William T. Vollmann. (2008). Europe Central. Unabridged Blackstone Publishing.

William T. Vollmann. 2008. Europe Central. Blackstone Publishing.

William T. Vollmann, Europe Central. Blackstone Publishing, 2008.

William T. Vollmann. Europe Central. Unabridged Blackstone Publishing, 2008.

OverDrive Product Record

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     William T. Vollman is the author of a memoir, several works of nonfiction, and ten novels, including Europe Central, which won the National Book Award. He has also written four collections of stories, including The Atlas, which won the PEN Center USA West Award for Fiction. Rising Up and Rising Down was a finalist for the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award. His 1996 story collection, The Atlas, won the PEN Center USA/West Award. His work has been published in the New Yorker, Esquire, Harper's, and other publications.

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Blackstone Audio, Inc., and Buck 50 Productions, LLC

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2008-01-01T00:00:00-05:00

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title

Europe Central

fullDescription

In this magnificent work of fiction, William T. Vollmann turns his trenchant eye to the authoritarian cultures of Germany and the USSR in the twentieth century. The result is a daring and mesmerizing perspective on human actions during wartime.

Assembling a composite portrait of these two warring leviathans and the terrible age they defined, the narrative intertwines experiences both real and fictional: a young German who joins the SS to reveal its secrets and stop its crimes, two generals who collaborate with the enemy for different reasons and with different results, the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich laboring under Stalinist oppression. This last story is perhaps Vollmann's signature accomplishment in this volume. Also explored are the fates of artists and poets ranging from Käthe Kollwitz and Anna Akhmatova to Marina Tsvetaeva and Van Cliburn.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Publishers Weekly
   • content: “Throughout, Vollman develops counternarratives to memorialize those millions who paid the penalties of history. Few American writers infuse their writing with similar urgency.”
2. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content: Ralph Cosham offers a nuanced reading of Vollmann's new novel, an exploration of the twentieth-century cultures of Russia and Germany. Cosham has a measured pace, and a voice that is both intimate and distant, which he uses to excellent effect in this complex book about individuals (real and fictional) caught up in the machinations of giant authoritarian regimes. The scenes that Vollmann creates seem like a written version of a massive Eastern Bloc military display--stunning and otherworldly. Given Cosham's fine performance, your liking for the results will depend entirely on your taste for Vollmann's writing, which is refracted and atmospheric. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from February 7, 2005
     In the small set of America's best contemporary novelists, Vollmann is the perpetual comet. Every two years or so he flashes across the sky with another incredibly learned, incredibly written, incredibly long novel. Two years ago, with Argall
     , he easily bested John Barth in the writing of 17th-century prose while taking up the tired story of the settlement of Jamestown and making it absolutely riveting. His latest departs from his usual themes—the borders between natives and Westerners, or prostitutes and johns—to take on Central Europe in the 20th century. "The winged figures on the bridges of Berlin are now mostly flown, for certain things went wrong in Europe...." What went wrong is captured in profiles of real persons (Kathe Kollwitz, Kurt Gerstein, Dmitri Shostakovich, General Paulus and General Vlasov) as well as mythic personages (a shape-shifting Nazi communications officer and creatures from the German mythology Wagner incorporated into his operas). Operation Barbarossa—the German advance into Russia in 1941, and the subsequent German defeat at Stalingrad and Kursk—is central here, with the prewar and postwar scenes radiating out from it, as though the war were primary, not the nations engaged in it. The strongest chapter is a retelling of Kurt Gerstein's life; Gerstein was the SS officer who tried to warn the world about the concentration camps while working as the SS supply agent for the gas chambers. The weakest sections of the book are devoted to the love triangle between Shostakovich, Elena Konstantinovskaya and film director Roman Karmen. Throughout, Vollman develops counternarratives to memorialize those millions who paid the penalties of history. Few American writers infuse their writing with similar urgency. Agent, Susan Golomb. 5-city author tour.

popularity

75

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shortDescription

In this magnificent work of fiction, William T. Vollmann turns his trenchant eye to the authoritarian cultures of Germany and the USSR in the twentieth century. The result is a daring and mesmerizing perspective on human actions during wartime.

Assembling a composite portrait of these two warring leviathans and the terrible age they defined, the narrative intertwines experiences both real and fictional: a young German who joins the SS to reveal its secrets and stop its crimes, two generals who collaborate with the enemy for different reasons and with different results, the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich laboring under Stalinist oppression. This last story is perhaps Vollmann's signature accomplishment in this volume. Also explored are the fates of artists and poets ranging from Käthe Kollwitz and Anna Akhmatova to Marina Tsvetaeva and Van Cliburn.

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awards

1. • source: National Book Foundation
   • value: National Book Award
2. • source: The National Book Critics Circle
   • value: National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

publisher

Blackstone Publishing

bisacCodes

1. • code: FIC019000
   • description: Fiction / Literary