Brain Pain discussion

This discussion covers Crow Text, p. 1 – 22 and Part I, Kingdom Come, p. 23 – 106

William the Blind gives us his “Chart of the Stream of Time” which he has keyed to The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

The Crow-Text takes us on a prayer flight through the sights and heights of New France and its current remains, introducing the places and players of this Second Dream.

Onward, then, to the First part –Kingdom Come, or, How the Black-gowns Sailed to Canada.


To avoid spoilers*, please restrict comments to p. 1 – 106.


(*”spoilers” seems like an odd idea when it comes to Vollmann, so instead, let’s think of it as keeping the discussion focused on specific parts of the book as we go through the weeks)

Well, just got to p. 106 on the train today (I might have to reconsider reading that on my way to and from work, almost a thousand large-format page are no fun to lug around every day), so here a few preliminary observations.

Like The Ice-Shirt, this starts off with a largely incrompehensible introductory chapter, and like The Ice-Shirt it seems based on a text, this time the Jesuit Relations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuit_R...).

I wonder whether Fathers and Crows does a similar imitation of the tone of the Relations like Ice-Short did of the sagas? The narrator here seems more like a novel author to me though, not like a modern-day one though, but from th 18th century, with all the addresses to the reader.

Dominating the imagery of this novel so far is water, or more precisely rivers (compare the flowing,dynamic nature of that to the ice from the previous novel), complete with waterfalls, rainbows and eddies. Maybe keep a look out for references to famous literary river journeys like Huckleberry Finn or Heart of Darkness.

Again some kind of origin story in this novel - more historical than mythic this time, but the loss of the grand sweep is replaced by an obsession with detail - if that was not already clear from the sheer bulk of the novel it would soon become obvious that this won't be a rushed journey. This is of course also remniscent of Ice-Shirt where it took a long time for the novel's protagonists to appear. (Although it is not even clear yet that there will be protagonists in Fathers and Crows, so far, this feels much more like a collective novel than one about individual fates.)

The relationship between Europeans and Indians (again, like in Ice-Shirt) mostly motivated by mutual greed, but I suppose that will change once the Jesuits enter the scene. Axes are another references to the earlier novel, with a marked difference in the way the natives react to them.

Overall, I think this feels like familiar ground for everyone who has read Ice-Shirt - like a recapitulation of the earlier novel, or like Vollmann was bringing it up to date, by showing that not all that much has changed since then. I'm expecting things to become radically different once we see the Jesuits appear, but so far am enjoying it, once again admiring how seemingly effortlessly Vollmann uses different registers of style and language and very curious as to where he will take us on this journey.

Larou wrote: "Overall, I think this feels like familiar ground for everyone who has read Ice-Shirt - like a recapitulation of the earlier novel, or like Vollmann was bringing it up to date, by showing that not all that much has changed since then. I'm expecting things to become radically different once we see the Jesuits appear, but so far am enjoying it, once again admiring how seemingly effortlessly Vollmann uses different registers of style and language and very curious as to where he will take us on this journey..."

I liked the passage where the shaman Smoking the Pipe says:

Listen well. Long ago those bad white ones came, those Jenuaq. KLUSKAP whispers in my ear now. KLUSKAP says that these strangers are more of them. They have secrets. We must hide from the Jenuaq or we must kill them.

Vollmann/Kluskap announcing part two of the clash of the natives and the Europeans.

I thought that Vollmann the author and narrator seemed much more out front in this novel compared to the Ice-shirt. I found the introductory chapter to be tough sledding, but now that I'm into the book a little more I'm having fun with it.

Like in Ice-Shirt I think the opening chapter in Fathers and Crows works analogous to a musical overture, i.e. it introduces all the themes and motifs of the novel in a condensed form, and it will likely make a lot more sense if one returns to it after having read the whole novel.

The element I'm currently most mystified by is Fox's scalps that keeps popping out throughout the novel, but as yet I don't see how it connects to anything else or what its significance is. It does appear rather ominous, is even identified with the sea monster Gougou that is mentioned in several places, and maybe has some relation to Christianity? I'm really at a loss there, but then there's a lot of novel still to come. ;)

As for the narrator, I have to admit I'm missing the present day interludes a bit. He certainly feels very different here - not so much the skaldic bard and more like the author of an 18th century novel who also were somewhat fond of commenting on their own text.