Europe Central

[Paul Mackin]

Michael Wood found  good things in Europe Central. Maybe I  should  
have persisted longer.

P.

 From current NYRB:

"In Europe Central, a novel where so much is said, what's memorable is
often the half-said, like the comment that Shostakovich and Akhmatova
had nothing in common "excepting nightmares," or the repeated
suggestion that among the real difficulties of dark times are both our
ability to get used to them ("whatever fate sends us quickly becomes
us") and our fear of being "disloyal to [our] own sufferings." Rising
Up and Rising Down, similarly, has its wonderful quiet
moments: "Meager results: that's life. Not to be deterred by meager
results: that's a kind of nobility." And: "The most illuminating way
to perceive the shoddiness of your own ideals is to witness someone
else practicing them." Such moments help us to wait out the longer
stretches in Vollmann's books; the great virtue of his writing is that
even at its windiest it tries to think with us rather than for us."

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18560