Bonnie G.’s Reviews > Europe Central > Status Update

"The winter days dwindled behind the Sixth Army as steadily as the frozen horse-legs stuck in the snow for road markers. Paulus was almost out of cigarettes. Christmas, naturally, was not very happy he wrote Coca. In times like these, it is better to avoid celebrations.

"One of the sacrifices which commanders have to make is to overcome any scruples they may have".

The messaging for Stalin's and Hitler's crews: people must overcome any sense of compassion or humanity to be patriotic, to be worthy. I wish this were not so damn relevant to life in America in 2026.

I also wish Vollmann's women were not either femme fatales or possessed of deeply masochistic levels of forbearance.

"Needless to say, the pages of a score are subdivided not only horizontally by the staves, but also vertically by partitions between measures which assure that every voice will sing to the same beat, In the symphony called "Barbarossa" these bar lines where provided by a double file of tall German executioners aiming their rifles at an evenly spaced line of civilian hostages who stood facing a stone wall."

"Why, she was as blonde as the smoke which now rises up from all the synagogues!"

Whatever else this book is, it is an extraordinary accomplishment. Vollmann inhabits these people, which one hopes he found a deeply disturbing experience.

(Relatedly, I keep wondering whether there was a decision to portray nearly all of the men as having the inner life of an incel, or whether the incel is Vollmann.)

I was thinking Vollmann's thesis was that history is a lie, but I have come to understand that Vollmann believes truth is a lie, and his argument is compelling. Also, I was thinking that "pussy-whipped." is misused to denote the misogynistic view that women control men with the power of the pussy. Vollmann gets it right. Hetero men disempower themselves and women they desire by imbuing the vulva with mythic powers.

L

It is not just that this is over 800 pages (2.45 lbs per my kitchen scale -- I was curious) it is that I have already had to do research on cabala and Lenin's sex life, and I am only 36 pages in. That said, I am already a little in love with this book. I consider this the counterweight to The Wayfinder. This is a different way to approach history through fiction, and so far I am a fan. Big fan. Huge.