Brain Pain discussion

This discussion covers Argall-Text, p. 1 – 30 and Part I Argall, p. 31 – 105, last line: He never thought of Cicely.

William the Blind begins the book with his visions and admissions of right plundering Sweet John’s volumes of Olde Virginia and adventures high and low. Mixing English old and new, in Faux-lizabethan stew, William tells the tales anew.

Sweet John is oft-not victorious in love nor war. From his youth, we hear of advantages lost and gained; and lost again. These early years give us a view of what makst this man who will live amongst the Salvages of Virginie. (I dare you to respond to these tales without resorting to this oft-times ridiculous linguistic tongue-trickerie…)



In lieu of my usual note about spoilers, I’ll just end the suspense right now and say that the Native Americans lost… Still, though, try and keep the comments related to the portion of the book we’re covering each week.

I haven't gotten quite as far as "He never thought of Cicely," but anyway I've read enough to get initial impressions.

I'm enjoying the book, and the play aspect is certainly engaging. In the first few pages I had to figure out how to approach the book, and it seemed rather odd with it's unique dialect. I think it declares its form rather quickly when we discover that the author is quite self-aware in playing with and developing a dialect that mimics several aspects of 17th-Century English, while also introducing anachronistic puns and such. I find it fun, enjoyable, and quite readable.

The author includes several kennings in the work, which I can only assume are a development that came out of his work on Ice Shirt. Examples: Unsheathed mind-sword = pen. Word-barge = book.

There are lots of good ideas, expressive phrases, and there's a fair amount of tension in trying to find how much to empathize with John Smith.

To speak more critically, I came to the surprising conclusion that the book is rather conventional as an example of a psychological novel in a 20th-Century style. I.e., the book seems to be going in such a direction, and it seems to imply that exposition of a character's background, experiences, family history, socialization/acculturation and loves can render motivation as rational and comprehensible. This is a contrast to other literary traditions, such as the Icelandic sagas which treat character and motivation as opaque, and the writings of Herman Melville, who I would say poses a radical challenge to the idea that the human heart can ever be fathomed (i.e. apparent motive may only be an illusion, and men are fundamentally mad, as is the unfathomable mind of God/universe).

Anyway, what am I saying. Could it be that Argall is a mainstream novel in fancy-dress?

Also notable is that the author lets his brush-strokes show, so to speak. What i mean is, Writing is a process that can take a long time, but each day when you sit down, your ideas can take you in different directions than anticipated. I think some authors must struggle with a potential compromise... how much do you restrict your creativity, either in the initial writing or in revising and editing, to keep everything disciplined and unified, or how much do you allow youslf to stray because you like the results. I have in mind, for instance, the Essex and Elizabeth dialog, which is presented differently from what surrounds it, as well as some surprising ellipses (e.g. on Holy island "what else do you want? the woman said. Her gaze burned him like a stinging nettle.")

Anyway, Vollman made the legit decision not to try to smooth this out.

Screw the so-called "big picture"!

I've read up to page 105. I'm impressed. I'm liking it a lot.

It seems to me that the use of Elizabethan language & worldviews are pretty explicitly there to help us try to see the New World as John Smith would have seen it. And the inconsistencies in this language, the anachronisms, jumping forward by decades or centuries is in keeping with the idea that what we're reading is a dream. And I further think that the idea of telling this monumental story -- Europeans coming to North America -- as a dream is wonderful. Perhaps it's a story that can only be truly told as a dream, given its its fundamental incomprehensibility and the extant "dominant culture" mythos that Vollman is quite explicitly rebutting.

This is my first encounter with a Vollman novel (I've read a few of his essays, etc), and although I knew that his 7 Dreams project was ambitious, but I had no idea how ambitious. Argall is clearly Brain-Pain worthy, a Joycean, Pynchonian work. And so far, to my reading, anyway, he's pulling it off.

I think that's all I'll have to say until I've read part 2.

Zadignose wrote: " I came to the surprising conclusion that the book is rather conventional as an example of a psychological novel in a 20th-Century style. I.e., the book seems to be going in such a direction, and it seems to imply that exposition of a character's background, experiences, family history, socialization/acculturation and loves can render motivation as rational and comprehensible […] Could it be that Argall is a mainstream novel in fancy-dress? "

I've read up to page 230 -- will soon post in the 'part 2' thread -- & have been thinking a lot about this question. I do not think that it's a purely conventional novel in the "this explains that" vein. Let's stipulate, however, that it's a novel and as such it conforms to some basic novelistic conventions -- it has characters, it tells a story, etc.

What continues to strike me is how Vollman is trying to earnestly & honestly imagine how the whole experience of Sweet John's life might have seemed to him as he lived it. That doesn't mean that it's fundamentally comprehensible, or that his actions and interpretations are logical. In fact, they're full of contradictions and magical thinking. Contradictions, self-deception, moral & other kinds of blind spots, etc, are all part of being human, and that's what most good novels show us, I think. But where Argall is really unique is in showing these attributes in a person like John Smith in 1608 -- when the very ideas of science & rational induction & so forth were barely establishing a toe-hold in European culture.

This is a fascinating book that I'm reading about as fast as a sailing vessel moved in the windless doldrums. I'm completely digging it.

I meant to pop back in and say more, but my mind was on other things. I think I still find what I said was sensible on the micro level, but in the context of the whole book it's not much to worry about. At many points in my commentary while reading, I made observations or wondered about things, where my doubts were resolved shortly thereafter. In any case, this book definitely rewards the time given to it. It does seem to take more investment and require more reading time than most books of comparable length.