Brain Pain discussion

This discussion covers Ice-Text, page 5 – 11 and Part I, The Changers, page 15 – 82

Here in the opening sections, Vollmann re-tells the Icelandic sagas in short episodes, adding elements that are contemporary, but still maintaining the feel of the original stories. The effect is quite engrossing and enchanting.

Are you enjoying the re-imagining of these stories? Is the world he's weaving believable?

Occasionally, Vollmann-in-the-present makes a brief appearance. How does this change the stories? Is it distracting or well-integrated?

To avoid spoilers, please restrict your comments to page 1 – 82.

Thanks for hosting this, Jim, and starting us off with some thoughtful questions. I'll start this book tomorrow - looking forward to the discussion with you and others.

Brian wrote: "Thanks for hosting this, Jim, and starting us off with some thoughtful questions. I'll start this book tomorrow - looking forward to the discussion with you and others."

Join in when you're ready!

Just got back from a short vacation tonight, so I'll try to get some thoughts together on this section and post in a day or two. I was hoping we'd hear from some of the folks on Vollmann Central.

I'm still getting the hang of the style-very episodic when my mind is trained generally for longer strings of stories. It helps to think of it as short poetic passages.

I love the stories themselves. I'm up to page 41 & if Vollman has made an appearance, I missed it.

Ellie wrote: "I'm still getting the hang of the style-very episodic when my mind is trained generally for longer strings of stories. It helps to think of it as short poetic passages.

I love the stories themselv..."

His appearances are brief, and in a way, nearly invisible in the sense that they don't feel intrusive or discontinuous with the main narrative.

The introductory material left me a bit bewildered, I will have to return to that when I've finished reading through the novel. Not sure what to make of the self-deprecation here "pack of lies" and a bit later referring to those "who favour truth over beauty" - is he just being coy? or actually serious about this?), but liked how gives a tangible substance to history by describing the appearance of the saga collection in some detail.

The first part then - I think Vollmann does an absolutely wonderful job in immersing the reader into the animalistic world of the early Norse people, and then gradually lets the human rise out of the mythic. The clothing metaphor (and clothing metaphor) will have to be watched, I'd wager not just in Ice Shirt but also in other volumes of the series. Also, colours: white/blue (black)/green - obviously there is some significance beyond the merely representative here.

He hits the tone of the sagas spot-on, and yet is markedly different. I noted in the saga thread how the characters in those tales get along without anything like our modern subjectivity - they do have one in Ice Shirt, but it's not their own, but has been implanted to them by the narrator, whose subjectivity is very pronounced here, almost aggressively so. To me at least he (she? should we identify the narrator as Vollmann?) comes across not so much as narrator of a novel then of a work of non-fiction, i.e. not an author who is not omniscient about what goes on in a character's head but rather a journalist who surmises and/or projects what the people he describes might be thinking.

Even so, the sudden jump into present came almost as a shock - it's almost like someone on stage being actually hurt by a gunshot: "Look, what I'm telling about here is actually real." Which of course it isn't, not really, Vollmann himself told us it's just a pack of lies after all, and he's just shuffling the deck here. Or is he?

My apologies for going on so long, but I'm very enthusiastic about this so far, and tend to gush a bit when that happens. Greatly looking forwards what others make of it!

Larou wrote: " To me at least he (she? should we identify the narrator as Vollmann?) comes across not so much as narrator of a novel then of a work of non-fiction, i.e. not an author who is not omniscient about what goes on in a character's head but rather a journalist who surmises and/or projects what the people he describes might be thinking.

Even so, the sudden jump into present came almost as a shock - it's almost like someone on stage being actually hurt by a gunshot: "Look, what I'm telling about here is actually real." Which of course it isn't, not really, Vollmann himself told us it's just a pack of lies after all, and he's just shuffling the deck here. Or is he?.."

In the description of The Vollmann Project*, I posted the idea that Vollmann's work might be described as:

“writing without borders” or for a more continental flavor, “écriture sans frontières*”

I think the formal elements of his work make for a very different kind of reading experience. Is it fiction? journalism? history? or some combination of these and more?

What do you think?


* http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

The first 82 pages seemed to be a bit of a "data dump" where Vollmann is setting the tone and revealing the greater world that Erik the Red and his progeny inhabit. I noticed where quite a few of the maps included statements that said they were only somewhat true. Did anyone have a favorite story so far?

@ James: "I was hoping we'd hear from some of the folks on Vollmann Central."

Trust me,I'd loved to have joined this read & discussion but my copy still hasn't arrived! International shipping...
When I do get my hands on this book,I'll post my comments here.

One of the things fascinating about a group read like this, is to see how completely different from oneself other people experience a book. I did not perceive the first part of Ice Shirt as a set of separate stories at all, but read it as a single story, the multitude of protagonists held together by a tight web of theme and imagery. And I for one did not notice anything infodumpy about it either, but rather thought it set the scene by telling a mythical origin story about the emergence of the human by way of a gradual estrangement from nature (something I strongly suspect will continue to be a theme for the rest of the novel) using a vivid language of almost poetic density.

I was (and continue to be) particulary fascinated by the "shirt" metaphor, that seems to be about becoming different than what one is - is it appropriation? assimilation of what's other, or to the contrary a way to understand what's alien by imitating it? I think that metaphor echoes on all levels of Ice Shirt, from Vollmann's abundant use of compound nouns to the novel's attitude towards history.

And very much agreed on this being a different kind of reading experience, one that I admit to finding rather unsettling in places but always stimulating (and this is probably where I should apologise for another overlong post and promise to exercise some restraint for the future). I'm still struggling to figure out what exactly Vollmann is doing here, but I already know that I'm very excited by it.

@Mala Bad news that you will be waiting for this book, great news that you will be making comments about it here.

@Larou- Keep up the long posts! Once I get a chance to dig back into this I will try to respond a little. I just threw in some comments to get started in between diaper changes, and I'm sneaking this one in on my lunch break. I guess I was thinking of info dumping in relation to Scifi, where the setting is so foreign to the reader that it takes a lot of information to bring the reader into the world and how it works. I just felt like the first 82 pages are setting the scene for telling the longest section, which looks to be the tale of Freydis. I have a feeling that she might end up being the "star" of this novel in much the same way that Dmitri Shostakovich is the "star" of Europe Central.


I really like your thought provoking comment, " set the scene by telling a mythical origin story about the emergence of the human by way of a gradual estrangement from nature."

I think Vollmann's formal style is very appealing in that he does impart a lot of factual information in his novels while being able to tell beautiful human stories. He seems to make a conscious effort to point out that they are fiction stories though, as we have pointed out earlier.

Vollmann Central is paying attention. I just have to catch up reading the discussion. I read this a few months ago and I've continued on with the Seven Dreams (I'm in Argall now) so I might have things to say that aren't utterly irrelevant...

Through the first forty eight pages I see these as cautionary tales. There is an early warning that when the Gods are no longer heeded then man will be left to deal with man. This leads to bitter strife and the vanishing of trust as kings try endlessly to gain and maintain power. It also leaves man with trying to be what he is-not rather than what he-is (living life according to the self discovered within). I believe that this is the theme of,The Changers, section. Kings are left to wearing Bear-Shirts, Wolf-Shirts forced to acquire strength from the outside-in, an external source rather than the uniqueness of the internal self acting upon the world, which it appears the Gods would grant if followed. This is to say that I agree with Larou's excellent post above and hope she continues to provide us with more long posts.

I am confused but believe the text so far is being narrated from the ancient and preserved Book Of Flatey. I am listening to it that way. As Jim pointed out, there was one or two brief moments when Vollmann jumped out and was himself but quickly jumped backed in. It was enough to make me hesitate for only a moment then continue on as though nothing happened. This provided for me the experience of a writer writing a fictional account of a non-fictional person reading from a non-fictional document. Or it could all be fiction and I simply need more sleep. Unfortunately, I can't remember where it took place. Whichever and wherever, Vollmann's writing is sharp and precise. His is the voice so far of curious interest and confident knowledge. I am looking forward to how this unfolds and toward us as a group, though I've never been in one before, help each other in reaching a greater understanding than we would might reach as individual readers.