{"id":1291,"date":"2022-06-01T14:49:34","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T14:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/simeonownproject.practices.site\/?p=1291"},"modified":"2023-01-23T18:47:38","modified_gmt":"2023-01-23T18:47:38","slug":"right-vollman-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/processed-words.co.uk\/index.php\/2022\/06\/01\/right-vollman-book\/","title":{"rendered":"The Right William T Vollman Book"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t

robert singleton<\/a><\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t

polemics<\/a><\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t

readings<\/a><\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t

WIKAL<\/a><\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t

The Right William T Vollman Book Does Not Exist<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t

Dec 17th 2021 \u2013 coming across this tweet, Singleton peruses the search results for \u2018William T Vollman\u2019 on Google<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

The writer William T Vollman has a distinctive, Germanic name and a distinctive face. A hardened, capable writer with a New Yorker profile written about his latest book, which is about climate change.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t

April 7th 2022 \u2013 looking for something to read on the bus, Singleton recalls the name \u2018Vollman\u2019, types it in and finds a catalogue of contributions to the Washington Post. One of them is about Vollman being given access to his FBI file \u2013 Singleton reads about 25% of this until the \u2018Washington Post\u2019 tells him he will have to sign up to a subscription if he wants to continue reading.<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

Vollman is outraged, rightly, upon finding out the reason for his random detentions, his seized documents, the knocks on his door ; and his personal fury reaches a mighty, impersonal amplitude through the expression of its political ramifications, conscientiously electing to speak in the steady, even-handed voice appropriate to these ramifications. The FBI were investigating William T Vollman as a suspect in the Unabomber case. Vollman and the Unabomber ; Backwoodsy Loners, Gen-X Thoreau\u2019s, houses filled with note-papers and obscure books ; but Vollman won’t make space to dwell upon the, rather occult, connections (no Dosteovskyan doubles, it\u2019s not that kind of writing). The distinctions are clear, Vollman reinforces the dividing lines, revealing the FBI to be masters of credulity and disturbing overreach.<\/p>

Confusing Vollman for the Unabomber, the FBI have tampered in his native stream, the dignified, independent, humanist, increasingly dissenting tradition in American public consciousness, and have made egregious misidentifications within it, muddying it with fundamental misunderstandings, and for the umpteenth time have been shown up as dunces in the classroom of American Spirit, clots in its bloodstream, unable to differentiate between its various hues and shades. And now the voice of a true heir to Thoreau advances, referencing Steinbeck, dismissing connections with a distorted mirror image, indignant, to give an account and a lesson.<\/p>

–<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

Vollman and the Unabomber ; the association does stuff for Vollman. Vollman can\u2019t see it this way ; when acquaintances talk about his \u2018image\u2019 he is dismissive, whatever type of conversation it is, he doesn\u2019t have time for that kind of talk, there\u2019s nothing in it for his seriousness to hold on to, it\u2019s not close to the bone or down to earth. He felt impelled to make a statement on the Unabomber situation, and to speak with the voice he felt was appropriate to the circumstances, then publish it in the NYT, but that\u2019s as far as it goes for Vollman, after that he goes back to work on whatever he\u2019s working on. Vollman has a journeyman\u2019s temperament ; he\u2019s not the kind of writer to be concerned with personal mythology but, despite himself, he\u2019s managed to pick up at least two sizeable chunks of the stuff (the 2nd<\/sup> one is a black-and-white picture of him as a young man, looking a bit like a nerdy extra from a John Hughes film, staring sulkily but also combatively at the camera, wearing a bulky bullet-proof vest with \u2018PRESS\u2019 written across the chest in white writing).<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

Association with the Unabomber increases his fame in an incidental way, by displacing him, knocking him out of his chosen context and into orbit around a mistakenly appointed daemon, an outsized, inappropriate anti-Vollman , but the (extra clear uprightness \u2013 see below) bluff clarity of his (moral persona is only increased) by the sharp, definitive contrast, and it\u2019s as if his sentences have been lent a new acoustic (situation?) to reverberate around, put in touch with an increased range of echoes and implications, and it\u2019s a bridge, probably one he\u2019d have destroyed, connecting Vollman to a more mythological, nascent, violent zone in the American consciousness, far from the more ventilated climes he\u2019s accustomed to.<\/p>

The association also makes it slightly easier to imagine Vollman being read by a man wearing camo, early 30\u2019s, the Vollman novel in his bag with his sandwiches as he goes into the woods, or being read on a Sunday afternoon after church, before supper, with the TV on in the background. A writer read by those who have their own views about the path America\u2019s on.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t

8th April 2022 \u2013 Singleton flips through the Amazon entries for Vollman\u2019s books, skimming blurbs, reviews and \u2018About this Product\u2019 sections as a preliminary to purchasing one of his books ; he also reads a little more of Vollman\u2019s Wikipedia entry.<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

Like a completely de-Francified Genet, drained of all style, placed in the kind of body you would expect to see at the back of the crowd in an episode of \u2018Storage Hunters\u2019, or behind the counter at Home Depot. Genettian characteristics, compassion, decency, valorous forthrightness, benefit from the removal of his airs and graces \u2013 transposed to Vollman\u2019s heavyset, short-sleeve shirted body (through some fantastic human calculus, designed, you\u2019d guess, more to the purpose of refuting than refining Genet), they receive a populist cleanse and are enhanced.<\/p>

–<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

Alongside the ‘Cat Bus’ in ‘My Neighbour Totorro’ one of the most enchanting artefacts of the pop-cultural imaginary is the monumental \u2018ITCHY AND SCRATCHY : THE MOVIE The Novel by Norman Mailer\u2019 read by Bart Simpson in Season 4, Episode 6\u00a0 of \u2018The Simpsons.\u2019 The gag would work just as well if the writer was Vollman (only requiring that the title be changed to \u2018Itchy and Scratchy : ).<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

\u2018The Dying Grass : A Chronicle of the Ned Perz War. (Volume 4 of \u2018Seven Dreams : A Book of North American Landscapes\u2019)\u2019 – 1374 pages.<\/p>

Proportions like these are not incidental, the egregiousness (Vollman knows his books are egregious pile-ups) is part of the make-up of the thing, one of the main components, built-in at the conception, part of the germ. Vollman\u2019s readers are alive to the appeal of uncompromising things and count themselves up to the challenge. Altogether the \u2018Seven Dreams\u2019 sequence amounts to 5366 pages, around 260 reading hours, easily trumping the Proustian sequence, or the Vedic texts (Upanishads, Rig-Vedas, etc). Even the go-to, \u2018Where To Get Started With William T Vollman\u2019-Vollman Book, \u2018Europe Central\u2019 comes in at over 800 pages. What\u2019s remarkable about Vollman\u2019s novels is not their structural ambition and complexity, they\u2019re not really masterpieces of schematism, it\u2019s the fact that intensity is sustained – the intensity of the prose, the descriptive passages, the reliable regularity of Vollman\u2019s insightfulness, the narrative intensity, the tempo – what\u2019s remarkable is a 1300 page book written as if its only 400 pages, a book that just keeps on going, not in a dramatic way like a sweating marathon runner but with the unassuming-ness of a carpet that just keeps unfurling. Vollman is not loquacious or extravagant, he just has giant reserves of communicability. The only contemporary literary project of comparable extent (aside from the numerous basement-epics of small-town eccentrics, diaries of compulsive scriptophiles, naive-art cosmologies etc) is Robert Caro\u2019s \u2018The Years of Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019, the outcome of a lifetime\u2019s meticulous research, the first volume of which appeared in the 80\u2019s, with subsequent volumes appearing every decade or so ; Caro, nearing 80 now, is only just coming up the years of Johnson\u2019s Presidency. Vollman only has 1 volume left to write in order to complete the \u2018Seven Dreams\u2019 cycle, the first volume was published in 1990 and he\u2019s also published 18 books on other subjects in that time, including a Trilogy of novels about prostitution.<\/p>

(The suspicion that writing comes a bit too easy for Vollman).<\/p>

–<\/p>

The publishers who managed to wrangle together an unabridged edition of Vollman\u2019s 3352-pager \u2018Rising Up Rising Down : Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means\u2019 have been interviewed. Just getting the thing out was a monumental achievement in itself, the story of how it was done (merits its own) being told in an accompanying pamphlet, which would bear a similar relation to Vollman\u2019s opus as the making-of documentary \u2018Heart of Darkness\u2019 does to \u2018Apocalypse Now.\u2019 Vollman wouldn\u2019t be a contributor, instead he\u2019d be a looming presence in the background, imagined hammering away at his computer, surrounded by notes, ploughing on day by day without stopping for a second to countenance the world of logistical nightmares he\u2019s in the process of creating for those who hope to publish him.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t

April 9th \u2013 Singleton purchases a Kindle edition of \u2018Atlas : Stories\u2019 and reads the first 2 \u00bc stories on the train. Later that evening he reads an interview with Vollman\u2019s publishers.<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

Short-story collections are a good way of \u2018cracking\u2019 a writer, of mainlining the distinctive set of literary pleasures they have to offer. Short stories are a situation of value-adjusted austerity, economisations everywhere, cutting out mediation, optimizing for style. The form imposes a re-jigging of values, a re-shuffle in the deck of aesthetic priorities, upon the writer ; certain fidelities and obligations (often the semi-ethical ones \u2013 towards \u2018character\u2019 and \u2018subject\u2019 for example \u2013 to which Vollman is, under different formal circumstances, especially sensitised) get de-emphasized. Instead of a rounded picture of a particular character you get a sense of how the writer treats \u2018character\u2019 in general, you get the Vollman cheat-codes.<\/p>

Short-stories offer the sinew of a style, a tissue-sample, that can be taken to the lab, inflated, like stem-cells, generalised, stretched to fit certain dimensions : what would this mode of treatment, or this \u2018voice\u2019, look like expanded to deal with such and such a subject? how would it fare stretched out across the novelistic architectonics suggested by such and such a contents page? What about this paragraph long description of a backroom in Bosnia, the particular selection of details, the particular (characteristic?) counterbalance the writer strikes between precision and vagueness, can it be expanded? To fit a 10 page description of the American Plains, functioning as a lyric-descriptive overture to a 3400 page series of historical novels?<\/p>

–<\/p>

Parts of the first story are useful scopes, looking through them one gets a clearer shot into certain sections of Vollman\u2019s oeuvre : his reportage work, on the ground, in warzones and extreme situations. They read like remixed journalistic memories, vivid passages selected and dusted off from the notes written while he was actually in Bosnia. So This Is Warzone-Vollman, Vollman-in-Bosnia, the clear-eyed, slightly gory, cataloguer of destruction. Overlaying that photo of young, pugnacious, warzone-Vollman in a bulletproof vest, overlaying it like a filter, lending it extra clarity and resolution, and added drama (\u2018this is the stuff he was going through when that photo was taken, he\u2019s still processing it in his work\u2019). These same parts of the first story are also entries into a long essay running through his various books called \u2018On the Human Capacity to Create Uninhabitable Spaces, To De-Terraform or Un-Terraform\u2019 ; another branch of which is the 300 page trawl through the debris of Fukushima, which makes up the 2nd<\/sup> half of his climate change book.<\/p>

Journalistic memories dusted off and mixed with fictional inserts. Fiction used as a way of approaching these passages from different angles, used to plug them up and hold them together… The fictional bits can seem a bit like plumbing, kind of standardised, borrowed (from his Gen X compatriots, Franzen, DFW, whatever\u2019s the current industry standard) components, generic slot-fillers, and awkward.<\/p>

And was the goriness also slightly gratuitous, slightly stylized?<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

The second story lacks the journalistic anchorage in Vollman-land, it\u2019s entirely the ennui-filled Gen X fiction stuff : marital subject matter, universalized listlessness, HBO TV adaptability. What could be dismissed as pragmatically installed fiction-plumbing in the first story is the mode <\/em>of the second story, the dominant feature. There\u2019s nothing extreme or white-knuckle here, in this tonal world everything is vacuum-sealed and sterilised, interactions are super paired back ; so THE MAPS MAY HAVE TO BE RE-DRAWN, there\u2019s no guarantee this isn\u2019t Vollman\u2019s primary mode, that this isn\u2019t classic Vollmanian dialogue – the inflatable, extensional quality of short stories, so quick to fill up any gaps in one\u2019s knowledge of a writer\u2019s oeuvre \u2013 new space may have to be made in the Vollman-picture, in the picture of a Vollman novel, to account for the inclusion within them of a tonal world so completely alien to the expectations created by their titles. A dissonant chord struck within the Vollman-model, threatening to spill outwards, contaminate the whole thing, forcing readjustment, the formulation of NEW OVERARCHING HYPOSTHESES, to account for this new, unexpected side to Vollman.<\/p>

His books are too uncompromising and his pages are not unadulterated enough.<\/p>

Vollman\u2019s books mix two kinds of airlessness, airlessness of the breathless, roving variety and of the vacuum, postmodern-void (think Jeff Koons suspended basket-balls) variety. The restraint of the characters and interactions juxtaposes awkwardly with the writer\u2019s unrestrained, vigorous approach to his subject.<\/p>

The next story is tarnished. It is about a Narwhal hunt but everything in it is transposed now : Koons-ice, Koons-Inuits, big inflatable Koons-Narwhal, Arctic Circle as International Hotel Space, Hilton-Nanuk, nothing raw or native. The story is just serial symptoms of a malfunctioning Vollman-model. Stop reading after 4 pages.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t

April 10th \u2013 Singleton thinks about Vollman and the short story form until he is satisfied. In the afternoon he looks at the contents page for \u2018Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means.\u2019<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

Remedial work required, staunching the contaminating flow between the 2 \u00bc \u2018Atlas : Stories\u2019 and rest of Vollman\u2019s oeuvre, Defence of the Vollman-model as it once stood : Vollman\u2019s short stories don\u2019t have the same relation to the rest of his oeuvre as other writers.<\/p>

Short-story collections are not a good way of \u2018cracking\u2019 Vollman, of mainlining the distinctive set of literary pleasures Vollman has to offer. Short stories are a subsection of his working practise, and serve a particular function within its overall ecology. A writer with a strictly observed ethics of appropriate treatment needs a place to funnel off all the eccentricities and writerly whims which occur to them in the course of a long-term project, the short-story form serves this function for Vollman. To try out such and such a mode, to don an uncharacteristic narratorial voice, like an unflattering hat. Far from being representative of his oeuvre or a short-cut into it, Vollman\u2019s short-stories are escapes from it.<\/p>

A more syncretic writer would try and find ways of shoehorning them into their main project, but Vollman is strict with incorporation. Vollman must have a very strong sense of the remit [imposed, admitted] by a certain subject matter, must emit waves of highly attuned writerly sonar through the giant, cavernous expanses (Monument valleys) of his to-be-written novels, to have such a clear sense of where their limits lie, of what ideas and approaches fall outside their ordinance and would appear foreign imports.<\/p>

There is a particular way of thinking about the oeuvre of each different writer, a particular congealed geometry, regulating and crystallizing the relations between different parts of their output (in some cases this geometry itself can be counted among a writer\u2019s pre-eminent achievements \u2013 a gorgeous geometry assembles itself in the quiet spaces between Kafka\u2019s novels, stories, letters and psalms – (often it is in the oeuvres of writers especially suited to the formation of \u2018personality cults\u2019 that these geometries assert themselves with the most force, as if they are some kind of correlate or by-product of \u2018charisma\u2019)). Often there is a temporal dimension to these geometries, a trajectory, the swelling arc up in to a late-style for example, but Vollman\u2019s output isn\u2019t organised in phases, cumulative stages of stylistic development. Nor is it fixed is an atemporal state of eternal return to a perennial set of issues and pre-occupations, in fixed orbit around them like a feverish satellite : Vollman\u2019s oeuvre doesn\u2019t cohere around certain thematic concerns, isn\u2019t integrated by certain subjects, it is riven by them, veering off in their pursuit. It can best be characterised as a set of compartmentalised, concurrent and exhaustive investigations into a set of distinct subjects \u2013 \u2018The American West\u2019, \u2018Prostitution\u2019, \u2018Climate Change\u2019, \u2018Violence\u2019 \u2013 each of which steadily mounts up material until the point at which it can be laid to rest, like the Elephant-bone remains of some ossified Norse God, in the form of a giant, multi-volume sequence. [The approach of the journalist, resolutely adhered to, is the central factor determining the fractured, veering geometry of Vollman\u2019s oeuvre, it is the skeleton key to his output, Vollman is a megalomaniac journalist-novelist hybrid.- rework?]

Conclusion : Vollman isn\u2019t the type of writer to lend himself to \u2018being cracked\u2019 too easily. There is no way of escaping the size of his books and the commitment required to read them.<\/p>

–<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

‘RISING UP AND RISING DOWN’ – A CONTENTS PAGE FANTASIA<\/p>

\u2018Rising Up and Rising Down : Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means\u2019 opens with a Vollmanian dual-Overture : \u2018Three Meditations on Death\u2019, one of which takes place in a catacomb and \u2018Introduction : The Rise of the Nibelungs\u2019 (concretising the sense of Wagnerian-scale ambition spread across the contents pages). The metaphysical-sounding section title \u2018Definitions for Lonely Atoms\u2019, an address to some kind of human material strata, is derailed by a series of subsection with titles borrowed from an \u2018Introduction to Law\u2019 undergrad textbook, or maybe a Libertarian pamphlet (\u2018Where do my rights end?\u2019). \u2018Definitions of<\/em> Lonely Atoms\u2019 would be preferable. Pages 145-416 are dry and legalistic, apart from one subsection on \u2018Moral Yellowness\u2019 in which Vollman attempts to imagine, and then juridify, a moral \u2018yellow-zone\u2019 to supplement the already existent \u2018grey\u2019 one. The culmination of this 300 page grapple with various justifications of violence is Vollman\u2019s \u2018Moral Calculus\u2019, \u2018a structured decision-making system designed to help the reader decide when violence is justifiable and when it is not\u2019 (Amazon blurb). The \u2018Moral Calculus\u2019, like all over-zealous attempts to install a barometer within the turmoil of human motivation, is a na\u00efve, utilitarian clusterfuck, unless, unlikely given the self-seriousness of the preceding sections and the rest of Vollman\u2019s oeuvre, it is intended as an ironic entry into the tradition of universalizing, cod-philosophical self-aggrandizement, a postmodern, kitsched-up counterpart to Kant\u2019s Categorical Imperative.<\/p>

\u2018Part 2 : Studies in Consequences\u2019 is fantastic. All of Warzone-Vollman\u2019s Greatest Hits ( – there must be a reason \u2018Rising Up and Rising Down\u2019 holds such an acclaimed, central position in Vollman\u2019s oeuvre, and it can\u2019t be found in the legalistic desert of Part 1).<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

–<\/p>

Even the abridged version of ‘Rising Up and Rising Down’ is 737 pages, which would take up a lot of space in my bag and threaten the structural integrity of any of its cohabitants (especially sandwiches).<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t

April 12th \u2013 Singleton finds a pdf of the first 15 pages of \u2018Europe Central\u2019 and reads it on the train<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

Vollmanian Gusto in full effect : The rumblings of war hooked up to a giant amplifier, fantastical war journalism as Drone Metal Prose Edda, or a mobilisation shock-collage, planes flying overhead, tanks being built, titled \u2018Grand Opening of the European War-Chest.\u2019<\/p>

\u2018Europe Central\u2019 is the one. A superbly well-researched piece of non-academic historical reconstruction remixed into literary significance by an author willing to restrict the remit of their creative activity to the sequencing of information, the visceral re-staging of certain crux events and personalities, and the highly skilful embedding of analysis. And panoramic excess.<\/p>

The first item on the Vollmanian\u2019s itinerary is searching for clues, indications, about what Vollman\u2019s \u2018approach\u2019 is going to be, in the blurb, the contents, the first page, the first sentence even. That first glimpse of a novelistic procedure capable of holding this whole mass of material together, a much-cherished glimpse, like the brief glimpse of a celebrity caught through the crowd. Because the approach is in many ways the star of the show, reached after a long process of internal writerly negotiation, and then adhered to, proceduralised, an anchor in the tumbling sea of material ; once the Vollman reader has gauged the novelist\u2019s approach a sizeable portion of the game is up, now it\u2019s just more of the same. But the subject matter is interesting, Vollman makes it so (a master of treatment is one who prioritises engagement at every juncture) : the game may be up, but it\u2019s difficult to stop playing,<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t

April 14th \u2013 Singleton reads the \u2018SF-Encyclopaedia\u2019\u2019s entry on \u2018Europe Central\u2019<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

\u2018if textual indications allow (as they should) a literal reading\u2019, they shouldn\u2019t, in this case it\u2019s crucial that they don\u2019t : The whole point of Vollman is to avoid invention, definitely the invention of stories but also the invention of conceptually ornate structural mechanisms, the material of his books is supposed to be given, second hand, to be properly Vollman is to be all about treatment.<\/p>

He could never smuggle in such a flashy, postmodern, meta-narrative construct, a big spreadeagled literary device, no matter how much it was dressed up in a camouflage of analogue knobs and buttons, switchboards and codebreakers, WW2-period stylistics, Vollman wouldn\u2019t [consider] it. It would be left on the cutting room floor. Vollman\u2019s cutting room floor is uniquely located. Vollman expends the majority of his editorial, tinkering, revisionary energy on plans for novels rather than novels themselves. Drafts up proposals for tonal consistencies, sequencings, approaches, organisational strategies and then nixes them, or, sometimes, saves a few elements in order that they might be recycled, re-incorporated, into other plans. Entertains some of the wilder, more baroque ideas for approaches that enter his mind, and then, firmly, gruffly, refuses them, again and again and again. He wants to end this drawn-out process with something smart, sharp, incisive, and knows it will take as long as it takes to disinter himself of every impulse to the contrary. A ritualised deep-cleanse of his writerly instincts, an strict training regime before setting off on his writerly marathons, accruing the self-discipline required to endlessly elaborate without ever being overly elaborate. The \u2018Secret Master\u2019, \u2018self-conscious distributed network (see AI; Computers; Internet)\u2019 would be right there on the cutting room floor, next to the idea for a 100 page phantasmagorical dramatization of the day Paul Celan spent in the company of Heidegger, or the idea to write the narrative from the perspective of De Gaulle\u2019s stomach bacteria, in the junk-heap of overly complex, flashy, exhibitionist approaches.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t

However, in Vollman\u2019s oeuvre there is evidence of a tendency to broker extraordinary compromises allowing for the admittance of such Pynchonian excess. \u2018Argall\u2019, the third novel in Vollman\u2019s \u2018Seven Dreams\u2019 saga, is narrated in a flowery Elizabethan prose, a stark departure in approach from its companion volumes. \u2018Mason and Dixon\u2019, with its celebrated anachronistic historical-vernacular prose style, one of the most notorious conceits of recent American letters, was published only a few years prior to \u2018Argall\u2019; Vollman must have gone giddy for it. IT SEEMS that even in the midst of all his gruff editorial acuity Vollman is liable to leave a backdoor open for Pynchonianism.<\/p>

The possibility that Vollman considers himself more an heir to Pynchon than to Mailer. More than a possibility, to think otherwise would be a misconception, would produce some alternate-Vollman, some chimaera.<\/p>

A tearing, geological sound as the Vollman-model, already riddled with stress-fractures, finally succumbs ; the association with Mailer, unconsciously held, is revealed to have been a crucial structural component, a secret keystone, maintaining the model\u2019s internal consistency, warding off unwanted associations. Suddenly bereft of this hidden immune system Vollman is laid open to the eager associational networks parked outside the gates, that is, Vollman finally becomes a Postmodernist as opposed to some anachronistic remnant of America\u2019s tradition of journalistic vanguardism and Transcendental historiography \u2013 Thoreau, Douglas, Tarbell, Sinclair, Steinbeck, Mailer – Vollman is extracted from this company, sliding horizontally, disappointedly, across the Family Tree of American Letters to take his place next to Franzen, DFW and those other heirs to Pynchon.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t

April 15th \u2013 A week after he first searched the name William T Vollman into Amazon Singleton finds himself back in the same place, the name he types into the search bar is the same as it was a week ago, the same as it always is and always will be. It is the same as it is for all those who are fated to find themselves in some version of this moment, in front of an Amazon search box, searching for some Vollman-figment, for the proof to some fanciful Vollman-conjecture, the confirmation of some mistaken Vollman-hypothesis; it is the same 7 letters that will have to be typed in. And yet, underneath those letters, in the results, there\u2019s no telling what new brute fact will rise up to meet the old misconception, and breed the new one, no telling what new instalment in the growing catalogue of Vollmans one may expect to find. It is impossible to say and exhausting to conjecture. And at this point, Singleton knows, it is hopeless. It could go on forever, there\u2019s always new information, and so many ways it may find itself hooked up to the old information, and many Vollman\u2019s to discover, all waiting in line with their own tenuous claims to make upon the attention. A new \u2018Customer Review\u2019, a previously unseen page-count, act as amendments, weaving new patterns of confirmation and denial into the extant model, sometimes setting to work upon it with such force that it is torn to pieces. Singleton remembers making the decision not to read Ali Smith\u2019s \u2018Spring\u2019 after seeing Amazon reviewer \u2018ClareR\u2019 reflect society today so well: how people hide behind social media and the internet to say whatever they want to without fear of any repercussions.<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t

Sometimes the mental journey we take when not reading a writer can be as complicated and intellectually tumultuous as the journey we would have taken by reading them. But not as satisfying. No, because whilst reading happens between covers, between a first and a last page, not-reading doesn\u2019t end, not-reading could be happening anywhere except in the space enclosed between those covers. It is elusive, and dispersed, there\u2019s no way to credibly police the boundaries separating a course of not-reading from the other intellectual sequences underway around it. At any given moment Singleton is not-reading many writers, with differing degrees of intensity and application. The internet represents a giant technological advancement in the art of not-reading, and it is transforming Taste into an increasingly speculative, cobbled-together faculty, built out of rumours and borrowed frameworks.<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

robert singleton polemics readings WIKAL The Right William T Vollman Book Does Not Exist Dec 17th 2021 \u2013 coming across this tweet, Singleton peruses the search results for \u2018William T Vollman\u2019 on Google The writer William T Vollman has a distinctive, Germanic name and a distinctive face. A hardened, capable writer with a New Yorker… Read More »The Right William T Vollman Book<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/processed-words.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/processed-words.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/processed-words.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/processed-words.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/processed-words.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1291"}],"version-history":[{"count":118,"href":"https:\/\/processed-words.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2402,"href":"https:\/\/processed-words.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291\/revisions\/2402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/processed-words.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/processed-words.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/processed-words.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}