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A review by iamjudgedredd
Europe Central by William T. Vollmann
4.0
Perhaps I should rate this as 3, or 3.5 stars. This is a book that requires an immense amount of effort, time, prior knowledge, dedication, and perseverance.
Effectively a collection of linked short stories (or parables, as the author calls them). The whole is not greater, than, but equal to the sum of it's parts. At times the novel is prosaic, poetic, and sublime. At others it is a struggle, a slog, and grinding. It being a post-modern tome, the struggle, the slow pace, the grind is purposeful, to make you feel the struggles of D. D. Shostakvich, or the USSR, of class struggle, of the soldier on the Eastern Front, of the organs.
I think this book might be magnificent, but I need time to recover mentally to be able to say that. It demands all of you. You will do as much extra research into film, music, art, and history as you would when reading Proust, or Joyce.
I will revisit this "review" because it's a lot, in the immediate aftermath to process.
Effectively a collection of linked short stories (or parables, as the author calls them). The whole is not greater, than, but equal to the sum of it's parts. At times the novel is prosaic, poetic, and sublime. At others it is a struggle, a slog, and grinding. It being a post-modern tome, the struggle, the slow pace, the grind is purposeful, to make you feel the struggles of D. D. Shostakvich, or the USSR, of class struggle, of the soldier on the Eastern Front, of the organs.
I think this book might be magnificent, but I need time to recover mentally to be able to say that. It demands all of you. You will do as much extra research into film, music, art, and history as you would when reading Proust, or Joyce.
I will revisit this "review" because it's a lot, in the immediate aftermath to process.