Vonnegut

[davemarc]

If you're embarking on a Vonnegut binge, consider reading them in order, at
least up to Slaughterhouse 5. It's not essential, but it could enhance your
experience.

Pynchon-wise, I think people used to link Vonnegut and Pynchon
intellectually much more in the Sixties and the Seventies than thereafter.
As I think I mentioned a long time ago, there was that idea of
"experimental" fiction as well as anti-war/anti-establishment writing....

d.

----- Original Message -----
From: <kelber at mindspring.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Monday, May 29, 2006 7:35 PM
Subject: Re: Europe Central


> Thanks, Bekah.  Your description actually makes me want to tackle the
book.  I've mostly just heard diatribes against it.  In the mean time, I'm
considering embarking on a Vonnegut binge.  I'd read Cat's Cradle years ago,
but never went further.  I'm starting with Slaughterhouse 5.  Anyone have
any opinions on Vonnegut's works?
>
> Laura
>
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
> >Sent: May 29, 2006 6:42 PM
> >To: mikebailey at speakeasy.net, pynchon-l at waste.org
> >Subject: Europe Central
> >
> >At 3:53 AM +0000 5/29/06, mikebailey at speakeasy.net wrote:
> >>Would you be willing to post your impressions of Europe Central?
> >
> >
> >I don't do this type of thing well but here goes -
> >
> >Europe Central is long (752 pages of text plus another 50 pages of
> >notes and source material) but well,  well worth the read and I think
> >that many on this list would appreciate it.  Vollman writes his own
> >kind of incredibly dense and powerful  prose.  It can be
> >overwhelmingly intense at times and then mellow out, almost lyrically
> >turning,  somehow,  into a fugue.  It can be truly exhausting to read
> >a book about a war written with the same intensity as a  symphony
> >with the same theme.    Somehow that was my reaction and it seems
> >very appropriate because one of the numerous main characters is a
> >Russian composer named  Dimitri Shostakovich and Vollmann describes
> >Shostakovich's music in detail (and never,  ever,  boringly).   Also,
> >there are many interwoven allusions to Wagner's The Ring .
> >(Mythologizing WWII?)
> >
> >To me,  the book was redolent of DeLillo's scope (Underworld),
> >McCarthy's intensity (Blood Meridian),  Bulgakov's magic  (Master and
> >Margarita) and TPR's  research and subject-matter (M&D, and GR)..  In
> >fact,  there are direct allusions to GR.    (How's that for a single
> >book?)    Yet Vollmann maintains his own style throughout.
> >
> >Structurally,  the book is different and possibly "meaningful"?.  The
> >tome (truly!)   is comprised of  36 chapters ranging between 5 and
> >100 + pages each.   In the Table of Contents Vollmann graphically
> >pairs the chapters  under the heading "Pincer Movements"  because the
> >two conjoining  chapters are related. somehow although one is about
> >a USSR incident or person and the other is about something in
> >Germany.    Combined for a whole work,  the chapters don't all really
> >mesh together like a conventional novel although they are all
> >definitely linked in numerous ways.
> >The intro chapter is about the technology and hardware impacting both
> >Germany and the USSR.
> >
> >In the first chapter of main narrative,  Vollmann uses the term
> >"parable" more than once  and I suppose that's a good term for what
> >he's working toward.   Many of the  chapters (most ?  all?)   pose a
> >moral dilemma and decision (I don't know about the lesson part of a
> >parable.  Existential lessons?   ??  Thematically,  I  got the
> >impression of larger-than-life mythologies and  memory vs forgetting,
> >love,   loyalty,   being an artist through the purges of  Stalin's
> >regime,  being a commander after Hitler lost Stalingrad,   the
> >historical and individual consequences of moral acts,  and so on.
> >
> >The remaining chapters  occur in varied places in Russia and  Germany
> >from the days of Lenin through the  aftermath of WWII,  the Cold War
> >and further.   The focus is WWII itself, it's foreshadowing and it's
> >aftermath.  Some of the most interesting chapters took place at the
> >actual war fronts,  in Hitler's residences,   in Moscow  for
> >Shostakavich's dealings with Stalin,  and in Germany for the
> >retribution of the  Red Guillotine (Hilde Benjamin).   Every chapter
> >has its own narrator, mostly first person and frequently omniscient.
> >Shostakovich has more than one chapter,  I think three?
> >
> >The major characters and events are historical and the book is
> >incredibly well researched although Vollmann says in his notes that
> >he has taken some poetic license with the central triangular love
> >affair.     Other characters include Krupskaya (Lenin's wife),  Van
> >Paulus (a very loyal German general),  Adolph Hitler,  Elena
> >Konstantinovskaya  (a translator),  Roman Karmen (Russian
> >film-maker),  Kåthe Kollwitz (German artist),   Kurt Gerstein (a
> >not-so-loyal German general)  General A.A. Vlasov (a Russian spy/
> >traitor?)  and  Van Cliburn (an American pianist).
> >
> >
> >That's as good as I can do for this book.  It's deserves more.
> >
> >Bekah
> >hoping someone will have read it or be inspired to read it
> >
>
>
>