infuriating qualities; there are no kind, easy, socially enlightened resistance-fighter heroes for whom the reader can cheer. Yet, with a few exceptions, even the most unlikeable people in the book evoke, at times, a spark of sympathy in the reader. And although eight hundred pages of unlikeable people is an understandably hard sell, I honestly believe the characters' deep complexity is what makes the novel so compelling.
World War II is often viewed, especially by Americans, as "the good war," a clear-cut battle of the Light of freedom and tolerance (in which we see ourselves) battling the Dark of oppression and bigotry (Hitler's Germany). Vollman strips away this simplistic vision by the simple act of looking at the war's eastern front: between two oppressive, power-mad totalitarian regimes, between two all-seeing surveillance and propaganda machines, between two starved wastelands across which humans are transported to secret locations and subjected to atrocities, the choice is much less clear. Caught between two such choices, it takes remarkable strength of vision to imagine, let alone fight for, a third option, even when that third option is a dire necessity. As he paints these characters' struggles of loyalty - between Hitler and Stalin, between the collective and the self, between the party line and their own integrity - Vollman blurs all lines that separate one side from the other. A spy who uses his racial privilege to join the SS and expose their crimes, yet who fails to obtain international cooperation - are his hands clean? A composer living under seige, whose children are starving, and who wants to believe that music can actually help turn the tide of the war, writes a program symphony that tows the party line - to what extent has he compromised his integrity? A Soviet general, soured on Stalin's machinations, who allows himself to be convinced that collaboration with Germany will enable him to fight for the liberation of Russia, and who tells himself that rumors of concentration camps are another example of Soviet slander - where does he fall on the moral spectrum? And how can my own sympathy as a reader be more with a German general than a conflicted Soviet artist? In observing the progress of each of these characters through their personal decision-making processes, and the vast moral gray areas involved, one begins to question one's own black-and-white view of the Second World War. Indeed, Vollman ends the book with a meditation on black, white, and shades of gray.
I've noticed that many people recommend this novel for World War II history aficionados, but I think that's slightly beside the point. Vollman is writing fiction; he creates full emotional lives and narrative voices for his characters such that the final products could only be suggested by, not true to, the historical record. History buffs who cringe at factual liberties and poetic license would be well-advised to stay away. No, as I see it, the people who ought to read this novel are those intrigued by the human psyche in times of great crisis, or fascinated by the cycle of violence on a grand historic scale as well as a personal, internal one. The truly thoughtful reader will also learn from observing the shifting sands of her own sympathies as she reads.
And then I realized that I had begun thinking almost constantly about the moral dilemmas presented in the novel. Vollman has devoted years to thinking about the "moral calculus" utilized by human beings in situations of extremity, about the ways in which people make decisions in crisis, and how that plays out in a larger pattern of violence and history. All that thinking really pays off as he draws his fictionalized portraits of historical figures from mid-century Russia and Germany; these are people placed in crucial but impossible situations, people to whom dilemmas are posed with no answer remotely "right," and Vollman traces their moral and emotional arcs with great care. I think Europe Central would make a perfect fiction companion to Rising Up and Rising Down, the same author's nonfiction examination of violence and its ramifications. Here, even more than in the factual case studies of Rising Up, the reader observes at close hand - from inside the subject's head, in fact - the protracted struggle to balance necessity and morality, to make sense of the insane circumstances in which he finds himself, to create and apply some version of a moral code. Since the novel spans decades - late 1930's to mid-1970's - the reader has time, too, to witness the effects of the passage of time, the slow (or, sometimes, lightning-quick) revisions that the characters must make to their moral codes under the weight of events, emotions, or simply old age.
Europe Central features a wide swath of characters, from artists and poets (most prominently the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich) to generals and spies. Although I'm generally not a fan of military fiction, this book surprised me: for my money, the most compelling episodes were two long pieces devoted to generals (the Russian Vlasov and the German Paulus) who each defected to the opposite side. Vollman's portrait of two giant powers, both irrationally fixed on the idea of Total War - no retreat under any circumstances - communicates the claustrophobic plight of military professionals trained to practice battle-craft as a strategic art. The chain of command dictates that both Vlasov and Paulus must follow orders, and their leaders' commitment to Total War means that the orders will never permit retreat, even for strategic purposes. Even when their respective armies are starved, surrounded, frozen and out of fuel and ammunition, they are ordered to succeed, and punished for disobeying orders. What's more, the cult of personality surrounding Hitler means that Vollman's Paulus must never doubt the ultimate wisdom of his Führer's orders, or his entire moral universe will crumble. It's fascinating to watch this tension between Paulus's false faith and his professional's knowledge of the battlefield play out in test after test. Will he defy orders when he knows the battle is unwinnable? When he realizes that successful escape is impossible? When he understands that all his men will likely die pointless deaths? In each of these scenarios Paulus remains ferociously loyal; it is only when he witnesses the casualness with which Hitler expects him to take his own life that his internal walls begin to crumble. His ultimate decision, to allow himself to be taken alive by the Soviets, is one that would never occur to me as a betrayal, especially after the grueling fighting he led. But by his own moral lights, he has betrayed his Führer and his former self, and must conceptualize himself anew as a Russian collaborator. All of his assumptions are suddenly up for reconsideration. His bitterness at being treated so unreasonably combines with his more objective misgivings - and, of course, the pressure of the Soviet propaganda machine - and he becomes a vocal critic of the government he'd almost died to defend.
All of the characters in Europe Central are deeply flawed, if not downright unlikeable. After all, many of them are working to strengthen two of the most oppressive nation-states in living memory: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Russia. Many of the episodes are narrated by semi-faceless mid-level functionaries in the Nazi or Communist parties, men who have been completely indoctrinated in the nonsensical bigotry of the party line. Even those characters who don't support their country's favored brand of totalitarian oppression are endowed by Vollman with irritating mannerisms and/or infuriating qualities; there are no kind, easy, socially enlightened resistance-fighter heroes for whom the reader can cheer. Yet, with a few exceptions, even the most unlikeable people in the book evoke, at times, a spark of sympathy in the reader. And although eight hundred pages of unlikeable people is an understandably hard sell, I honestly believe the characters' deep complexity is what makes the novel so compelling.
World War II is often viewed, especially by Americans, as "the good war," a clear-cut battle of the Light of freedom and tolerance (in which we see ourselves) battling the Dark of oppression and bigotry (Hitler's Germany). Vollman strips away this simplistic vision by the simple act of looking at the war's eastern front: between two oppressive, power-mad totalitarian regimes, between two all-seeing surveillance and propaganda machines, between two starved wastelands across which humans are transported to secret locations and subjected to atrocities, the choice is much less clear. Caught between two such choices, it takes remarkable strength of vision to imagine, let alone fight for, a third option, even when that third option is a dire necessity. As he paints these characters' struggles of loyalty - between Hitler and Stalin, between the collective and the self, between the party line and their own integrity - Vollman blurs all lines that separate one side from the other. A spy who uses his racial privilege to join the SS and expose their crimes, yet who fails to obtain international cooperation - are his hands clean? A composer living under seige, whose children are starving, and who wants to believe that music can actually help turn the tide of the war, writes a program symphony that tows the party line - to what extent has he compromised his integrity? A Soviet general, soured on Stalin's machinations, who allows himself to be convinced that collaboration with Germany will enable him to fight for the liberation of Russia, and who tells himself that rumors of concentration camps are another example of Soviet slander - where does he fall on the moral spectrum? And how can my own sympathy as a reader be more with a German general than a conflicted Soviet artist? In observing the progress of each of these characters through their personal decision-making processes, and the vast moral gray areas involved, one begins to question one's own black-and-white view of the Second World War. Indeed, Vollman ends the book with a meditation on black, white, and shades of gray.
I've noticed that many people recommend this novel for World War II history aficionados, but I think that's slightly beside the point. Vollman is writing fiction; he creates full emotional lives and narrative voices for his characters such that the final products could only be suggested by, not true to, the historical record. History buffs who cringe at factual liberties and poetic license would be well-advised to stay away. No, as I see it, the people who ought to read this novel are those intrigued by the human psyche in times of great crisis, or fascinated by the cycle of violence on a grand historic scale as well as a personal, internal one. The truly thoughtful reader will also learn from observing the shifting sands of her own sympathies as she reads.
Read
September 1, 2014Europe Central, William T. Vollmann’s most popularly successful book (1280 gr ratings, 165 reviews, average starrage 3.88), conferrer of integrity upon the National Book Award for Fiction (2005), translated into German, Italian, Spanish, French and Serbian -- not too bad.
A few thoughts in my minor key.
Reading Europe Central after Vollmann’s newest book, Last Stories, presented a contrast in regard to anxiety in the face of Death. In Last Stories Death has already passed and we no longer stand as being-toward-death. Europe Central presents that very anxiety of being-toward-death ; it is also resigned thereto, but in a more humanly anxious manner. There is a similar restraint of resignation in the two books, perhaps because as history, even in Europe Central, Death has already come and gone.
Our capital ‘A’ Author is in Europe Central much less present than he is in most of Vollmann’s books. In fact, he is almost entirely absent, removing himself in the name of his several Narrators. There are few apologies here for how the tale, how the stories, how the plot, might be going off the rails. The plot itself, I mean that about which this novel is about, is itself the going off the rails.
This novel is historical fiction. The emphasis, as always, must be upon ‘fiction.’ Fiction is its own mode of truthful discourse and should not, not ever, be subsumed under the rubrics for truth as found in the historiographic discourses. The two discourses are related as a chiasmus (χ); historiography is narratively (fictively) structured, and the fictional is always historically grounded, at least in its temptation. The task of this particular fictional discourse is the presentation of moral actors, as moral actors, in their situations ; a possibility which always makes fiction a moral fiction from the beginning. Deviations from trivial bits of data (the ‘historical record’, the archive) are documented ; that’s how this reader knew that there are deviations. In other words, The fictionist must nothing.
And one thing a fictionist need not do is employ a capital ‘A’ Author as Narrator who might point out to the naive reader whether the lower=case ‘a’ author condemns or approbates the actions of a character. That task is the reader’s task. That is the moral task of novels. God is dead. And so is that author.
As a portrait gallery of moral actors, Europe Central forms the fictive half of a diptych with the non-fiction portrait gallery of moral actors, Rising Up and Rising Down.
As a portrait gallery Europe Central has that feature common to all (most!) encyclopedic novels in so far as it is far too short. It ends but it is not complete, or, will never be complete. There will always remain, exactly so as is the case with Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, more portraits to add to the gallery. From my corner of the world, I would submit that a novella about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or one featuring Rosa Luxemburg, would expand this megalith further. And those nearly absent but Central characters, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, would they remain necessarily in the margins? Or Prokofiev.
Frank Zappa has been accused of saying that, Talking about music is like dancing about architecture. Zappa has been known to do a lot of dancing about architecture. Let me say, Vollmann not only writes about the music of Shostakovich, not only does he lean towards the occasional musical=prose, but he folds the music into his writing.
Europe Central is yet a different kind of Vollmann book. All of his books, most of his books, many of his books, take a different course, a different tone and voice, than do his other books. It’s all still Vollmann. But here in Europe Central, his is almost absent; having handed over the baton to the narrator, that familiar voice of Vollmann dissipates into an orientation regarding the material itself. What I want to say, One misses some of the hallucinogenic, dream=coursed, surrealistic flights into weird=metaphor and the like. The War was brutal enough. And yet there remain a few delicious passages of pure wandering consciousness, such as the phantastical “Airlift Idylls”.
The structure? A novel built of collated stories. One might sample them. “Airlift Idylls” is one. The magnificent “Opus 40” and “Opus 110” are to be recommended.
But do not hesitate to pick up that black telephone, I mean octopus. Europe Central is on the line.
A few links from 2013 when the German translation was released ::
A few thoughts in my minor key.
Reading Europe Central after Vollmann’s newest book, Last Stories, presented a contrast in regard to anxiety in the face of Death. In Last Stories Death has already passed and we no longer stand as being-toward-death. Europe Central presents that very anxiety of being-toward-death ; it is also resigned thereto, but in a more humanly anxious manner. There is a similar restraint of resignation in the two books, perhaps because as history, even in Europe Central, Death has already come and gone.
Our capital ‘A’ Author is in Europe Central much less present than he is in most of Vollmann’s books. In fact, he is almost entirely absent, removing himself in the name of his several Narrators. There are few apologies here for how the tale, how the stories, how the plot, might be going off the rails. The plot itself, I mean that about which this novel is about, is itself the going off the rails.
This novel is historical fiction. The emphasis, as always, must be upon ‘fiction.’ Fiction is its own mode of truthful discourse and should not, not ever, be subsumed under the rubrics for truth as found in the historiographic discourses. The two discourses are related as a chiasmus (χ); historiography is narratively (fictively) structured, and the fictional is always historically grounded, at least in its temptation. The task of this particular fictional discourse is the presentation of moral actors, as moral actors, in their situations ; a possibility which always makes fiction a moral fiction from the beginning. Deviations from trivial bits of data (the ‘historical record’, the archive) are documented ; that’s how this reader knew that there are deviations. In other words, The fictionist must nothing.
And one thing a fictionist need not do is employ a capital ‘A’ Author as Narrator who might point out to the naive reader whether the lower=case ‘a’ author condemns or approbates the actions of a character. That task is the reader’s task. That is the moral task of novels. God is dead. And so is that author.
As a portrait gallery of moral actors, Europe Central forms the fictive half of a diptych with the non-fiction portrait gallery of moral actors, Rising Up and Rising Down.
As a portrait gallery Europe Central has that feature common to all (most!) encyclopedic novels in so far as it is far too short. It ends but it is not complete, or, will never be complete. There will always remain, exactly so as is the case with Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, more portraits to add to the gallery. From my corner of the world, I would submit that a novella about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or one featuring Rosa Luxemburg, would expand this megalith further. And those nearly absent but Central characters, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, would they remain necessarily in the margins? Or Prokofiev.
Frank Zappa has been accused of saying that, Talking about music is like dancing about architecture. Zappa has been known to do a lot of dancing about architecture. Let me say, Vollmann not only writes about the music of Shostakovich, not only does he lean towards the occasional musical=prose, but he folds the music into his writing.
Europe Central is yet a different kind of Vollmann book. All of his books, most of his books, many of his books, take a different course, a different tone and voice, than do his other books. It’s all still Vollmann. But here in Europe Central, his is almost absent; having handed over the baton to the narrator, that familiar voice of Vollmann dissipates into an orientation regarding the material itself. What I want to say, One misses some of the hallucinogenic, dream=coursed, surrealistic flights into weird=metaphor and the like. The War was brutal enough. And yet there remain a few delicious passages of pure wandering consciousness, such as the phantastical “Airlift Idylls”.
The structure? A novel built of collated stories. One might sample them. “Airlift Idylls” is one. The magnificent “Opus 40” and “Opus 110” are to be recommended.
But do not hesitate to pick up that black telephone, I mean octopus. Europe Central is on the line.
A few links from 2013 when the German translation was released ::
June 11, 2012
It was on 3/4 mile of perfect Anguillan beach. On a wicker lounge. Derron, with a British accent, was feeding me margaritas, perfect though in plastic. For three days, a young couple lounged next to us. SHE wore a flimsy little white bikini with her (new?) name sequined on the back bottom: 'Mrs. K_____'. HE sat under the umbrella and read The Hebrew Bible for three days. So, don't tell me that Europe Central is not a beach book.
It would be a simple matter to write this story as a parable of the heart which through its very empathy was duped.
I don't know what it means either, but it seems like as good a starting point as any.
This book is sprawling; the writing pyrotechnical (as always); it is multi-biographical. It wants to be great, and maybe is. There are many moments when it surely is. But Vollmann can not help excess. There are dream sequences when I looked over my shoulder to make sure Derron was busy blending and salting and not looking at how fast the pages were turning.
Like all Vollmann, it is based on massive research. But also like all Vollmann, it is not wedded to meticulous truth. Like Life and Fate, to which it must necessarily be compared, Europe Central takes an artist's look at certain people who just happened to live through the Europe of World War II and beyond. EC is different in that it uses real people, such is Vollmann's way. A fabulous cast: Kathe Kollwitz, Anna Akhmatova; German General Friedrich Paulus and Russian General A.A. Vlasov, both driven to the brink of treason; and in perhaps the starring role: Dimitri Shostakovich.
It turns out all the rest is (are) filler, context. This is a book about Shostakovich, battered by war and a Soviet system that made him a hero one day and defiled the next. And it is about his several marriages and, Vollmann would have us believe, a woman who was his ephemeral lover and eternal addiction. (We learn in a brief afterward that Vollman made it all up). The cigarettes, the vodka, the oral sex, the lies, the stuttering, forced self-effacement -- how did that make music? Vollmann tries to explain. And if he's only guessing, well, it's still fun. He examines several of Shostakovich's main works in more than passing analysis: Symphonies 7, 8 (a personal favorite) and 10; the 8th String Quartet (Opus 110); and the Cello Sonata (Opus 40). It is Opus 40 that Vollmann explains in detail is a musical examination of a multi-positional afternoon of perfectly choreographed sexual acts. I pass this along as a public service for those not inclined to read the whole 752 pages but just want to get to the good stuff - Chapter entitled 'Opus 40' starting at page 85 in my book. I have written elsewhere that I'm not always sure what music was intended to mean. I just listened to Opus 40 again. There are some musical themes therein that are, frankly, not in my playbook.
It is natural to believe, or want to believe, since inertia is self-preservation, that once we have opened the vault, the dark grey file, and read some stupefying secret, we've learned the secret, in which all others, if in fact there are others, must be contained; hence we need not go to the dangerous trouble of digging anything else up.
So Vollmann digs everything up. And paints it in an artist's spectrum. The Sleepwalker paces in Berlin. The Realist smiles knowingly in Moscow. And everyone else dies, or doesn't die, pawns, grist, sand covering us all.
I brought this book home full of torn pieces of cocktail napkins, marking sentences that moved me, or stopped me while I lolled in Paradise. But I read it next to Mrs. K_____, and next to her, apparently Mr. K_____ and his Hebrew Bible. Did any of us hear the music, that string quartet, as Vollman did:
About this quartet the most fundamental thing which can be said is that it is too sad even to rise from a moan into a wail at death's uncompassed crescendo. To be sure, the danse macabre of the second movement glows sickeningly vivid as a sodium flare at night (so much for flamelessness!); it's as bright as the electric light which illuminates the gas chamber when it's time to ascertain whether all the Jews are dead; while the menace of the third remains more chilling than those screams in Leningrad when the German bombs come down; they'll never stop coming down. There's more.
But listen to the music. Or just the sounds. Like Stephen Stills, Vollmann keeps asking: What's that sound? It's war and love, breaking glass and tank treads, lies and accommodations, courage, equivocation and resignation.
Or is that Derron's blender, drowning out Shostakovich's constant weeping? Maybe just buy the CD.
It would be a simple matter to write this story as a parable of the heart which through its very empathy was duped.
I don't know what it means either, but it seems like as good a starting point as any.
This book is sprawling; the writing pyrotechnical (as always); it is multi-biographical. It wants to be great, and maybe is. There are many moments when it surely is. But Vollmann can not help excess. There are dream sequences when I looked over my shoulder to make sure Derron was busy blending and salting and not looking at how fast the pages were turning.
Like all Vollmann, it is based on massive research. But also like all Vollmann, it is not wedded to meticulous truth. Like Life and Fate, to which it must necessarily be compared, Europe Central takes an artist's look at certain people who just happened to live through the Europe of World War II and beyond. EC is different in that it uses real people, such is Vollmann's way. A fabulous cast: Kathe Kollwitz, Anna Akhmatova; German General Friedrich Paulus and Russian General A.A. Vlasov, both driven to the brink of treason; and in perhaps the starring role: Dimitri Shostakovich.
It turns out all the rest is (are) filler, context. This is a book about Shostakovich, battered by war and a Soviet system that made him a hero one day and defiled the next. And it is about his several marriages and, Vollmann would have us believe, a woman who was his ephemeral lover and eternal addiction. (We learn in a brief afterward that Vollman made it all up). The cigarettes, the vodka, the oral sex, the lies, the stuttering, forced self-effacement -- how did that make music? Vollmann tries to explain. And if he's only guessing, well, it's still fun. He examines several of Shostakovich's main works in more than passing analysis: Symphonies 7, 8 (a personal favorite) and 10; the 8th String Quartet (Opus 110); and the Cello Sonata (Opus 40). It is Opus 40 that Vollmann explains in detail is a musical examination of a multi-positional afternoon of perfectly choreographed sexual acts. I pass this along as a public service for those not inclined to read the whole 752 pages but just want to get to the good stuff - Chapter entitled 'Opus 40' starting at page 85 in my book. I have written elsewhere that I'm not always sure what music was intended to mean. I just listened to Opus 40 again. There are some musical themes therein that are, frankly, not in my playbook.
It is natural to believe, or want to believe, since inertia is self-preservation, that once we have opened the vault, the dark grey file, and read some stupefying secret, we've learned the secret, in which all others, if in fact there are others, must be contained; hence we need not go to the dangerous trouble of digging anything else up.
So Vollmann digs everything up. And paints it in an artist's spectrum. The Sleepwalker paces in Berlin. The Realist smiles knowingly in Moscow. And everyone else dies, or doesn't die, pawns, grist, sand covering us all.
I brought this book home full of torn pieces of cocktail napkins, marking sentences that moved me, or stopped me while I lolled in Paradise. But I read it next to Mrs. K_____, and next to her, apparently Mr. K_____ and his Hebrew Bible. Did any of us hear the music, that string quartet, as Vollman did:
About this quartet the most fundamental thing which can be said is that it is too sad even to rise from a moan into a wail at death's uncompassed crescendo. To be sure, the danse macabre of the second movement glows sickeningly vivid as a sodium flare at night (so much for flamelessness!); it's as bright as the electric light which illuminates the gas chamber when it's time to ascertain whether all the Jews are dead; while the menace of the third remains more chilling than those screams in Leningrad when the German bombs come down; they'll never stop coming down. There's more.
But listen to the music. Or just the sounds. Like Stephen Stills, Vollmann keeps asking: What's that sound? It's war and love, breaking glass and tank treads, lies and accommodations, courage, equivocation and resignation.
Or is that Derron's blender, drowning out Shostakovich's constant weeping? Maybe just buy the CD.
February 7, 2020
L'Aleph del continente
Dopo anni che primeggiava nella mia lista delle letture, sono riuscito a leggere questo immenso e meraviglioso romanzo-mondo: un'opera totale e profondissima incentrata sul fulcro storico-geografico del nostro continente - una zona tra Germania e Russia, yin e yang di questa piccola parte di Terra che chiamiamo Europa.
E' esistenziale, epico, metafisico, assoluto questo ritratto che Vollmann scrisse durante un periodo a Berlino: si regge su una serie di capitoli monografici dedicati a diverse figure storiche la cui complessità e profondità viene resa magistralmente intrecciati dal fil rouge del protagonista-simbolo del continente alla fine del secolo scorso: quel D.D. Šostakovič che diviene allegoria di tutti gli europei (cioè di tutti noi) scaraventato nell'inferno del controllo totalitario, del massacro assoluto, roso da un rapporto impossibile con una donna che Vollmann eleva a simbolo del continente tutto.
Quando penso a Šostakovič e ascolto la sua musica, immagino una persona consumata dalla paura e dal rimpianto
La scrittura è meravigliosa, spessa, espansa, ricca di collegamenti e capace di evocazioni e suggestioni dalla cabala agli accenni metaletterari. Vollmann fa un lavoro complesso e contorto sulla voce narrante: essa muta spesso in modo quasi impercettibile - può essere lo scrittore stesso, diviene un agente del NKVD (o un nazista tedesco), esprime il flusso mentale di Šostakovič stesso. Le allegorie e i simboli funzionano sempre perfettamente: evocativi ma ironici, poetiche a al tempo stesso pratiche e materialie:
E qui potremmo benissimo inserire un'ulteriore allegoria. Il metallo di quei giorni era l'acciaio
Questa capacità di mutare registro pur mantenendo una precisione formale e una espressività originalissima e potente è la cifra che rende questo libro un capolavoro: ogni lato dell'inferno che fu il conflitto continentale è rappresentato affidandosi ai profili di protagonisti storici: dal massacro di Stalingrado visto da Paulus alla soluzione finale narrata da Kurt Gerstein, dalla sofferenza della Germania post Prima Guerra rappresentata dall'arte di Kathe Kollwitz, al pugno duro bolscevico esercitato dalla "Ghigliottina Rossa" Hilde Benjamin (cognata di Walter Benjamin). E tutti questi protagonisti assolutamente unici e ricchi di contraddizioni si sfiorano, si incontrano, intrecciano vite e popolano eventi, creando con le loro storie la Storia.
Personalmente prediligo il capitolo "Operazione Cittadella" dove Vollmann tocca vette di surrealismo delirante e di orrore onirico che ci fa seguire l'incubo estremo di un soldato nazista in disperato cammino infinito dentro il saliente di Kursk - qui l'autore mostra di essere scrittore di razza e capace di scrivere anche dell'indicibile: capacità confermata anche nel celebrato capitolo dedicato a "Il sonnambulo".
Aggiungo che la libertà espressiva e il talento letterario sono accompagnate da un spiccata bulimia culturale e da una assoluta onesta storica - 200 pagine dedicate a chiarire riga per riga quali parole derivano da fonti storiche o quali punti siano frutto delal creazione letteraria. Pienamente post-moderno, qui, Vollmann: ma del meglio del postmoderno in termini di rapporto con il lettore, spessore culturale, coscienza della qualità necessaria nella buona letteratura.
Sì, indubbiamente questo capolavoro potrebbe essere inserito in un ideale canone del "Meglio del PostModerno".
Dopo anni che primeggiava nella mia lista delle letture, sono riuscito a leggere questo immenso e meraviglioso romanzo-mondo: un'opera totale e profondissima incentrata sul fulcro storico-geografico del nostro continente - una zona tra Germania e Russia, yin e yang di questa piccola parte di Terra che chiamiamo Europa.
E' esistenziale, epico, metafisico, assoluto questo ritratto che Vollmann scrisse durante un periodo a Berlino: si regge su una serie di capitoli monografici dedicati a diverse figure storiche la cui complessità e profondità viene resa magistralmente intrecciati dal fil rouge del protagonista-simbolo del continente alla fine del secolo scorso: quel D.D. Šostakovič che diviene allegoria di tutti gli europei (cioè di tutti noi) scaraventato nell'inferno del controllo totalitario, del massacro assoluto, roso da un rapporto impossibile con una donna che Vollmann eleva a simbolo del continente tutto.
Quando penso a Šostakovič e ascolto la sua musica, immagino una persona consumata dalla paura e dal rimpianto
La scrittura è meravigliosa, spessa, espansa, ricca di collegamenti e capace di evocazioni e suggestioni dalla cabala agli accenni metaletterari. Vollmann fa un lavoro complesso e contorto sulla voce narrante: essa muta spesso in modo quasi impercettibile - può essere lo scrittore stesso, diviene un agente del NKVD (o un nazista tedesco), esprime il flusso mentale di Šostakovič stesso. Le allegorie e i simboli funzionano sempre perfettamente: evocativi ma ironici, poetiche a al tempo stesso pratiche e materialie:
E qui potremmo benissimo inserire un'ulteriore allegoria. Il metallo di quei giorni era l'acciaio
Questa capacità di mutare registro pur mantenendo una precisione formale e una espressività originalissima e potente è la cifra che rende questo libro un capolavoro: ogni lato dell'inferno che fu il conflitto continentale è rappresentato affidandosi ai profili di protagonisti storici: dal massacro di Stalingrado visto da Paulus alla soluzione finale narrata da Kurt Gerstein, dalla sofferenza della Germania post Prima Guerra rappresentata dall'arte di Kathe Kollwitz, al pugno duro bolscevico esercitato dalla "Ghigliottina Rossa" Hilde Benjamin (cognata di Walter Benjamin). E tutti questi protagonisti assolutamente unici e ricchi di contraddizioni si sfiorano, si incontrano, intrecciano vite e popolano eventi, creando con le loro storie la Storia.
Personalmente prediligo il capitolo "Operazione Cittadella" dove Vollmann tocca vette di surrealismo delirante e di orrore onirico che ci fa seguire l'incubo estremo di un soldato nazista in disperato cammino infinito dentro il saliente di Kursk - qui l'autore mostra di essere scrittore di razza e capace di scrivere anche dell'indicibile: capacità confermata anche nel celebrato capitolo dedicato a "Il sonnambulo".
Aggiungo che la libertà espressiva e il talento letterario sono accompagnate da un spiccata bulimia culturale e da una assoluta onesta storica - 200 pagine dedicate a chiarire riga per riga quali parole derivano da fonti storiche o quali punti siano frutto delal creazione letteraria. Pienamente post-moderno, qui, Vollmann: ma del meglio del postmoderno in termini di rapporto con il lettore, spessore culturale, coscienza della qualità necessaria nella buona letteratura.
Sì, indubbiamente questo capolavoro potrebbe essere inserito in un ideale canone del "Meglio del PostModerno".
June 6, 2015
Hence religious parables, socialist realism, Nazi propaganda. And if this story likewise crawls with reactionary supernaturalism, that might be because its author longs to see letters scuttling across ceilings, cautiously beginning to reify themselves into angels. For if they could only do that, then why not us?
Extremity is revealing. The fact that the instances of such (to 1st Worlders, anyway) occur so seldom only enhances its spell. The soul MUST be forged within the flames of being. Well, maybe. The Ost Front was the greatest mechanized calmaity of our species. What does it mean morally? What does it portend over those who ponder the foe-stated dilemma? Is the equation apt? Simple statistics reveal that most of us would bow, collaborate or remain mute in the Dark Times, yet we turn again and again to Year Zero. What sort of tacit death wish are we actually whispering?
Extremity is revealing. The fact that the instances of such (to 1st Worlders, anyway) occur so seldom only enhances its spell. The soul MUST be forged within the flames of being. Well, maybe. The Ost Front was the greatest mechanized calmaity of our species. What does it mean morally? What does it portend over those who ponder the foe-stated dilemma? Is the equation apt? Simple statistics reveal that most of us would bow, collaborate or remain mute in the Dark Times, yet we turn again and again to Year Zero. What sort of tacit death wish are we actually whispering?
September 20, 2023
The story of relations between Russia and Germany especially during WW2 told ingeniously through a series of portraits of real life characters, most notably Shostakovich. The German general Paulus who surrendered at Stalingrad and incurred Hitler's ire is another major character as is Rostov, the Russian general who changed sides. It's a hugely educational novel as well as being stunning in its imaginative reach and poetic prose. William Vollman, though difficult and sometimes guilty of a tendency to overreach himself, has become one of my favourite writers.
April 24, 2025
In Vollmann's Europe Central (winner of the 2005 National Book Award for Fiction), history transforms into a manifesto of moral conundrums where "hard times demand hard methods." This sprawling historical fiction alternates between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia during WWII, employing a cubist technique that disrupts chronology while exposing the psychic devastation of totalitarianism.
The book's interlocking stories create a mosaic requiring readers' ethical engagement. We encounter the brilliant composer Dmitri Shostakovich, whose music functions as resistance against Stalin's oppression, and Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus at Stalingrad, who disobeys Hitler rather than sacrifice his remaining troops.
Vollmann writes with exceptional erudition: "Exhausted, at which point a man becomes a coward; one must feed one's bravery; it's all a matter of chemicals," offering a harrowing insight into warfare's psychological breaking point.
German filmmaker Käthe Kollwitz's grief-stricken artistic journey after losing her son in WWI exemplifies Vollmann's thematic focus on art's response to atrocity. He juxtaposes this with Russian general Andrei Vlasov, who betrayed Stalin to join the Nazis before being captured and executed—a double-agent whose moral compromises reveal the impossible choices of wartime.
The doomed romance between Shostakovich and translator Elena Konstantinovskaya pulses throughout, encapsulated in the admission: "To you I'm just a fool in love with an idea."
Operation Barbarossa appears through the eyes of both invaders and defenders, where "the 'living' person and that's all. Keep shooting live people; they get in people's way, in the proletariat's way." The SS Einsatzgruppen's methodical extermination campaigns in Ukraine constitute a harrowing sequence depicted with forensic precision. Kurt Gerstein's failed attempts to expose the Holocaust while paradoxically supplying Zyklon B to concentration camps embodies the "sleepy, never-drying, truancy, obscurity, bliss, then inharmoniousness" of moral contradiction under fascism.
Vollmann—that enfant terrible of American letters who once lived with the mujahideen in Afghanistan and reportedly wrote this 800-page opus in three years—has produced a literary equivalent to Picasso's Guernica: disturbing, disruptive, and transformative.
The book evokes Pynchon's gravity-defying historical acrobatics or Sebald's melancholy wanderings, but Vollmann's voice remains distinct—scholarly yet street-wise, historically meticulous yet wildly imaginative.
The novel employs a deliberately destabilizing structure alternating between German and Soviet perspectives. The German narrative often manifests as an unnamed "SS officer" who functions as a propaganda voice referring to himself as "we," embodying the collective German perspective while revealing its moral failures. This technique explores totalitarianism from within rather than passing judgment from historical distance.
The Soviet sections provide a counterpoint through their more intimate psychological approach, particularly in the extended focus on Shostakovich's tormented relationship with music, his unrequited love, and his complex accommodation with Soviet power. Other figures like poet Akhmatova and filmmaker Roman Karmen further illustrate the human cost of totalitarian regimes.
What makes Vollmann's approach challenging yet rewarding is how these dual narratives resist providing comfortable moral certainty—we are, after all, dealing with Nazis and Stalinist Communists. By continuously shifting perspectives, the novel forces active participation in constructing meaning, much as people living through these events had to make sense of contradictory information. The disorienting style intentionally mirrors the chaos of wartime Europe while challenging the notion of a single "true" historical narrative.
Through this complex technique, Vollmann blurs the lines between victors and vanquished, perpetrators and victims, revealing how both German and Soviet regimes weaponized narrative itself. Shostakovich's story, with its musical descriptions, provides an emotional center that makes the difficult structure more accessible, as his suffering becomes emblematic of the broader human experience under totalitarianism.
Through Vollmann's perspective, history transforms from distant past into urgent warning, suggesting that when "the finest people always seem to be hiding something from others and keeping quiet about it," complicity becomes the deadliest form of collaboration.
The book's interlocking stories create a mosaic requiring readers' ethical engagement. We encounter the brilliant composer Dmitri Shostakovich, whose music functions as resistance against Stalin's oppression, and Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus at Stalingrad, who disobeys Hitler rather than sacrifice his remaining troops.
Vollmann writes with exceptional erudition: "Exhausted, at which point a man becomes a coward; one must feed one's bravery; it's all a matter of chemicals," offering a harrowing insight into warfare's psychological breaking point.
German filmmaker Käthe Kollwitz's grief-stricken artistic journey after losing her son in WWI exemplifies Vollmann's thematic focus on art's response to atrocity. He juxtaposes this with Russian general Andrei Vlasov, who betrayed Stalin to join the Nazis before being captured and executed—a double-agent whose moral compromises reveal the impossible choices of wartime.
The doomed romance between Shostakovich and translator Elena Konstantinovskaya pulses throughout, encapsulated in the admission: "To you I'm just a fool in love with an idea."
Operation Barbarossa appears through the eyes of both invaders and defenders, where "the 'living' person and that's all. Keep shooting live people; they get in people's way, in the proletariat's way." The SS Einsatzgruppen's methodical extermination campaigns in Ukraine constitute a harrowing sequence depicted with forensic precision. Kurt Gerstein's failed attempts to expose the Holocaust while paradoxically supplying Zyklon B to concentration camps embodies the "sleepy, never-drying, truancy, obscurity, bliss, then inharmoniousness" of moral contradiction under fascism.
Vollmann—that enfant terrible of American letters who once lived with the mujahideen in Afghanistan and reportedly wrote this 800-page opus in three years—has produced a literary equivalent to Picasso's Guernica: disturbing, disruptive, and transformative.
The book evokes Pynchon's gravity-defying historical acrobatics or Sebald's melancholy wanderings, but Vollmann's voice remains distinct—scholarly yet street-wise, historically meticulous yet wildly imaginative.
The novel employs a deliberately destabilizing structure alternating between German and Soviet perspectives. The German narrative often manifests as an unnamed "SS officer" who functions as a propaganda voice referring to himself as "we," embodying the collective German perspective while revealing its moral failures. This technique explores totalitarianism from within rather than passing judgment from historical distance.
The Soviet sections provide a counterpoint through their more intimate psychological approach, particularly in the extended focus on Shostakovich's tormented relationship with music, his unrequited love, and his complex accommodation with Soviet power. Other figures like poet Akhmatova and filmmaker Roman Karmen further illustrate the human cost of totalitarian regimes.
What makes Vollmann's approach challenging yet rewarding is how these dual narratives resist providing comfortable moral certainty—we are, after all, dealing with Nazis and Stalinist Communists. By continuously shifting perspectives, the novel forces active participation in constructing meaning, much as people living through these events had to make sense of contradictory information. The disorienting style intentionally mirrors the chaos of wartime Europe while challenging the notion of a single "true" historical narrative.
Through this complex technique, Vollmann blurs the lines between victors and vanquished, perpetrators and victims, revealing how both German and Soviet regimes weaponized narrative itself. Shostakovich's story, with its musical descriptions, provides an emotional center that makes the difficult structure more accessible, as his suffering becomes emblematic of the broader human experience under totalitarianism.
Through Vollmann's perspective, history transforms from distant past into urgent warning, suggesting that when "the finest people always seem to be hiding something from others and keeping quiet about it," complicity becomes the deadliest form of collaboration.
July 15, 2023
It was such a pleasure to reread this. 2005 was a long time ago and I’m thankful that I’m a better reader now in 2023. The breadth of his research and the innovative mind that William T. Vollmann has is simply astounding. His novels are so inclusive that they will never be out of touch or time. If I had to pick just one author for a desert island destination I think I’d pick him. His fiction and non is some of the best writing you’ll ever read. That’s all.
August 6, 2023
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2023...
"No somos los monstruos que les pinta su secretario general Stalin. Somos seres humanos."
Esta es una frase que se repetía continuamente en un libro que leí hace poco, “How to quiet a vampire”, de Borislav Pekic, la proclamaba un nazi, una frase recurrente que de alguna forma viene emparentada con una obra que venía de leer justo antes, “Los orígenes del totalitarismo” de Hannah Arendt , un libro que me hizo bucear un poco más sobre esta cuestión de los totalitarismos, pero ya desde el punto de vista de los rusos, y que se convirtió casi sin planearlo en mi ciclo sobre “La Europa del Terror”, que vengo a finalizar con esta Europa Central, un colofón a estas lecturas que no ha podido ser más atinado ya que aquí están contenidos todos estos autores balcánicos y rusos que me habían hablado del terror en la Europa del x. XX. Volmann es quien ha venido a terminar de redondearlo, un americano además, en una obra que compendia todo lo anterior.
Desde la lectura hace un par de años de mi primer Vollmann, “La Familia Real”, quería abordar Europa Central y siempre me echaba para atrás la densidad histórica de la temática de lo que exponía, así que iba aparcándolo una y otra vez. Pero una de las veces en que hojeé el libro, vi la dedicatoria: Este libro está dedicado a la memoria de Danilo Kis, cuya obra maestra "Una tumba para Boris Davidovich" me hizo compañía durante años, mientras me preparaba para escribir este libro y ahí volví a aparcar la lectura de Europa Central para dedicarme a la novela de Danilo Kis, emblemática para Vollmann, como una especie de preparación para leerme a continuación Europa Central, cosa que no hice tampoco. Así he ido aparcando Europa Central una y otra vez durante dos años y he ido leyendo otros Vollnanns que igual han sido incluso más densos pero estaba yo emperrada en que no iba a poder con él; y sin embargo ya una vez terminada Vida y Destino de Vasily Grossman, ya me decidí, porque el tema esencial en Europa Central es el totalitarismo, y el enfrentamiento entre dos naciones que convirtieron Europa en puro terror. Ahora viéndolo con perspectiva, ha sido beneficioso haberla aparcado durante estos dos años que lleva en mi pila porque una vez que he llegado hasta esta novela he reconocido personajes y momentos, que venía de leer durante estos últimos meses, así que he llegado aquí gracias a mis circunstancias lectoras como en una especie de destino prefijado. Y ha sido beneficioso y muy gratificante sobre todo por la perspectiva que le da Vollman a sus novelas históricas: ese puntito de acercamiento con los ojos de ahora (aquí los narradores juegan un papel importantísimo) con el riesgo que eso supone para una novela histórica.
"En aquella época ser neutral significaba no tener amigos, mientras que ser leal a un bando o al otro aumentaba la posibilidad de que el contrario le sentenciara a muerte. Además, tales castigos solían ser inflingidos a inocentes.”
En esta novela los dos bandos son los nacionalsocialistas por una parte, y los bolcheviques por otra y leyendo a Danilo Kis es cuando se es totalmente consciente de lo que ha influido a Vollman porque ninguno de los dos consideran la ficción como un artificio cuando se trata de abordar la historia. El nexo que une a ambos es tomar las vidas de personas que existieron o no y los mezclan con referencias históricas, pero el hecho de que lo conviertan en ficción no significa que sea falso, todo lo contrario: desnudan la historia de la rigidez y nos la presentan con personas que reconocemos lo que le da autenticidad. Resucitando las historias de personas que existieron, anónimas muchas de ellas y dándoles vida o inventando otras, es una forma de establecer una permanencia, de que perduren... De esta forma, Vollmann es único a la hora de sacar a la novela histórica de su encorsetamiento y rigidez, y le insufla una brisa de aire fresco. En esta mezcla entre ficción y no ficción que establece, no engaña, no hay falsedad porque todo ésta milimétricamente documentado y las casí cien páginas de fuentes y datos históricos que enuncia al final de la novela, lo demuestran e incluso hay notas al margen para advertir que una escena determinada es ficción.
"Y había un fotorretrato ampliado de Käthe de hacía mucho tiempo. Cuando rondaba la veintena se parecía de un modo extraño a la mujer de Lenin, Nadezhda Krúpskaya, que tan solo era dos años más joven que ella. Ambas mujeres tenían la misma mirada intensa, los mismos labios apretados , como si quisieran ocultar lo carnosos que eran. Käthe miró a su joven yo durante un largo rato..."
Europa Central no hay duda de que es una novela, histórica ademas, pero la estructura en la que la envuelve Vollmann le da un aire a colección de relatos, unidos no solo por el contextó histórico, sino por una serie de personajes recurrentes entre el que destaca el músico Shostakóvich, que funciona como una especie de enlace a estos relatos y porque además Shostakóvich es también ¿por qué no? la excusa de Vollmann para abordar ciertas cuestiones morales que van surgiendo a lo largo de la novela: "La vida exige el máximo grado de sordera; entonces podremos ser, por así decirlo, felices."
Casi cuarenta relatos, la mayoría de ellos ambientados en Alemania y la Unión Soviética durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, aunque la novela realmente empiece en 1914 y termine en 1975. Algunas de las historias están contadas desde el punto de vista de sus protagonistas pero otras con un narrador que a veces se identifica y otras no, este juego de narradores que van cambiando de un relato a otro es uno de los puntos más brillantes de esta novela, una característica que define a Vollmann casi siempre. Por ejemplo, comienza la novela con un relato apasionante (Los Salvadores, un relato cabalístico) en torno a dos mujeres, Fania Kaplan y Nadezhda Krúpskaya, la primera una revolucionaria y disidente soviética que intentó asesinar a Lenin en 1918 (que desató la ola de ejecuciones del Terror Rojo), y la segunda, la esposa de Lenin. La manera en la que en este relato, Vollmann establece las conexiones entre ambas mujeres, sus vidas, estableciendo un emparejamiento casi mental, lo convierten en un relato hermosísimo desde el primer momento.
"Puesto que se temía por la seguridad del zar, en un principio el tribunal la condenó a muerte, pero debido a su juventud y a su sexo, la sentencia fue conmutada por trabajos forzados en Siberia. Allí vivió entre rios helados y alfabetos celestes de constelaciones hasta que la Revolución de Octubre la amnistió."
Este primer relato está directamente relacionado con el segundo, “Movilización”, ahora ya no es la Unión Soviética sino que es Alemania la protagonista del relato, se podría decir que es la otra cara de la misma moneda: transcurre en 1914 y no hay duda de que retrata el preciso momento en que surge la idea de la Primera Guerra Mundial, la idea de Europa tiene que quedar desvanecida para dar paso a un sentimiento nacionalista obsesivo, Alemania. Es en este relato donde Vollmann ya nos presenta al personaje del sonámbulo (Hitler, a Stalin lo denomina el realista): “y junto a mí, un hombrecito pálido, a buen seguro un vagabundo, despeinado y con un bigote oscuro y trapezoidal, empezó a dar saltos, sonriendo al mundo con ojos de sonámbulo…” Quizás todavía en este segundo relato es pronto para que el lector lo perciba, pero a partir de ahí casi todos los relatos no solamente están enlazados sino además emparejados porque cuando Vollmann está contando una historia inmediatamente después la empareja con otra desde la otra perspectiva, así va rotando entre la visión alemana y la soviética y quizás donde más patente se haga sea en las historias en torno al general Vlasov y el mariscal de campo Paulus, al final dos historias que conforman dos personajes que son como espejos aunque estuvieran en frentes diferentes, ambos militares cambiaron de bando, ambos se convierton en traidores a su patria y la forma en la que Vollmann narra ambas historias es quizás uno de los puntos álgidos de esta novela.
“Se la encontró un día de invierno en la cola de Liteini Prospekt, y en una carta la describió como un -maniquí distante-. ¡Asi es como nos gustaba! Por desgracia, su presencia aún electrizaba a cualquier multitud. En mi opinión, esto demuestra que no habíamos sido lo bastante estrictos con ella. Tal vez era un maniquí distante, tan mansa como el agua bajo una capa de hielo; pero nuestra misión era congelarla."
Todos los relatos son apasionantes y todos están marcados por el año en que se sucedieron los hechos para que el lector se sitúe y no se pierda, pero admito que hay algunos relatos que directamente me han encandilado como por el ejemplo el que Vollmann titula como un poema de Anna Ajmátova "Y secaría mis cabellos salados en una roca plana lejos de tierra", aquí un narrador, cuenta en primera persona su espionaje y acoso estalinista sobre la poeta Anna Ajmátova, y a fuerza de espiarla, se aprendió sus poemas de memoria : "Un sentimiento personal no es más que un sentimiento personal. He fusilado a infinidad de mujeres atractivas." La grabadora Käthe Kollwitz, el compositor Dmitri Shostakóvich, las poetas y escritoras Chukovskaia, Tsvetaeva o Ajmátova, fueron artistas continuamente presionados para que su arte sirviera como propaganda de ambos régimenes totalitarios pagando un alto precio algunos de ellos por mantenerse libres; otros como Roman Karmen, cineasta documentalista sin embargo, idealizó con sus documentales los triunfos bolcheviques. Otros personajes como serán telefonistas, espias, soldados, militares... , forman un microcosmos que nos ayuda a recorrer esta Europa del terror. Vollmann que normalmente se autonombra personaje camuflado en sus historias, aquí lo deja para la nota final en la que se dedica a explicar algunas cuestiones como por el ejemplo el del triángulo amoroso entre Shostakóvich, Roman Karmen, el cineasta y Elena Konstantinovskaya, traductora, amante del primero y esposa del segundo.
"Lo más extraño de esta mujer es que sabía cómo ocultarse tras una apariencia poco atractiva (supongo que para que no le hicieran daño). En cuanto se ponía las gafas redondas y se recogía el pelo en un moño, casi nadie la miraba. He leído que aquellos pocos afortunados que fueron testigos, literalmente, de cómo se soltaba el pelo, jamás la olvidaron durante el resto de su vida."
[…]
"Había sido uno de sus libros favoritos (no podemos decir su favorito, dado que su vida aún no había concluido). Lo mencionó, y ella se mostró dispuesta a aceptarlo; era tan amable que iba a leerse el libro que a él tanto le gustaba. "Él no estaría a su lado cuando empezara a leer el ibro; pero de sus frecuentes conversaciones, pensaba que podría mantenerse al tanto de a dónde había llegado cada día. Le prometío empezarlo aquella misma noche cuando estuviera en casa con el otro hombre."
Vollmann avisa de que este triángulo amoroso es pura invención y que el personaje de Elena está reinventado: la mujer misteriosa y siempre esquiva, y como tantas mujeres en las obra de Vollmann, siempre idealizada. Elena que era rubia, aquí para la ficción, Vollmann la convierte en una morena de larga melena a la que siempre está aludiendo como en una especie de simbolo de Europa. Elena está siempre presente, y aunque aquí Vollmann la convierte en el gran amor de Shostakóvich, también es verdad que el retrato que hace de ella es una especie de abstracción ideal.
"Sea como fuere, quiénquiera que escriba sobre ella, no tarda en desorientarse. Es incognoscible."
[...]
"En las óperas de Shostakóvich ella era el destello de luz en los turbulentos cielos del cromatismo."
[...]
“Y entonces, al otro lado de la calle, estaba ella, Elena Kostantínovskaya, quiero decir, con el pelo ya gris pero solo que más…, qué puedo decir, me da miedo decir, hermoso, porque… bueno, ella era tan perfecta, y tan improbable por serlo, como un icono prerrevolucionario enmarcado en oro; y ella lo vio, pero ambos habían sido educados en el uso de aquellos heucos de los pasillos en los que se ponía de cara a la pared a los prisioneros que se cruzaban, para que no pudieran reconocerse entre ellos.”
De todas formas, dentro de todo este cúmulo de historias, prevalece el retrato que hace Vollmann de Dmitri Shostakóvich que es el rio que guiará toda la novela. El compositor será el protagonista de muchos de estos relatos como una especie de excusa para contar la evolución del contexto histórico que le tocó vivir desde 1914 en que tenía ocho años hasta 1975, fecha en que falleció. El retrato que Vollmann concibe aquí es quizás uno de sus personajes más logrados, porque Shostakóvich, es el eterno disidente camuflado, que durante décadas estuvo mareándole la perdíz al régimen para no afiliarse al partido bajo la excusa “quizás cuando termine la sinfonia en la que estoy trabajando”, y sin embargo de cara a la galería, esa disidencia no se manifestaba, era una persona a la que le costaba enfrentarse a los conflictos y que era casi incapaz decir que No. Vollmann lo dota de toda una gama de matices que le hace sobrevivir en pleno infierno: su miedo crónico ante el sonido del teléfono o del timbre, siempre con la maleta preparada en el caso de que vinieran por él, y en este sentido algunas escenas resultan hasta patéticas de lo humanas. Sí, Shostakóvich estuvo mareando la perdiz durante décadas pero gracias a eso consiguió escribir la música que quería "Por eso quería construir su sinfonía no a partir de música, sino a partir de nieve y explosiones."
“… porque el Opus 110 no es una progresión, solo una cárcel, y el prisionero (cierto DD Shostakóvich) ya ha completado el circuito de los muros hasta volver al punto de partida. . Está en en centro del mundo, compréndase. (El centro del mundo es Leningrado, que es Stalingrado, que es Ausschwitz). Todos los lugares llevan alli. De ahí el horror del Opus 110, tan íntimo como el limo de la garganta de la música, las cuerdas que gotean amargura y odio.”
Dentro de lo excesiva y de lo brillante que es Europa Central, me fascina encontrarme con un personaje como el de Shostakóvich que es una metáfora quizas del ser humano buscando recursos para sobrevivir: patético en muchos momentos, vulnerable, tímido, torpe, inseguro siempre.... Eternamente atormentado por un amor inalcanzable, el de Elena, y por esa presión stalinista "Shostakóvich soñó que unos hombres que calzaban unas botas altas y brillantes iban a buscarlo en mitad de la noche." buscaba refugio en la música y la forma en que Vollmann yuxtapone esos estados de ánimo a la hora de componer, con la átmosfera irrespirable del miedo continuo a ser detenido, a los bombardeos, a la muerte siempre presente, tiene su momento álgido en el relato de más de cien páginas titulado Opus 110: un interludio totalmente vollmaniano, en el que captura ese tormento de Shostakóvich relacionando su música con sus miedos, con el terror de los tiempos que le tocó vivir.
"Shostakóvich, se dijo a sí mismo, hoy voy a morir. Intentaba ser... digamos que progresista, filosófico, realista, incluso -¿por qué no intentar usar estas palabra de nuevo?- optimista (por ejemplo los tranvías aún funcionaban, por suerte, no se habían congelado en las calles); y lo que, a buen seguro, no era más que, ya sabe, un sentimiento en esencia infundado, lo blindó contra el miedo..."
Quizás uno de los grandes logros que aquí consigue Vollmann sea el hecho de que entendamos a la perfección algunas decisiones morales que se vieron obligados a ejercer muchos de los personajes de esta novela, si ya es dificil pensar con claridad en tiempos de paz, no digamos en un tiempo de terror como el que vivió Europa en la primera mitad del siglo XX, así que en este aspecto pensar en lo que tuvo aguantar la poeta Ajmátova, Käthe Kollwitz o el mismo Shostakóvich para mantener su obra libre de influencias, resulta cuánto menos una hazaña por no mencionar a Kurt Gerstein, en el relato “Manos Limpias”, quizá uno de los más conplejos de la novela. Y el lenguaje de Vollmann se mimetiza con las diferentes historias, ajustándose, pasando del lenguaje militar, de la estrategia politica al lirismo poético al que nos tiene tan acostumbrados cuando menos nos lo esperamos. Una novela por momentos agotadora pero totalmente necesaria, de un autor al que tachan de excesivo, pero al que considero fundamental. Brillantísima Europa Central.
“Cuando repaso mi vida, me doy cuenta de que he sido un cobarde, un cobarde. Pero si tú hubieras visto todo lo que he visto yo, Edik, a lo mejor también te habrías vuelto cobarde. ¿Te lo imaginas? Aceptar… ya sabes, aceptar la invitación de un amigo, y cuando llegas a su casa descubrir que ha ‘desaparecido’, con todos sus libros y su ropa lanzados a la calle, ¡y algún nuevo camarada ya instalado allí! Es…”
"No somos los monstruos que les pinta su secretario general Stalin. Somos seres humanos."
Esta es una frase que se repetía continuamente en un libro que leí hace poco, “How to quiet a vampire”, de Borislav Pekic, la proclamaba un nazi, una frase recurrente que de alguna forma viene emparentada con una obra que venía de leer justo antes, “Los orígenes del totalitarismo” de Hannah Arendt , un libro que me hizo bucear un poco más sobre esta cuestión de los totalitarismos, pero ya desde el punto de vista de los rusos, y que se convirtió casi sin planearlo en mi ciclo sobre “La Europa del Terror”, que vengo a finalizar con esta Europa Central, un colofón a estas lecturas que no ha podido ser más atinado ya que aquí están contenidos todos estos autores balcánicos y rusos que me habían hablado del terror en la Europa del x. XX. Volmann es quien ha venido a terminar de redondearlo, un americano además, en una obra que compendia todo lo anterior.
Desde la lectura hace un par de años de mi primer Vollmann, “La Familia Real”, quería abordar Europa Central y siempre me echaba para atrás la densidad histórica de la temática de lo que exponía, así que iba aparcándolo una y otra vez. Pero una de las veces en que hojeé el libro, vi la dedicatoria: Este libro está dedicado a la memoria de Danilo Kis, cuya obra maestra "Una tumba para Boris Davidovich" me hizo compañía durante años, mientras me preparaba para escribir este libro y ahí volví a aparcar la lectura de Europa Central para dedicarme a la novela de Danilo Kis, emblemática para Vollmann, como una especie de preparación para leerme a continuación Europa Central, cosa que no hice tampoco. Así he ido aparcando Europa Central una y otra vez durante dos años y he ido leyendo otros Vollnanns que igual han sido incluso más densos pero estaba yo emperrada en que no iba a poder con él; y sin embargo ya una vez terminada Vida y Destino de Vasily Grossman, ya me decidí, porque el tema esencial en Europa Central es el totalitarismo, y el enfrentamiento entre dos naciones que convirtieron Europa en puro terror. Ahora viéndolo con perspectiva, ha sido beneficioso haberla aparcado durante estos dos años que lleva en mi pila porque una vez que he llegado hasta esta novela he reconocido personajes y momentos, que venía de leer durante estos últimos meses, así que he llegado aquí gracias a mis circunstancias lectoras como en una especie de destino prefijado. Y ha sido beneficioso y muy gratificante sobre todo por la perspectiva que le da Vollman a sus novelas históricas: ese puntito de acercamiento con los ojos de ahora (aquí los narradores juegan un papel importantísimo) con el riesgo que eso supone para una novela histórica.
"En aquella época ser neutral significaba no tener amigos, mientras que ser leal a un bando o al otro aumentaba la posibilidad de que el contrario le sentenciara a muerte. Además, tales castigos solían ser inflingidos a inocentes.”
En esta novela los dos bandos son los nacionalsocialistas por una parte, y los bolcheviques por otra y leyendo a Danilo Kis es cuando se es totalmente consciente de lo que ha influido a Vollman porque ninguno de los dos consideran la ficción como un artificio cuando se trata de abordar la historia. El nexo que une a ambos es tomar las vidas de personas que existieron o no y los mezclan con referencias históricas, pero el hecho de que lo conviertan en ficción no significa que sea falso, todo lo contrario: desnudan la historia de la rigidez y nos la presentan con personas que reconocemos lo que le da autenticidad. Resucitando las historias de personas que existieron, anónimas muchas de ellas y dándoles vida o inventando otras, es una forma de establecer una permanencia, de que perduren... De esta forma, Vollmann es único a la hora de sacar a la novela histórica de su encorsetamiento y rigidez, y le insufla una brisa de aire fresco. En esta mezcla entre ficción y no ficción que establece, no engaña, no hay falsedad porque todo ésta milimétricamente documentado y las casí cien páginas de fuentes y datos históricos que enuncia al final de la novela, lo demuestran e incluso hay notas al margen para advertir que una escena determinada es ficción.
"Y había un fotorretrato ampliado de Käthe de hacía mucho tiempo. Cuando rondaba la veintena se parecía de un modo extraño a la mujer de Lenin, Nadezhda Krúpskaya, que tan solo era dos años más joven que ella. Ambas mujeres tenían la misma mirada intensa, los mismos labios apretados , como si quisieran ocultar lo carnosos que eran. Käthe miró a su joven yo durante un largo rato..."
Europa Central no hay duda de que es una novela, histórica ademas, pero la estructura en la que la envuelve Vollmann le da un aire a colección de relatos, unidos no solo por el contextó histórico, sino por una serie de personajes recurrentes entre el que destaca el músico Shostakóvich, que funciona como una especie de enlace a estos relatos y porque además Shostakóvich es también ¿por qué no? la excusa de Vollmann para abordar ciertas cuestiones morales que van surgiendo a lo largo de la novela: "La vida exige el máximo grado de sordera; entonces podremos ser, por así decirlo, felices."
Casi cuarenta relatos, la mayoría de ellos ambientados en Alemania y la Unión Soviética durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, aunque la novela realmente empiece en 1914 y termine en 1975. Algunas de las historias están contadas desde el punto de vista de sus protagonistas pero otras con un narrador que a veces se identifica y otras no, este juego de narradores que van cambiando de un relato a otro es uno de los puntos más brillantes de esta novela, una característica que define a Vollmann casi siempre. Por ejemplo, comienza la novela con un relato apasionante (Los Salvadores, un relato cabalístico) en torno a dos mujeres, Fania Kaplan y Nadezhda Krúpskaya, la primera una revolucionaria y disidente soviética que intentó asesinar a Lenin en 1918 (que desató la ola de ejecuciones del Terror Rojo), y la segunda, la esposa de Lenin. La manera en la que en este relato, Vollmann establece las conexiones entre ambas mujeres, sus vidas, estableciendo un emparejamiento casi mental, lo convierten en un relato hermosísimo desde el primer momento.
"Puesto que se temía por la seguridad del zar, en un principio el tribunal la condenó a muerte, pero debido a su juventud y a su sexo, la sentencia fue conmutada por trabajos forzados en Siberia. Allí vivió entre rios helados y alfabetos celestes de constelaciones hasta que la Revolución de Octubre la amnistió."
Este primer relato está directamente relacionado con el segundo, “Movilización”, ahora ya no es la Unión Soviética sino que es Alemania la protagonista del relato, se podría decir que es la otra cara de la misma moneda: transcurre en 1914 y no hay duda de que retrata el preciso momento en que surge la idea de la Primera Guerra Mundial, la idea de Europa tiene que quedar desvanecida para dar paso a un sentimiento nacionalista obsesivo, Alemania. Es en este relato donde Vollmann ya nos presenta al personaje del sonámbulo (Hitler, a Stalin lo denomina el realista): “y junto a mí, un hombrecito pálido, a buen seguro un vagabundo, despeinado y con un bigote oscuro y trapezoidal, empezó a dar saltos, sonriendo al mundo con ojos de sonámbulo…” Quizás todavía en este segundo relato es pronto para que el lector lo perciba, pero a partir de ahí casi todos los relatos no solamente están enlazados sino además emparejados porque cuando Vollmann está contando una historia inmediatamente después la empareja con otra desde la otra perspectiva, así va rotando entre la visión alemana y la soviética y quizás donde más patente se haga sea en las historias en torno al general Vlasov y el mariscal de campo Paulus, al final dos historias que conforman dos personajes que son como espejos aunque estuvieran en frentes diferentes, ambos militares cambiaron de bando, ambos se convierton en traidores a su patria y la forma en la que Vollmann narra ambas historias es quizás uno de los puntos álgidos de esta novela.
“Se la encontró un día de invierno en la cola de Liteini Prospekt, y en una carta la describió como un -maniquí distante-. ¡Asi es como nos gustaba! Por desgracia, su presencia aún electrizaba a cualquier multitud. En mi opinión, esto demuestra que no habíamos sido lo bastante estrictos con ella. Tal vez era un maniquí distante, tan mansa como el agua bajo una capa de hielo; pero nuestra misión era congelarla."
Todos los relatos son apasionantes y todos están marcados por el año en que se sucedieron los hechos para que el lector se sitúe y no se pierda, pero admito que hay algunos relatos que directamente me han encandilado como por el ejemplo el que Vollmann titula como un poema de Anna Ajmátova "Y secaría mis cabellos salados en una roca plana lejos de tierra", aquí un narrador, cuenta en primera persona su espionaje y acoso estalinista sobre la poeta Anna Ajmátova, y a fuerza de espiarla, se aprendió sus poemas de memoria : "Un sentimiento personal no es más que un sentimiento personal. He fusilado a infinidad de mujeres atractivas." La grabadora Käthe Kollwitz, el compositor Dmitri Shostakóvich, las poetas y escritoras Chukovskaia, Tsvetaeva o Ajmátova, fueron artistas continuamente presionados para que su arte sirviera como propaganda de ambos régimenes totalitarios pagando un alto precio algunos de ellos por mantenerse libres; otros como Roman Karmen, cineasta documentalista sin embargo, idealizó con sus documentales los triunfos bolcheviques. Otros personajes como serán telefonistas, espias, soldados, militares... , forman un microcosmos que nos ayuda a recorrer esta Europa del terror. Vollmann que normalmente se autonombra personaje camuflado en sus historias, aquí lo deja para la nota final en la que se dedica a explicar algunas cuestiones como por el ejemplo el del triángulo amoroso entre Shostakóvich, Roman Karmen, el cineasta y Elena Konstantinovskaya, traductora, amante del primero y esposa del segundo.
"Lo más extraño de esta mujer es que sabía cómo ocultarse tras una apariencia poco atractiva (supongo que para que no le hicieran daño). En cuanto se ponía las gafas redondas y se recogía el pelo en un moño, casi nadie la miraba. He leído que aquellos pocos afortunados que fueron testigos, literalmente, de cómo se soltaba el pelo, jamás la olvidaron durante el resto de su vida."
[…]
"Había sido uno de sus libros favoritos (no podemos decir su favorito, dado que su vida aún no había concluido). Lo mencionó, y ella se mostró dispuesta a aceptarlo; era tan amable que iba a leerse el libro que a él tanto le gustaba. "Él no estaría a su lado cuando empezara a leer el ibro; pero de sus frecuentes conversaciones, pensaba que podría mantenerse al tanto de a dónde había llegado cada día. Le prometío empezarlo aquella misma noche cuando estuviera en casa con el otro hombre."
Vollmann avisa de que este triángulo amoroso es pura invención y que el personaje de Elena está reinventado: la mujer misteriosa y siempre esquiva, y como tantas mujeres en las obra de Vollmann, siempre idealizada. Elena que era rubia, aquí para la ficción, Vollmann la convierte en una morena de larga melena a la que siempre está aludiendo como en una especie de simbolo de Europa. Elena está siempre presente, y aunque aquí Vollmann la convierte en el gran amor de Shostakóvich, también es verdad que el retrato que hace de ella es una especie de abstracción ideal.
"Sea como fuere, quiénquiera que escriba sobre ella, no tarda en desorientarse. Es incognoscible."
[...]
"En las óperas de Shostakóvich ella era el destello de luz en los turbulentos cielos del cromatismo."
[...]
“Y entonces, al otro lado de la calle, estaba ella, Elena Kostantínovskaya, quiero decir, con el pelo ya gris pero solo que más…, qué puedo decir, me da miedo decir, hermoso, porque… bueno, ella era tan perfecta, y tan improbable por serlo, como un icono prerrevolucionario enmarcado en oro; y ella lo vio, pero ambos habían sido educados en el uso de aquellos heucos de los pasillos en los que se ponía de cara a la pared a los prisioneros que se cruzaban, para que no pudieran reconocerse entre ellos.”
De todas formas, dentro de todo este cúmulo de historias, prevalece el retrato que hace Vollmann de Dmitri Shostakóvich que es el rio que guiará toda la novela. El compositor será el protagonista de muchos de estos relatos como una especie de excusa para contar la evolución del contexto histórico que le tocó vivir desde 1914 en que tenía ocho años hasta 1975, fecha en que falleció. El retrato que Vollmann concibe aquí es quizás uno de sus personajes más logrados, porque Shostakóvich, es el eterno disidente camuflado, que durante décadas estuvo mareándole la perdíz al régimen para no afiliarse al partido bajo la excusa “quizás cuando termine la sinfonia en la que estoy trabajando”, y sin embargo de cara a la galería, esa disidencia no se manifestaba, era una persona a la que le costaba enfrentarse a los conflictos y que era casi incapaz decir que No. Vollmann lo dota de toda una gama de matices que le hace sobrevivir en pleno infierno: su miedo crónico ante el sonido del teléfono o del timbre, siempre con la maleta preparada en el caso de que vinieran por él, y en este sentido algunas escenas resultan hasta patéticas de lo humanas. Sí, Shostakóvich estuvo mareando la perdiz durante décadas pero gracias a eso consiguió escribir la música que quería "Por eso quería construir su sinfonía no a partir de música, sino a partir de nieve y explosiones."
“… porque el Opus 110 no es una progresión, solo una cárcel, y el prisionero (cierto DD Shostakóvich) ya ha completado el circuito de los muros hasta volver al punto de partida. . Está en en centro del mundo, compréndase. (El centro del mundo es Leningrado, que es Stalingrado, que es Ausschwitz). Todos los lugares llevan alli. De ahí el horror del Opus 110, tan íntimo como el limo de la garganta de la música, las cuerdas que gotean amargura y odio.”
Dentro de lo excesiva y de lo brillante que es Europa Central, me fascina encontrarme con un personaje como el de Shostakóvich que es una metáfora quizas del ser humano buscando recursos para sobrevivir: patético en muchos momentos, vulnerable, tímido, torpe, inseguro siempre.... Eternamente atormentado por un amor inalcanzable, el de Elena, y por esa presión stalinista "Shostakóvich soñó que unos hombres que calzaban unas botas altas y brillantes iban a buscarlo en mitad de la noche." buscaba refugio en la música y la forma en que Vollmann yuxtapone esos estados de ánimo a la hora de componer, con la átmosfera irrespirable del miedo continuo a ser detenido, a los bombardeos, a la muerte siempre presente, tiene su momento álgido en el relato de más de cien páginas titulado Opus 110: un interludio totalmente vollmaniano, en el que captura ese tormento de Shostakóvich relacionando su música con sus miedos, con el terror de los tiempos que le tocó vivir.
"Shostakóvich, se dijo a sí mismo, hoy voy a morir. Intentaba ser... digamos que progresista, filosófico, realista, incluso -¿por qué no intentar usar estas palabra de nuevo?- optimista (por ejemplo los tranvías aún funcionaban, por suerte, no se habían congelado en las calles); y lo que, a buen seguro, no era más que, ya sabe, un sentimiento en esencia infundado, lo blindó contra el miedo..."
Quizás uno de los grandes logros que aquí consigue Vollmann sea el hecho de que entendamos a la perfección algunas decisiones morales que se vieron obligados a ejercer muchos de los personajes de esta novela, si ya es dificil pensar con claridad en tiempos de paz, no digamos en un tiempo de terror como el que vivió Europa en la primera mitad del siglo XX, así que en este aspecto pensar en lo que tuvo aguantar la poeta Ajmátova, Käthe Kollwitz o el mismo Shostakóvich para mantener su obra libre de influencias, resulta cuánto menos una hazaña por no mencionar a Kurt Gerstein, en el relato “Manos Limpias”, quizá uno de los más conplejos de la novela. Y el lenguaje de Vollmann se mimetiza con las diferentes historias, ajustándose, pasando del lenguaje militar, de la estrategia politica al lirismo poético al que nos tiene tan acostumbrados cuando menos nos lo esperamos. Una novela por momentos agotadora pero totalmente necesaria, de un autor al que tachan de excesivo, pero al que considero fundamental. Brillantísima Europa Central.
“Cuando repaso mi vida, me doy cuenta de que he sido un cobarde, un cobarde. Pero si tú hubieras visto todo lo que he visto yo, Edik, a lo mejor también te habrías vuelto cobarde. ¿Te lo imaginas? Aceptar… ya sabes, aceptar la invitación de un amigo, y cuando llegas a su casa descubrir que ha ‘desaparecido’, con todos sus libros y su ropa lanzados a la calle, ¡y algún nuevo camarada ya instalado allí! Es…”
July 19, 2016
Appena cominciata la lettura di Europe Central mi sono subito chiesta quale mente geniale può aver partorito un libro di tale portata artistica, stilistica e narrativa.
Vollmann racconta il ‘900 europeo a cavallo tra le due guerre mondiali, narrando le vite, intrecciate l'una con l'altra da fili invisibili eppure apparentemente inestricabili, di personaggi realmente esistiti, alcuni celeberrimi, e altri di fantasia. Questi fotogrammi di vita vengono descritti nel fluire della loro esistenza, quando si trovano di fronte a decisioni fondamentali per la Storia della Seconda Guerra Mondiale o per la loro esistenza quotidiana e personale. In queste pagine leggiamo di storie di persone che si domandano se scendere a patti con il regime o combatterlo, in che modo compiere l’una o l’altra scelta, e le conseguenze che questa scelta porterà inevitabilmente con sé.
L’unicità di Vollmann non risiede solo nelle sue indiscusse abilità narrative, ma anche nel fatto di riuscire a instillarti dubbi esistenziali ad ogni pagina: siamo completamente immersi nel mondo che ci racconta, nei personaggi di cui seguiamo le vicende, tanto che ci spinge a chiederci cosa avremmo fatto noi se fossimo stati al loro posto, come avremmo fatto noi a mantenere viva la nostra umanità sotto le dittature più feroci. E questo non è da tutti.
Nel corso di questa opera epica conosceremo le storie della scultrice tedesca e comunista Käthe Kollwitz, autrice di xilografie che rappresentavano il dolore degli emarginati, delle donne sempre vittime delle guerre e che quando ebbe modo di visitare l'Unione Sovietica ne uscì confusa e straniata; di Sostakovic, compositore sovietico pieno di paure ed insicurezze, che si muoverà per tutta la vita fra censura ed encomi da parte del regime sovietico, a cui si piegò solo al termine della sua esistenza; di Kurt Gerstain, che provò più volte a rivelare l'orrore dei campi di concentramento; dello stesso Hitler, chiamato anche il Sonnambulo, perché lui rincorreva il suo destino, esattamente come un sonnambulo non può fare a meno di compiere i movimenti che esegue mentre dorme (…e così come un sonnambulo è separato dal resto dall’umanità): in poche pagine Vollman ci spiega il Male, senza mai mitizzare l’artefice di questo, ma, anzi, relegandolo a entità non-umana; del cineasta sovietico Roman Karmen che mise al servizio della propaganda la propria abilità cinematografica; del generale tedesco Paulus e di quello sovietico Vlasov, che nelle loro scelte parallele (uno disertò l’esercito tedesco per quello sovietico e viceversa) andarono incontro a destini opposti; del maresciallo dell'Unione Sovietica Čujkov liberatore di Stalingrado e che prese poi parte alla battaglia di Berlino.
Attorno a questi personaggi se ne muovono tantissimi altri: musicisti, soldati, madri e padri, figli e figlie, partigiani come la piccola Zoja, vedove, vecchi, amanti, poetesse come Anna Achmatova e Marina Cvetaeva… il tutto avvolto dalle tenebre che erano le città in quel periodo: Stalingrado, Leningrado, Varsavia, Berlino, Dresda, Lipsia, prima e dopo la guerra, ridotte in macerie e simbolo di regimi che non vogliono crollare e scomparire.
Un monumento, un inno a quelle anime che hanno provato ad opporsi alle macerie che stavano distruggendo l’Europa Centrale o, al contrario, che ne sono stati gli artefici.
Vollmann racconta il ‘900 europeo a cavallo tra le due guerre mondiali, narrando le vite, intrecciate l'una con l'altra da fili invisibili eppure apparentemente inestricabili, di personaggi realmente esistiti, alcuni celeberrimi, e altri di fantasia. Questi fotogrammi di vita vengono descritti nel fluire della loro esistenza, quando si trovano di fronte a decisioni fondamentali per la Storia della Seconda Guerra Mondiale o per la loro esistenza quotidiana e personale. In queste pagine leggiamo di storie di persone che si domandano se scendere a patti con il regime o combatterlo, in che modo compiere l’una o l’altra scelta, e le conseguenze che questa scelta porterà inevitabilmente con sé.
L’unicità di Vollmann non risiede solo nelle sue indiscusse abilità narrative, ma anche nel fatto di riuscire a instillarti dubbi esistenziali ad ogni pagina: siamo completamente immersi nel mondo che ci racconta, nei personaggi di cui seguiamo le vicende, tanto che ci spinge a chiederci cosa avremmo fatto noi se fossimo stati al loro posto, come avremmo fatto noi a mantenere viva la nostra umanità sotto le dittature più feroci. E questo non è da tutti.
Nel corso di questa opera epica conosceremo le storie della scultrice tedesca e comunista Käthe Kollwitz, autrice di xilografie che rappresentavano il dolore degli emarginati, delle donne sempre vittime delle guerre e che quando ebbe modo di visitare l'Unione Sovietica ne uscì confusa e straniata; di Sostakovic, compositore sovietico pieno di paure ed insicurezze, che si muoverà per tutta la vita fra censura ed encomi da parte del regime sovietico, a cui si piegò solo al termine della sua esistenza; di Kurt Gerstain, che provò più volte a rivelare l'orrore dei campi di concentramento; dello stesso Hitler, chiamato anche il Sonnambulo, perché lui rincorreva il suo destino, esattamente come un sonnambulo non può fare a meno di compiere i movimenti che esegue mentre dorme (…e così come un sonnambulo è separato dal resto dall’umanità): in poche pagine Vollman ci spiega il Male, senza mai mitizzare l’artefice di questo, ma, anzi, relegandolo a entità non-umana; del cineasta sovietico Roman Karmen che mise al servizio della propaganda la propria abilità cinematografica; del generale tedesco Paulus e di quello sovietico Vlasov, che nelle loro scelte parallele (uno disertò l’esercito tedesco per quello sovietico e viceversa) andarono incontro a destini opposti; del maresciallo dell'Unione Sovietica Čujkov liberatore di Stalingrado e che prese poi parte alla battaglia di Berlino.
Attorno a questi personaggi se ne muovono tantissimi altri: musicisti, soldati, madri e padri, figli e figlie, partigiani come la piccola Zoja, vedove, vecchi, amanti, poetesse come Anna Achmatova e Marina Cvetaeva… il tutto avvolto dalle tenebre che erano le città in quel periodo: Stalingrado, Leningrado, Varsavia, Berlino, Dresda, Lipsia, prima e dopo la guerra, ridotte in macerie e simbolo di regimi che non vogliono crollare e scomparire.
Un monumento, un inno a quelle anime che hanno provato ad opporsi alle macerie che stavano distruggendo l’Europa Centrale o, al contrario, che ne sono stati gli artefici.
August 6, 2007
A great companion book to the abridged version of Vollmann's Rising Up and Rising Down. This isn't for everyone. It's a war novel that isn't really a war novel, but a study of morality in totalitarian societies. Absolutely great.
What I learned? I learned that Walter Benjamin's sister-in-law was a cold-hearted prosecutor in East Germany, who sent many, many people to their deaths for ideological reasons. I also learned that many of these people were killed using a guillotine. That's pretty bad-ass.
What I learned? I learned that Walter Benjamin's sister-in-law was a cold-hearted prosecutor in East Germany, who sent many, many people to their deaths for ideological reasons. I also learned that many of these people were killed using a guillotine. That's pretty bad-ass.
August 21, 2023
Nella vita (di un lettore) c'è un prima e un dopo Europe Central
June 6, 2016
With Europe Central, I've now read a dozen books by Vollmann. Which sort of seems like a lot, except that I've still barely even touched his two main projects: the Seven Dream series and Rising Up & Rising Down.
His books vary widely in subject matter, yet clearly the same relentless mind is at work in all of them. He makes you believe that smoking crack with a street whore and spending hours in a library researching WW2 need not be such different activities. It's all for the sake of the same manic curiosity about the human condition.
He's not a perfect writer. His first novel was subtitled 'a cartoon,' and I think that's very self-revealing. Henry James he is not. His characters never really possess complex inner lives. For all the extreme variety of experience on display, everyone seems to have a fairly stunted emotional palette. I thought this problem reared its head again in Europe Central. The great love between Shostakovich and Elena is sort of taken on hearsay. It remains fairly vapid, a kind of placeholder until the end.
I find this problem is less pronounced in his books set in the present. In general I have a preference for the ones about prostitutes and other riff-raff in contemporary urban hell. I'm not sure if I'll continue digging through the Vollmann canon, but I do eagerly look forward to the publication of this one novel described here:
http://observer.com/2013/10/do-ya-thi...
After decades of writing about prostitution more or less from the perspective of the john, it seems he's now going to attempt the whore's point of view. I will be fascinated to see if he pulls it off.
His books vary widely in subject matter, yet clearly the same relentless mind is at work in all of them. He makes you believe that smoking crack with a street whore and spending hours in a library researching WW2 need not be such different activities. It's all for the sake of the same manic curiosity about the human condition.
He's not a perfect writer. His first novel was subtitled 'a cartoon,' and I think that's very self-revealing. Henry James he is not. His characters never really possess complex inner lives. For all the extreme variety of experience on display, everyone seems to have a fairly stunted emotional palette. I thought this problem reared its head again in Europe Central. The great love between Shostakovich and Elena is sort of taken on hearsay. It remains fairly vapid, a kind of placeholder until the end.
I find this problem is less pronounced in his books set in the present. In general I have a preference for the ones about prostitutes and other riff-raff in contemporary urban hell. I'm not sure if I'll continue digging through the Vollmann canon, but I do eagerly look forward to the publication of this one novel described here:
http://observer.com/2013/10/do-ya-thi...
After decades of writing about prostitution more or less from the perspective of the john, it seems he's now going to attempt the whore's point of view. I will be fascinated to see if he pulls it off.
May 29, 2015
Patronymics
--Europe Central
Sources
An Imaginary Love Triangle: Shostakovich, Karmen, Konstantinovskaya
Acknowledgements
--Europe Central
Sources
An Imaginary Love Triangle: Shostakovich, Karmen, Konstantinovskaya
Acknowledgements
April 16, 2023
I have no choice but to give this incredibly prolix and ambitious novel five stars--it is both a triumph of the will and the people's novel. Still, despite all of its drama, beauty, and erudition, I think it fails the holistic or organic work of art test: that is to say this is Vollmann's Inland Empire rather than his Blue Velvet. This novel shines with brilliance and force, inventiveness and raw power, but it's a scattered shower of shrapnel, the tattered rags of the last century hung out to dry once again; it is, after all, history, and history's a mess.
I suppose Stephen Moore says it best in his blurb on the back of the book: Europe Central is a historical novel that pits human beings against the forces of history (really, what we in the West took to be history for so long and which we now call political history and is really only the chronicle of who won what war, forcing their language and customs upon whom). The novel is made up of juxtaposing chapters in groups of two, one usually dealing with Nazi Germany and the other with its evil twin, the U.S.S.R. Several chapters, however, return to focus on the Soviet composer I. Shostakovitch, while most of the others deal with other major players in the conflict between the two nations known as the Eastern front of WWII.
Even within these juxtapositions there are other juxtapositions, like the German general who, after being captured at Stalingrad, switches sides balancing a chapter focusing on a Soviet General who, after being captured, also switches sides. Also the novel opens with a chapter placing the Communist German artist Kathe Kolwitz into/against her Wiemar period in Germany and recounts her trip to the U.S.S.R. This acts as a foil for the development of Shostakovitch the Formalist composer (it's a running joke throughout the novel) as a character in Soviet Russia who will, many years (and close to 700 pages) later, tour communist East Germany.
This is all thoughtful and thought-provoking stuff. Also the writing is forceful, yet lyrical, and it flows beautifully throughout. Although the novel is very, very long I can't say I ever found it difficult to read--but it did lag a bit here and there, allowing me to put it aside more than I would have liked to. (The Royal Family, on the other hand, although almost as long, was impossible to put down for more than a few hours at a time I found it so engrossing.) There's a lot of dramatic and powerful stuff here. But it's also, I'm sorry to say, uneven. The great stuff comes in fits and starts.
The chapters vary in length from 5 to 150 pages, utterly destroying any sense of temporal symmetry between them. Part of me wants to suggest limiting the novel to the Shostakovitch character alone, but I think that would have made it more flat and uneventful--for, sad to say, it was the long chapters about the composer that dragged the most. Since he wasn't a soldier and only sat through the prolonged siege of Leningrad (and not even all of it) his sections--although an interesting study in the artist's relationship to both politics and the state--or should I say the horrific disaster of the artist's relationship...--in the end some of the other characters were a bit more captivating. So some chapters are better than others, some longer, some shorter, it's an uneasy patchwork if you're expecting a typical symmetrical Renaissance cathedral. Watcha got here is postmodern conglomeration of pieces in conflict--exactly like the conflict between individuals and states, individuals and history, or fascism and communist, or the C.C.C.P. and the Nazi party. It fits the novel's theme of opposition and conflict without resolution fine to be as uneven as it is, but it might not fit so well into our age-old post-Renaissance ideals of symmetry and/or artistic greatness in holistic integrity. (I wouldn't use it myself, for all artistic production is equal parts self-serving and the greatest gift an artist can give the world, but I betcha there's more than one review on this page that calls Vollmann self-indulgent here--am I right?)
Two final last-minute observations for further study: also the voice of the narrative is in a few spots uneven. The omniscient voice vanishes at times for an I who might be a Russian KGB observer or even the voice of the people or their German counterparts. Just one more example--but it gave me pause. To find a personal reflection suddenly interjected into an otherwise descriptive narration jarred me. But, you know, life is full of being jarred--particularly around the time of WWII.
Ever notice how many of our Pomo epics are about juxtapositions and set in WWII/the Cold War? Gravity's Rainbow, Underworld, this one... And all of them have something of the narrative and formal unevenness I'm isolating here without being able to judge it--more Underworld than Gravity's Rainbow, I guess, so perhaps Pynchon is still infected with modernism, or a better writer. I dunno, it depends whose side you're on. And the point of Europe Central is that both sides are sheer horror and only a fool would join either one.
I suppose Stephen Moore says it best in his blurb on the back of the book: Europe Central is a historical novel that pits human beings against the forces of history (really, what we in the West took to be history for so long and which we now call political history and is really only the chronicle of who won what war, forcing their language and customs upon whom). The novel is made up of juxtaposing chapters in groups of two, one usually dealing with Nazi Germany and the other with its evil twin, the U.S.S.R. Several chapters, however, return to focus on the Soviet composer I. Shostakovitch, while most of the others deal with other major players in the conflict between the two nations known as the Eastern front of WWII.
Even within these juxtapositions there are other juxtapositions, like the German general who, after being captured at Stalingrad, switches sides balancing a chapter focusing on a Soviet General who, after being captured, also switches sides. Also the novel opens with a chapter placing the Communist German artist Kathe Kolwitz into/against her Wiemar period in Germany and recounts her trip to the U.S.S.R. This acts as a foil for the development of Shostakovitch the Formalist composer (it's a running joke throughout the novel) as a character in Soviet Russia who will, many years (and close to 700 pages) later, tour communist East Germany.
This is all thoughtful and thought-provoking stuff. Also the writing is forceful, yet lyrical, and it flows beautifully throughout. Although the novel is very, very long I can't say I ever found it difficult to read--but it did lag a bit here and there, allowing me to put it aside more than I would have liked to. (The Royal Family, on the other hand, although almost as long, was impossible to put down for more than a few hours at a time I found it so engrossing.) There's a lot of dramatic and powerful stuff here. But it's also, I'm sorry to say, uneven. The great stuff comes in fits and starts.
The chapters vary in length from 5 to 150 pages, utterly destroying any sense of temporal symmetry between them. Part of me wants to suggest limiting the novel to the Shostakovitch character alone, but I think that would have made it more flat and uneventful--for, sad to say, it was the long chapters about the composer that dragged the most. Since he wasn't a soldier and only sat through the prolonged siege of Leningrad (and not even all of it) his sections--although an interesting study in the artist's relationship to both politics and the state--or should I say the horrific disaster of the artist's relationship...--in the end some of the other characters were a bit more captivating. So some chapters are better than others, some longer, some shorter, it's an uneasy patchwork if you're expecting a typical symmetrical Renaissance cathedral. Watcha got here is postmodern conglomeration of pieces in conflict--exactly like the conflict between individuals and states, individuals and history, or fascism and communist, or the C.C.C.P. and the Nazi party. It fits the novel's theme of opposition and conflict without resolution fine to be as uneven as it is, but it might not fit so well into our age-old post-Renaissance ideals of symmetry and/or artistic greatness in holistic integrity. (I wouldn't use it myself, for all artistic production is equal parts self-serving and the greatest gift an artist can give the world, but I betcha there's more than one review on this page that calls Vollmann self-indulgent here--am I right?)
Two final last-minute observations for further study: also the voice of the narrative is in a few spots uneven. The omniscient voice vanishes at times for an I who might be a Russian KGB observer or even the voice of the people or their German counterparts. Just one more example--but it gave me pause. To find a personal reflection suddenly interjected into an otherwise descriptive narration jarred me. But, you know, life is full of being jarred--particularly around the time of WWII.
Ever notice how many of our Pomo epics are about juxtapositions and set in WWII/the Cold War? Gravity's Rainbow, Underworld, this one... And all of them have something of the narrative and formal unevenness I'm isolating here without being able to judge it--more Underworld than Gravity's Rainbow, I guess, so perhaps Pynchon is still infected with modernism, or a better writer. I dunno, it depends whose side you're on. And the point of Europe Central is that both sides are sheer horror and only a fool would join either one.
January 9, 2018
Review #1
EUROPE CENTRAL is a masterpiece, a beautiful novel. You should read it.
Review #2
After I finished the first chapter, the haunting STEEL IN MOTION, I couldn't help but wonder how long Vollmann could keep up this level of prose and surreal imagery. A few months ago I was sent an unpublished novel for advance reading; while it began with flowery language and lavish metaphors it soon lapsed into standard, dull prose. I wondered if after this stunning opening, the book would segue into a standard World War II novel. Nope. Vollmann doesn't just maintain his mastery of language, he elevates it throughout, climaxing in some of the best passages I've read in fiction.
~~
EUROPE CENTRAL is constructed like a mosaic. As opposed to traditional novels whose chapters build linearly, telling an A-B story, Vollmann builds a four-dimensional art-exhibit out of the tumultuous first 50 years of the 20th century. Each chapter fills in a new tile as beautiful by itself as it is in harmony with the other pieces... It would be a mistake to call this book a collection of short stories, because each story, while analyzing a specific character or situation, discreetly furthers and elaborates on the tales of the other characters as well, developing them in the background. Not to mention the book is peppered with leitmotifs; images, phrases, cadences, and rhythms, serving to glue together all the different tales and thus create a single cohesive tapestry.
And what a tapestry it is! Vollmann invents a new genre here, I think, not historical fiction but historical fantasy. You see, there is a gulf between real life and the written word; a view of a sunset is not the same as the word "sunset". Simply writing a non-fiction book recounting the actual events of World War II and the Cold War would not suffice. Vollmann utilizes every stylistic trick available to help bridge this gap, and indulges in pure fantasy at times, leading to almost deliriously enjoyable sections full of not only soldiers and spies, but invisibility rings and staircases to the bottom of the earth.
For example, Vollmann visualizes the "mobilization" of Germany not just as the mobilization of troops, but as the animation of Germany's art. Statues of eagles take flight, paintings come alive! It is pure genius, not just in conceptualization, but in execution. As you read, these things seem natural, not forced.
~~
Some thoughts on the most impressive of Vollmann's stories therein.
Steel in Motion - A most impressive overture. Some of the images here burn themselves into your brain... Behind the wall, rubberized black tentacles spread across Europe. Military maps depict them as fronts, trenches, salients and pincer movements. Politicians encode them as borders (destroyed, razed, utterly smashed). Administrators imagine that they're roads and rivers. Public health officials see them as the black trickles of people dwindling day by day on Leningrad's frozen streets. Poets know them as the veins of Partisan Zoya's martyred body. They're anything. They can do anything. Vollmann introduces most of his themes and symbols here.
The Saviors - A dark and surreal journey following two women, using the letters of the Kabbalah as leitmotific imagery peppering the tale. First introduction to historical-fantasy, with a dash of haunting magical realism in the middle of this tale.
Opus 40 - Vollmann's most celebrated accomplishments in this book are his stories about Shostakovich. This delves into his relationship with Elena and in pristine, fluid writing, tells us of the beautiful Opus 40 and its composition. Therefore, Opus 40, and in particular the first movement, composed of firelight and kisses, remains the most romantic thing Shostakovich ever wrote. Firelight and kisses; doesn't that just crackle like candy on your tongue?
The Sleepwalker - Composed almost like a graphic novel; each section delivering a single, jaw dropping, exaggerated image. The Sleepwalker (Hitler) is a larger than life villain inhabiting the dark corners of Vollmann's story... Shooting down come the Stukas, straight down, Polish streets spreading out before them like bloodstains, then boms fall; flames take wing; people scream and run right into the machine-guns. The Stukas soar, disdaining now those crooked blackened ruins which foemen deserve, their bridges brokenly dangling in rivers.
The Palm Tree of Deborah - Without a doubt the most conventionally suspenseful and thrilling of the stories within; a harrowingly intense story of Shostakovich's survival in besieged Stalingrad, his struggles against the communist party, his efforts to keep his children alive... ugh! This one put me through the ringer! He dreamed that a bomb was singing to him. From far away the bomb was coming to marry him. The bomb was his destiny, falling on him, screaming.
Far and Wide my Country Stretches - Our introduction to Roman Karmen is composed almost like a documentary essay, with a very opinionated narrator. That's one of my favorite things about EUROPE CENTRAL, the clashing narrators on both sides (Germany and Russia) feel free to express their opinions on the stories they tell.
Breakout, The Last Field-Marshal, and Clean Hands - These three lengthy stories form the heart of EUROPE CENTRAL, narrating stories of, as Vollmann put it, three moral actors in times of crisis. All three of the moral actors, Vlasov, Paulus, Gerstein, fail badly, even though they both attempt to do good. What is Vollmann's message here? That we cannot affect change by working with the system? Betraying Germany to fight Russia or betraying Russia to fight Germany is not admirable when both are equally evil? So much to say and think about these three stories; not least that they are simply exciting to read, full of grand gestures and pulpy fight-scenes and great sweeping melodrama. Any one of these stories could have been expanded into a novel. Incredible writing, as usual: Silhouettes on the dark front struggled with one another in hatred, grief and anguish, while munitions rushed overhead like glowing planets.
Operation Citadel - Headless zombie soldiers, an insane man, hallucinations. An incredible, horrific story. I'll fight to the last man! I cried, at which ten dead Russians exploded out of the ground and began marching toward me, grinding worms between their teeth. Even the sleepwalker would have screamed.
Airlift Idylls - Oh boy... This is one of the best things I've ever read, and if the rest of Europe Central was mediocre, this would've justified the entire thing. The iron curtain is an actual curtain of iron, there's vampires, silver bullets, invisibility rings, an unnamed Russian agent trying again and again, Groundhog day style, to kill Shostakovich, and discovering that may not be as easy as it seems. Think The Matrix, think Thomas Pynchon, think your craziest most terrifying dream... Airlift Idylls is pure insanity - and the finest example of the "Historical Fantasy" genre that Vollmann pioneers. I know I should accept it and simply, so to speak, be, well, dead, said Shostakovich, carefully inserting bloody teeth back into his mouth, especially since not many people listen to music nowadays. It's all very... But I can't. There's something in me that won't let me accept, how should I say, fate.
Opus 110 - This is the longest story in the book at almost 110 pages. Finishes the story of Shostakovich. He certainly is a true hero, despite the fact he is a doddering, frightened old man by now. But he resists until the end, he fights evil as he can, he is the best person he can be at all times. I truly admire Shostakovich after reading this book. You will too.
The White Nights of Leningrad - An unspeakably beautiful close. The mosaic style shows it's strength here - we get to see one last scrap of Shostakovich after his death, and we get to see him happy. Pure, crystalline beauty.
~~
As you may have sensed, I really liked EUROPE CENTRAL. It is one of those big monsterpieces like Pynchon's Against the Day, that, in the words of Roberto Bolano, blaze new paths into the unknown. There's some stories in here among the best I've ever read - I can't recommend it highly enough!
EUROPE CENTRAL is a masterpiece, a beautiful novel. You should read it.
Review #2
After I finished the first chapter, the haunting STEEL IN MOTION, I couldn't help but wonder how long Vollmann could keep up this level of prose and surreal imagery. A few months ago I was sent an unpublished novel for advance reading; while it began with flowery language and lavish metaphors it soon lapsed into standard, dull prose. I wondered if after this stunning opening, the book would segue into a standard World War II novel. Nope. Vollmann doesn't just maintain his mastery of language, he elevates it throughout, climaxing in some of the best passages I've read in fiction.
~~
EUROPE CENTRAL is constructed like a mosaic. As opposed to traditional novels whose chapters build linearly, telling an A-B story, Vollmann builds a four-dimensional art-exhibit out of the tumultuous first 50 years of the 20th century. Each chapter fills in a new tile as beautiful by itself as it is in harmony with the other pieces... It would be a mistake to call this book a collection of short stories, because each story, while analyzing a specific character or situation, discreetly furthers and elaborates on the tales of the other characters as well, developing them in the background. Not to mention the book is peppered with leitmotifs; images, phrases, cadences, and rhythms, serving to glue together all the different tales and thus create a single cohesive tapestry.
And what a tapestry it is! Vollmann invents a new genre here, I think, not historical fiction but historical fantasy. You see, there is a gulf between real life and the written word; a view of a sunset is not the same as the word "sunset". Simply writing a non-fiction book recounting the actual events of World War II and the Cold War would not suffice. Vollmann utilizes every stylistic trick available to help bridge this gap, and indulges in pure fantasy at times, leading to almost deliriously enjoyable sections full of not only soldiers and spies, but invisibility rings and staircases to the bottom of the earth.
For example, Vollmann visualizes the "mobilization" of Germany not just as the mobilization of troops, but as the animation of Germany's art. Statues of eagles take flight, paintings come alive! It is pure genius, not just in conceptualization, but in execution. As you read, these things seem natural, not forced.
~~
Some thoughts on the most impressive of Vollmann's stories therein.
Steel in Motion - A most impressive overture. Some of the images here burn themselves into your brain... Behind the wall, rubberized black tentacles spread across Europe. Military maps depict them as fronts, trenches, salients and pincer movements. Politicians encode them as borders (destroyed, razed, utterly smashed). Administrators imagine that they're roads and rivers. Public health officials see them as the black trickles of people dwindling day by day on Leningrad's frozen streets. Poets know them as the veins of Partisan Zoya's martyred body. They're anything. They can do anything. Vollmann introduces most of his themes and symbols here.
The Saviors - A dark and surreal journey following two women, using the letters of the Kabbalah as leitmotific imagery peppering the tale. First introduction to historical-fantasy, with a dash of haunting magical realism in the middle of this tale.
Opus 40 - Vollmann's most celebrated accomplishments in this book are his stories about Shostakovich. This delves into his relationship with Elena and in pristine, fluid writing, tells us of the beautiful Opus 40 and its composition. Therefore, Opus 40, and in particular the first movement, composed of firelight and kisses, remains the most romantic thing Shostakovich ever wrote. Firelight and kisses; doesn't that just crackle like candy on your tongue?
The Sleepwalker - Composed almost like a graphic novel; each section delivering a single, jaw dropping, exaggerated image. The Sleepwalker (Hitler) is a larger than life villain inhabiting the dark corners of Vollmann's story... Shooting down come the Stukas, straight down, Polish streets spreading out before them like bloodstains, then boms fall; flames take wing; people scream and run right into the machine-guns. The Stukas soar, disdaining now those crooked blackened ruins which foemen deserve, their bridges brokenly dangling in rivers.
The Palm Tree of Deborah - Without a doubt the most conventionally suspenseful and thrilling of the stories within; a harrowingly intense story of Shostakovich's survival in besieged Stalingrad, his struggles against the communist party, his efforts to keep his children alive... ugh! This one put me through the ringer! He dreamed that a bomb was singing to him. From far away the bomb was coming to marry him. The bomb was his destiny, falling on him, screaming.
Far and Wide my Country Stretches - Our introduction to Roman Karmen is composed almost like a documentary essay, with a very opinionated narrator. That's one of my favorite things about EUROPE CENTRAL, the clashing narrators on both sides (Germany and Russia) feel free to express their opinions on the stories they tell.
Breakout, The Last Field-Marshal, and Clean Hands - These three lengthy stories form the heart of EUROPE CENTRAL, narrating stories of, as Vollmann put it, three moral actors in times of crisis. All three of the moral actors, Vlasov, Paulus, Gerstein, fail badly, even though they both attempt to do good. What is Vollmann's message here? That we cannot affect change by working with the system? Betraying Germany to fight Russia or betraying Russia to fight Germany is not admirable when both are equally evil? So much to say and think about these three stories; not least that they are simply exciting to read, full of grand gestures and pulpy fight-scenes and great sweeping melodrama. Any one of these stories could have been expanded into a novel. Incredible writing, as usual: Silhouettes on the dark front struggled with one another in hatred, grief and anguish, while munitions rushed overhead like glowing planets.
Operation Citadel - Headless zombie soldiers, an insane man, hallucinations. An incredible, horrific story. I'll fight to the last man! I cried, at which ten dead Russians exploded out of the ground and began marching toward me, grinding worms between their teeth. Even the sleepwalker would have screamed.
Airlift Idylls - Oh boy... This is one of the best things I've ever read, and if the rest of Europe Central was mediocre, this would've justified the entire thing. The iron curtain is an actual curtain of iron, there's vampires, silver bullets, invisibility rings, an unnamed Russian agent trying again and again, Groundhog day style, to kill Shostakovich, and discovering that may not be as easy as it seems. Think The Matrix, think Thomas Pynchon, think your craziest most terrifying dream... Airlift Idylls is pure insanity - and the finest example of the "Historical Fantasy" genre that Vollmann pioneers. I know I should accept it and simply, so to speak, be, well, dead, said Shostakovich, carefully inserting bloody teeth back into his mouth, especially since not many people listen to music nowadays. It's all very... But I can't. There's something in me that won't let me accept, how should I say, fate.
Opus 110 - This is the longest story in the book at almost 110 pages. Finishes the story of Shostakovich. He certainly is a true hero, despite the fact he is a doddering, frightened old man by now. But he resists until the end, he fights evil as he can, he is the best person he can be at all times. I truly admire Shostakovich after reading this book. You will too.
The White Nights of Leningrad - An unspeakably beautiful close. The mosaic style shows it's strength here - we get to see one last scrap of Shostakovich after his death, and we get to see him happy. Pure, crystalline beauty.
~~
As you may have sensed, I really liked EUROPE CENTRAL. It is one of those big monsterpieces like Pynchon's Against the Day, that, in the words of Roberto Bolano, blaze new paths into the unknown. There's some stories in here among the best I've ever read - I can't recommend it highly enough!
May 14, 2018
“Após a morte de Deus
abriremos o testamento
para saber
a quem pertence o mundo
e aquela grande armadilha
de homens.”
— Ewa Lipska
(Vasili Vereshchagin - The Apotheosis of War)
Música e Amor; Guerra e Morte são os dois pares deste bailado de luz e trevas, composto por gente real, protagonista de acontecimentos que decorreram na Europa Central entre o início e meados do século XX - desde a ascensão do bolchevismo até à guerra fria.
(Max Ernst - L'Ange du Foyer)
É mais um livro sobre o estalinismo, o nazismo, o Holocausto, a Segunda Guerra Mundial? Sim, é! Mas pouco, ou nada, é ficção. No entanto, não é só um romance sobre guerra. É também a história de um triângulo amoroso (imaginário?) cujos intervenientes são o compositor Dimitri Chostakovich, o cineasta Roman Karmen e Elena Konstantinovska - a única figura misteriosa e sobre a qual não existe informação disponível. Elena é o grande amor da vida destes dois homens e será esta a parte onde Vollmann se permitiu inventar, como esclarece em nota final.
Foi uma leitura dolorosa porque sofri pelas vítimas (russos, polacos, alemães; civis, militares - numa guerra não serão todos vítimas?) e porque me forçou a sair da minha redoma de crença de que não haverá uma Terceira... No entanto, recebi deste livro uma dádiva de valor inestimável: abriu-me novos horizontes no mundo da música.
Pela profunda lição de História; por me ensinar o prazer de ouvir e compreender Chostakovich, Wagner e outros, posso dizer que depois de ler Central Europa não sou exactamente a mesma pessoa. Por isso, este é um livro para arrumar na estante dos meus "20 Magníficos"...
"Nós, sombras, oh, nós, sombras!
Sombras de carrascos
Presas ao pó de vossos crimes –
Sombras de vítimas
Desenhando o drama do vosso sangue numa parede.
Oh, nós, desamparadas borboletas do luto
Aprisionadas numa estrela, que segue queimando em paz,
Enquanto temos de dançar em infernos."
— Nelly Sachs
(Otto Dix - Triumph of Death)
Nota final:
Central Europa é um livro que, para ser verdadeiramente apreciado, exige muito do leitor, quer em termos emocionais, quer em disponibilidade de tempo (a menos que se trate de um leitor com grande conhecimento dos acontecimentos relatados e dos seus intervenientes). Perdi a conta às vezes em que pousei o livro para fazer pesquisa - e questionar e discutir com quem me acompanhou nesta leitura. A maior parte dos 32 capítulos entende-se bem (a pesquisa serve como complemento e para nos assombrar com o rigor histórico) mas nalguns, Vollmann utiliza personagens e cenas de óperas de Wagner, exigindo ao leitor que decifre quem são os intervenientes históricos.
Esta nota não é para assustar, apenas prevenir. Quem procura na leitura distração, provavelmente, não vai gostar. Quem procura conhecimento e emoção vai adorar, e no final ficar como eu: com pena de ter chegado ao fim.
... não posso ir embora sem deixar:
o Oitavo Quarteto de Cordas de Dimitri Chostakovich (Opus 110)
abriremos o testamento
para saber
a quem pertence o mundo
e aquela grande armadilha
de homens.”
— Ewa Lipska
(Vasili Vereshchagin - The Apotheosis of War)
Música e Amor; Guerra e Morte são os dois pares deste bailado de luz e trevas, composto por gente real, protagonista de acontecimentos que decorreram na Europa Central entre o início e meados do século XX - desde a ascensão do bolchevismo até à guerra fria.
(Max Ernst - L'Ange du Foyer)
É mais um livro sobre o estalinismo, o nazismo, o Holocausto, a Segunda Guerra Mundial? Sim, é! Mas pouco, ou nada, é ficção. No entanto, não é só um romance sobre guerra. É também a história de um triângulo amoroso (imaginário?) cujos intervenientes são o compositor Dimitri Chostakovich, o cineasta Roman Karmen e Elena Konstantinovska - a única figura misteriosa e sobre a qual não existe informação disponível. Elena é o grande amor da vida destes dois homens e será esta a parte onde Vollmann se permitiu inventar, como esclarece em nota final.
Foi uma leitura dolorosa porque sofri pelas vítimas (russos, polacos, alemães; civis, militares - numa guerra não serão todos vítimas?) e porque me forçou a sair da minha redoma de crença de que não haverá uma Terceira... No entanto, recebi deste livro uma dádiva de valor inestimável: abriu-me novos horizontes no mundo da música.
Pela profunda lição de História; por me ensinar o prazer de ouvir e compreender Chostakovich, Wagner e outros, posso dizer que depois de ler Central Europa não sou exactamente a mesma pessoa. Por isso, este é um livro para arrumar na estante dos meus "20 Magníficos"...
"Nós, sombras, oh, nós, sombras!
Sombras de carrascos
Presas ao pó de vossos crimes –
Sombras de vítimas
Desenhando o drama do vosso sangue numa parede.
Oh, nós, desamparadas borboletas do luto
Aprisionadas numa estrela, que segue queimando em paz,
Enquanto temos de dançar em infernos."
— Nelly Sachs
(Otto Dix - Triumph of Death)
Nota final:
Central Europa é um livro que, para ser verdadeiramente apreciado, exige muito do leitor, quer em termos emocionais, quer em disponibilidade de tempo (a menos que se trate de um leitor com grande conhecimento dos acontecimentos relatados e dos seus intervenientes). Perdi a conta às vezes em que pousei o livro para fazer pesquisa - e questionar e discutir com quem me acompanhou nesta leitura. A maior parte dos 32 capítulos entende-se bem (a pesquisa serve como complemento e para nos assombrar com o rigor histórico) mas nalguns, Vollmann utiliza personagens e cenas de óperas de Wagner, exigindo ao leitor que decifre quem são os intervenientes históricos.
Esta nota não é para assustar, apenas prevenir. Quem procura na leitura distração, provavelmente, não vai gostar. Quem procura conhecimento e emoção vai adorar, e no final ficar como eu: com pena de ter chegado ao fim.
... não posso ir embora sem deixar:
o Oitavo Quarteto de Cordas de Dimitri Chostakovich (Opus 110)
October 22, 2020
Μεγαλειώδης, σε μέγεθος και σύλληψη, ιδιοφυής, συγκινητική, κάποιες φορές κρυπτική και δυσνόητη, η Κεντρική Ευρώπη είναι αναμφισβητητα ένα από τα σπουδαία βιβλία του καιρού μας. Ξεκινώντας από το μεσοπόλεμο και καταλήγοντας στη δεκαετία του '70 μιλάει για τα απολυταρχικα καθεστώτα του Χίτλερ και του Στάλιν που σφραγισαν την ιστορία της ηπείρου μέσα από ένα κολάζ ιστοριών πραγματικών προσώπων της εποχής. Οι πρωταγωνιστές του βιβλίου δεν είναι οι πρωταγωνιστές των γεγονότων, είναι στο σύνολό τους δευτερευοντες χαρακτήρες που έζησαν σε κομβικες στιγμές της ιστορίας, σε μια πολύ δύσκολη περίοδο και θέτουν σε όλους μας το ερώτημα τί θα κάναμε αν βρισκόμασταν στη θέση τους. Ο μεγάλος Ρώσος συνθέτης Σοστακόβιτς και ο, φανταστικός, μεγάλος του έρωτας για τη μεταφράστρια Ελένα Κοσταντινόφσκαγια, είναι ο βασικός ήρωας του βιβλίου. Ενας άνθρωπος που κατηγορήθηκε ότι συμβιβάστηκε και υπηρέτησε με τη μουσική του το σταλινισμό αλλά έζησε όλη του τη ζωή μέσα στο φόβο και την αγωνία υπό την απειλή ενός παραλόγου και τυρανικου καθεστώτος που τη μία τον αποθεωνε και την άλλη τον καταδικαζε. Δίπλα του από τις σελίδες του βιβλίου παρελαύνουν μεταξύ άλλων, η Φάνη Κάπλαν, μια νεαρή Εβραία που αποπειράθηκε να δολοφονήσει τον Λένιν, η Ναντέσκα Κρούπσκαγια, η δασκάλα σύζυγος του Λένιν που διαμόρφωσε το σοβιετικό εκπαιδευτικό σύστημα, ο Γερμανός στρατηγός Πάουλους και ο σοβιετικός ομόλογός του Βλασόφ που αμφότεροι πέρασαν στο αντίπαλο στρατόπεδο όταν ήρθαν αντιμέτωποι με παράλογες και αυτοκτονικές διαταγές, ο Κουρτ Γκέρσταιν, αξιωματικός των SS που προσπάθησε μάταια να αποκαλύψει το ολοκαύτωμα σε ξένους ηγέτες και την καθολική εκκλησία, η Γερμανίδα χαράκτρια Κέτε Κόλβιτζ και τα έργα της για τη φτώχεια και τον πόνο της μάνας που χάνει το παιδί της, ο Ρώσος ντοκιμαντερίστας Ρόμαν Κάρμεν, η Γερμανίδα δικαστής Χιλντε Μπένγιαμιν, γνωστή ως κόκκινη λαιμητόμος για τους ανθρώπους που έστειλε στην κρεμάλα και άλλοι σε ένα βιβλίο ποταμό που αξίζει να μείνει κλασσικό.
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