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Life has become better
Aug. 1st, 2022 09:12 pmBook Review: Europe Central, by William T Vollmann
This had been on my to-read list for a few years, and I acquired a second-hand copy earlier this year, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which gives the book something of a different perspective. I had reached page 80-something when a bookmark fell out, making me wonder whether this was as far as the previous owner had got in reading it, as the spine was pristine.
I have to admit that I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few "did not finish" out there. It's difficult to say what I expected from this novel, but it wasn't what I found. I think I was expecting a single storyline, but that's only true at the highest level, the impersonal and even mechanistic storyline of conflict in Europe through most of the twentieth century. It's perhaps easier to conceive of this work as a series of short stories around that history. But even then, the stories are very uneven in length, and the occasional touch-points between them feel contrived rather than falling into place as coincidences. One needs enough background knowledge to even begin to get something out of this book: some familiarity with Kollwitz, Paulus, and Shostakovich is necessary to understand what's going on; other personages appear but there's sufficient material in the book to fill in any back-story. Of course, the obvious and overarching bleakness, the moral equivocations of people in no-win situations, do not make for happy or light reading, particularly in our current time.
This had been on my to-read list for a few years, and I acquired a second-hand copy earlier this year, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which gives the book something of a different perspective. I had reached page 80-something when a bookmark fell out, making me wonder whether this was as far as the previous owner had got in reading it, as the spine was pristine.
I have to admit that I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few "did not finish" out there. It's difficult to say what I expected from this novel, but it wasn't what I found. I think I was expecting a single storyline, but that's only true at the highest level, the impersonal and even mechanistic storyline of conflict in Europe through most of the twentieth century. It's perhaps easier to conceive of this work as a series of short stories around that history. But even then, the stories are very uneven in length, and the occasional touch-points between them feel contrived rather than falling into place as coincidences. One needs enough background knowledge to even begin to get something out of this book: some familiarity with Kollwitz, Paulus, and Shostakovich is necessary to understand what's going on; other personages appear but there's sufficient material in the book to fill in any back-story. Of course, the obvious and overarching bleakness, the moral equivocations of people in no-win situations, do not make for happy or light reading, particularly in our current time.