Underworld

I came upon this article about DeLillo's Underworld today of all days, September 11th.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/books/don-delillos-underworld-still-holds-power.html

Notice the striking image of the World Trade Centers on the cover of Underworld. Although published many years before the attacks on the twin towers occurred, it's bizarre that a book with such a stark portrait of the Cold War era (an fearful era that would define many generations of people) would have on its cover the icons that would come to define the 21st century — another time of living in fear of the enemy.

D.F.W. and D.T. Max

Today, I was asked what celebrity I would choose if I had the opportunity to ask someone of such great import anything I wanted.

The person who offered this question snapped their fingers and said, "Quick, quick! Off the top of your head!"

"OK," I said. "David Foster Wallace..."

They looked at me and said, "Who the hell is that?"

To them, I reply with this interview between The Millions and D.F.W.'s biographer D.T. Max

http://www.themillions.com/2012/09/brief-interview-with-d-t-max.html

And you thought Lolita was scandalous....

I like William T. Vollmann — his writing, subject matter and style are wonderful, yes, but, it’s not just those items that intrigue; it’s the persona, the Vollmanness of William T. Vollmann and his manias, his obsessions, his methods of research, and everything that influences his craft — and I know why he’s so intriguing to me. I have entered  the phase of my life where I have become deeply infatuated with postmodernist literature. I know, I know — I just vomited a little while writing that, but hear me out.

Those of you who know what I’m talking about can understand — frustratingly reading Gravity’s Rainbow and gushing all the while over how Pynchon wrote the entire novel on graph paper (was it the drugs that made the book so incomprehensible?); flipping through the dictionary while reading a novel of comparative page count during attempt number two at completing Infinite Jest (because there’s one word on the page that could really turn things on their head if you could just understand it;) arguing over the finer points of an author’s spiritual acuity; and at some point realizing that you just don’t fucking get a lot of what has played out over the course of a few hundred pages. (This last point is admittedly the hardest to own up to.)

I remember one night specifically when I knew this phase had begun. I was sitting with my wife in a pub in a small, but beautiful mountain town. I felt parched for some sort of tangible culture besides Grateful Dead cover bands and the apathetic, stereotypical ski bums that kicked around town. We were joined by a friend and an acquaintance of hers. After polite small talk and a few drinks, the conversation with the acquaintance took a drastic turn to Russian literature (he had studied the language as did I in college) and then, naturally, to the films of Tarkovsky and then to him introducing me to Pynchon by his waxing about Gravity’s Rainbow for a solid hour. We became good friends after that and spent many an idle hour in a smoky bar talking. On that night, I felt I had joined some secret fraternity.

My desire to meet other initiates in this “secret fraternity” was unquenchable, as was my need to read the works of the founding and most notable members (Pynchon, Barth, Barthelme, Gaddis, Gass, and so on). Now, years later and my having read many of those authors, I feel that Vollmann might be where the legacy stops or  becomes so muddled that he can no longer be called a true initiate. But, there exists no properly defined classification for him and others like him. While academicians continue to bicker over whether post-post-modernism (or what have you) is acceptable, it will suffice to place him with his brothers: Barth, Gaddis, Barthelme, Foster Wallace, Pynchon, et. al., into the po-mo category. 

*****

William T. Vollmann, a winner of the 2005 National Book Award,  is a unique animal. His books are bold testaments to what is within and beyond the restrictions of the post-modern genre in which many people lump him.

I remember the first time I ever encountered one of his books — The Rainbow Stories. I think I remember the cover blurb likening him to Bukowski and Pynchon. I shook my head at the tired and over-used comparison and tossed the book aside, but something drew me back — the cover, the title, the colors, something. I picked it up once again, read the back’s synopsis, and began thumbing through the book. I had never read anything quite like it and still haven’t. He can write so beautifully about the most depraved and inhuman acts and those are usually the initial shock points that many people find hard to put away. But beyond all that is an author who is serious about his craft and an artist who can create tragically empathetic characters.

Vollmann’s manic obsessions begin and end in everything taboo; he expounds upon subjects to which most of us turn a blind eye. His characters are the low-lifes, the junkies, the addicts, the whores, the skinheads, the racists, the misogynists, and otherwise socially-marginalized groups.

And where many authors would simply feign knowledge of the morally, ethically, and politically incorrect sectors, Vollmann has experienced, if not lived them for a time, with avid curiosity. One of his more glamorous experiences include narrowly escaping death when, conducting research for his novel “The Rifles” about native Inuit populations and the exploration of the Arctic by Sir John Franklin, he spent two weeks at an abandoned weather station located at the magnetic North Pole.

To research one story about prostitutes, from his book The Rainbow Stories, Vollmann says: “One of the things that I had to do occasionally while I was collecting information…was sit in a corner and pull down my pants and masturbate. I would pretend to do this while I was asking the prostitutes questions. Because otherwise, they were utterly afraid of me and utterly miserable, thinking I was a cop.” (http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/620/the-art-of-fiction-no-163-william-t-vollmann)

Material for his meticulously-researched books comes from his experiences with crack cocaine, sleeping with prostitutes, and traveling extensively through war zones. His book The Atlas is a non-fiction collection of vignettes about his travels through dangerous territories and An Afghanistan Picture Show, his first book, is all about his time spent in Pakistan and Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in 1982.

His efforts have not gone unnoticed. In 2005, he was awarded the National Book Award for his massive novel, Europe Central, about a love triangle involving Dmitri Shostakvich during the early 20th century.

Why he hasn’t received as much praise for his magnum opus, a 3,352-page seven-volume set on the history of violence, Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means (McSweeney’s, 2003), or for the “Seven Dreams” series, composed of seven separate novels all about the settlement of North America (still being written though), is beyond me.

Nonetheless, Vollmann is an author who challenges our preconceptions of the world. He makes us uncomfortable. His books are about humanity, the roots from which we run, and the base desires from which we hide. Chances are, I will never smoke crack cocaine, sleep with a prostitute, overnight at the magnetic North Pole, or even own a gun, but in reading Vollman these experiences become visceral.

Vollmann isn’t for everyone. I would blush explaining some of the chapters of his books to my mother, hell, some of my best friends probably. It could also be the case that his books are pure junk and I’m just someone who’s addicted to snuff-lit. Recently at work, when I take my lunch break, I wrap up one of his books in a newspaper, carry it outside and hope that no one peeks over my shoulder to read the page. That could open a floodgate of questions.  So, to all those people who thought Lolita was a bit racy, that book was like The Cat in the Hat compared to Vollmann.