William T Vollmann Central discussion

Put whatever you want in this thread. Try to keep it somewhat WTV-related. But tangential, please, lots of tangentiality.

Last night while reading Sherman's memoirs I (he) encountered a William T. Coleman. Had to thump myself over the head a few times to get back into it.

That would be distracting.
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "That would be distracting.
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/..."

Want to say that's a different WTC -- part progeny perhaps; either that or he's a vampire.

WTV w/ author Richard Lange in NYC, c. May 2008. I post this because of the mustache. An interesting look. Also, Mr. Lange must be rather tall, b/c WTV's supposed to be something around 6ft tall.

I was drooling over Imperial, but I have Proust commitment. I'm hoping that I will have a good Proust breather to hit a Vollman book. I like gritty or more of a serious tone in my novels, so I prefer Women and Men over Infinite Jest (from what I scanned of IJ). I also love House of Leaves.

Aloha wrote: " I like gritty or more of a serious tone in my novels"

Then Vollmann would suit your cup of fiction. [but Imperial is non-; although written with a novelist's pen] Closest thing to HoL might be You Bright and Risen Angels.

Thanks, Nathan. But I'm still leaning toward Imperial. The topic is of my interest.

Why does Vollman look so different in every photo i see of him. Is that really him on your profile pic, Nathan? I'm one of the dodo's who thought it was a photo of yourself.

Aloha wrote: "I was drooling over Imperial, but I have Proust commitment. I'm hoping that I will have a good Proust breather to hit a Vollman book. I like gritty or more of a serious tone in my novels, so I pr..."

Geez, you don't think IJ is gritty or serious enough? *eyes bulge*. In that case, W&M must be one of the most depressing books on earth, bc i'm finding IJ depressing enough.

Traveller wrote: "Why does Vollman look so different in every photo i see of him."

I think it varies with his then disease-of-the-month.

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "Traveller wrote: "Why does Vollman look so different in every photo i see of him."

I think it varies with his then disease-of-the-month."

:D

Traveller wrote: "Aloha wrote: "I was drooling over Imperial, but I have Proust commitment. I'm hoping that I will have a good Proust breather to hit a Vollman book. I like gritty or more of a serious tone in my n..."

I haven't read IJ, Trav. I decided that I will tackle it over the holiday week off, since I'm making good progress with the Ruskin lectures. The lectures are a breeze. I'm not sure how gritty IJ is, but I thought it was a satire. W&M is actually optimistic but making a statement in a non-satirical way. That's what I meant by serious. I'm usually not a fan of satire, except for Alice in Wonderland.

Okay. I suppose satire can be as serious as you get, and the satire in IJ (i'm not all that far in, but i'm already depressed) is definitely not of the light or funny kind. Think suicides and attempted suicides and suicidial depression and people struggling futilely to get out of the grip of drug addiction. Not exactly light or entertaining topics.

That's when we're not listening to the obsessing of obsessive compulsives, or the anxiety of neurotics and paranoid personalities, and nightmarish cockroaches that feed off infant's eyes at night, and decomposing bodies rolling off of hiltops, and accidental murders, and...

Oh, and as for the gritty, think nighsweats so bad that they form the shape of your body when you wake up in a foetal position while your girlfriend (ok, not really a girlfriend if you're calling her the current "Subject" instead of by her name) is playing a taped account of a schizophrenic being tied down and tortured and you lie there and pretend to be asleep while you listen to his tortured screams, and there are cockroaches crawling out of the shower hole every time you shower, and out of the toilet bowl, and you can't stand their juice and innards splattered over everything, so you asphyxiate them under drinking glasses, and there are so many glasses standing around with huge suffocating cockroaches inside them, that you have to navigate you way through a field of them every time you want to reach the other end of the room.

I prefer my drug addiction in the Naked Lunch vein, but I have not read IJ, so I may change my mind.

This kind of stuff comes out of writers' minds. Imagine the inner world! The world is lucky that I'm not a writer.

Hmm, ok, i haven't encountered any necrophilia in IJ yet, though apparently a head (a human microwaved head) is apparently dug up exhumed sometime later. I can't wait... :P

Here some short anecdotes taken from the blog of Claro who translated Thirteen Epitaphs and The Royal Family in french:

«I keep incredible memories of each time I met Vollmann. The first time, I offered him a copy of Chants de Maldoror published by Guy Levis Mano, and, in exchange, he asked me if I would read his recent works. For sure ! I recall Vollmann holding me an enveloppe containing… seventeen floppy disks. The entire Rising Up and Rising Down! Two printers were eventually spent but I kept those fabulous manuscripts close at hand for a long time on my desk. Another memory: The same cops arresting us a second time near Barbès while Vollmann tried to convince a hobo to let himself be sketched out… Vollmann and me at the lost and found department, hoping to find a sketchbook that he had lost in the subway having felt faint… Vollmann in a canary-yellow tee-shirt reading at the Village Voice, just arriving from Sarajevo, the airway company having lost his baggages. The list would be long…»

Well I wish it would be longer.

Louis-Jean wrote: "Here some short anecdotes taken from the blog of Claro who translated Thirteen Epitaphs and The Royal Family in french:"

Thanks, Louis-Jean. Is there a link to that blog, or is it, naturally, not written in an English convenient for we mono-linguistic bugs?

And because props should always be given to a translator of Claro's stature, he would be known for Frenchifying many of those grand American book blocks. Aside from Vollmann, there's Gass, Pynchon, Rushdie, Danielewski, Leyner, Verhaeghen. The goodreads author/translator page I suspect is not very exhaustive.

The Quarterly Conversation interview:
http://quarterlyconversation.com/the-...

http://www.goodreads.com/author/list/...

http://www.amazon.fr/s/ref=ntt_athr_d...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christop...

For me, Claro is a contemporary american literature seminar all by himself. Here's the blog, le Clavier cannibale:

http://towardgrace.blogspot.ca/

Louis-Jean wrote: "For me, Claro is a contemporary american literature seminar all by himself. Here's the blog, le Clavier cannibale:
http://towardgrace.blogspot.ca/"

Merci beaucoup. Either my French will get stretched or my googlator will get itself a work through.

I'm not sure how many of you know this Vollmann anecdote, but it was just sent to me by a friend, and I find it to be so utterly perfectly Vollmann-esque. Dave Eggers was soliciting contributions to Might Magazine,and they solicited Vollmann for contributions:

"Zev writes to William T. Vollmann, soliciting his predictions for the year. Vollmann writes back, in crayon, on the other side of the letter, indicating that he'd like to contribute, but would like to be compensated. Because we never paid anyone for anything, and have less money now than ever before, we ask if there's anything nonmonetary we can do. He says okay, this is what he wants: a) One box of 0.45-caliber Gold Saber bullets; b) Two hours, in a warm, well-lit room, with two naked woman, to paint them, in water color.

" Zev runs to the gun shop on Second Street, and one of our part-time assistants, a bartender named Michelle, says she'll model and will bring along a friend. Vollmann drives down from Sacramento with a friend, who sits with Moodie in his kitchen as Vollmann paints Michelle and friend in the living room.

" We wait until after the session to hand over the bullets."

Geoff wrote: "I'm not sure how many of you know this Vollmann anecdote, but it was just sent to me by a friend, and I find it to be so utterly perfectly Vollmann-esque. Dave Eggers was soliciting contributions ..."

Vollmann was engineered in a lab of phantasmagorical excellence, and I need the address, pronto.

Brain Pain Vollmann Project 2014 :: the schedule :

Argall – April 7 – May 18, 2014 (6 weeks)

Europe Central – September 15 – November 2, 2014 (7 weeks)

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

Friend and Vollmanniac David has three very nice Vollmann reviews post'd which are recieving not=much enough attention.

The Royal Family
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

You Bright and Risen Angels
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The Rainbow Stories
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

So Bill is rec'ing “Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program” by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
http://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/b...

Here's a direct link to the pdf of the Report ::
http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/st...

One might(?) expect a report on the Report from Vollmann himself (?); a Part Two perhaps to his thing on surveillance pub'd in Harpers last Summer(?) I can only imagine Bill's level of disgust with these unAmericans.

Four homages by four writers including gr'er Tim Horvath ::
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...

Your dream job? Become Vollmann's editor::
http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/...