Life as a Terrorist

by William T. Vollmann

It's been a long time since I've heard anything from William T. Vollmann, an author I've been following since I was eighteen.  For a while there, he was publishing books almost as quickly as I could read them, but he's published nothing since his Imperial.  This article is his first in Harper's in over two years, so it made me very happy to see his name on the cover (alongside Nicholson Baker's - it's like this issue was written just for me).

In this article, Vollmann recounts the experience of acquiring, and reading, his FBI file.  Well, 294 out of at least 785 pages of his file, much of it padded with duplicated papers (although not consistently redacted ones).  When I saw what the article was going to be about, I wasn't all that surprised that Vollmann would have an FBI file.  After all, as a young man, he travelled with the mujahideen in Afghanistan, and has reported in his own unique style from a number of the world's more anti-American regions.  He also once resuced a young girl out of prostitution in Thailand.  To my mind, these are some of the things that can lead to problems with a spy agency.

What I didn't expect to learn was that Vollmann was once considered as a suspect in the Unabomber case.  Sure, over a thousand people were considered, but the FBI went so far as to put his home under surveillance at one point.  That's the kind of thing that rattles you, when you learn it about yourself, I'm sure.

Vollmann's writing is as clear as ever.  He develops compassion for the agents who wrote about him, even imagining that one of them may have fallen in love with him (a very common occurrence in his writing).  It also helps explain his difficulties in crossing the border back from Mexico, which he talks about in Imperial.  His story has some pretty clear connections to much of what is happening in America in the area of government surveillance, and is very relevant, and alarming.

Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater

by William T. Vollmann

When I read and wrote about Vollmann's Imperial, a massive and self-indulgent exploration of Mexican California (and Californian Mexico), I commented on how I found our relationship as writer and devoted reader was becoming abusive.  Wading through that book was an exhaustive experience, not at all like the year I spent plunging through his entire Rising Up and Rising Down, a seven-volume set of books about the origins of violence.  That book still has a place of prominence and pride on my bookshelf.  Imperial was a little too much.

And then, I decided to read Vollmann's latest, Kissing the Mask, a book about the portrayal of women in traditional Japanese theatre, a topic I had no interest or knowledge of.  But, I thought, it's Vollmann, so it's going to still have some dazzlingly well-written passages and bizarre connections that I'm going to enjoy.

Not so much.  I don't know what the genesis of this book was.  It can't have been much of a seller, and I don't see many publishing houses or editors clamoring to get their hands on something like this.  It reminds me a little of when musical artists, looking to complete contractual obligations with one record label, put out a crappy album just so they can move on.  Except, you can tell that Vollmann put a lot of thought, effort, and love into this project.

I suppose, if you were to find a reader with a love of Noh, a type of theatre known especially for its slowness and ability to put its audience to sleep, you would find someone very happy to read this book.  I will admit that it has made me learn a fair deal about Japanese traditions (there is some discussion of geisha and kabuki as well), and has given me cause to think a little more than I normally might about the difficulty that transsexuals have in 'passing'.

One hallmark of Vollmann's craft is the way in which he attempts to place himself in the milieu about which he is writing.  In The Rifles, this meant that he almost died in one of the most desolate areas of Canada's Arctic.  In Riding Toward Everywhere, this meant that he risked his personal safety and the structural integrity of his bones jumping onto box cars.  A recent Harper's article had him sleeping out on rainy nights in Sacramento's 'Safe Ground' homeless encampments.  In Kissing the Mask, however, he has a couple different make-up artists do his make-up, so he can look like a woman.  Sort of.  There are pictures.

The other hallmark of Vollmann's writing - the acute loss he feels when a relationship ends, barely is evident, until the very end of the book.  Instead, we get long meditations on the masks worn by Noh actors to portray female characters (the actors in Noh are usually men), detailed descriptions of how a young geisha prepares for the evening, and questions on the nature of snow in a silver bowl.  Vollmann has made a serious effort to understand this completely foreign style of theatre, especially since he doesn't understand the language.

In typical Vollmann fashion, there are diversions into the paintings of Andrew Wyeth, the description of women in old Viking texts, and some discussion of the works of Yukio Mishima.  In many ways, this is the least Vollmannesque book he's ever written, but I'm not sure that progress is being made in the right direction.

Homeless in Sacremento

by William T. Vollmann

In this lengthy article, Vollmann addresses, as only Vollmann can, the issue of homelessness in America today.  He starts the article by discussing the problems he has had with people choosing to camp in the parking lot adjoining his home.  Being William Vollmann, and therefore a soul of heart-breaking gentleness and need for approval, he is reluctant to run these people off his property, or erect barriers to make it harder for them to camp.  Instead, he puts up with having to wash excrement off his doorstep, and the occasional act of minor vandalism, not to mention the threatening presence of the authorities.

From here, Vollmann begins to examine the Safe Ground movement; a concept whereby groups of homeless set up orderly, safe camps in national parks or out of the way places where they hope to remain undisturbed by the authorities.  Again, in typical Vollmann fashion, instead of simply visiting these places, he makes a habit of camping in them, living and eating with the inhabitants on a sporadic basis over many months.

Through his experience, we are given a window on a group of people who defy the usual image of the homeless.  These are not depraved, insane individuals (but for the very rare exception), but are instead people who have slowly found themselves in this unfortunate situation.  There is no pointing of fingers; I expected at least one diatribe against sub-prime mortgages, or the other typical evils of American finance, but this is nowhere in evidence in this article.

What there is, instead, is an abundance of beauty.  Vollmann portrays people at their kindest, and takes pains to also paint a portrait of the natural beauty with which they surround themselves.  There are a few typical Vollmannesque diversions, such as his discussion of the nature of dogs, and how homelessness brings out the best in them, but for the most part, this is a more restrained (and perhaps space-conscious) Vollmann than I'm used to reading.

I believe that much of the first half of this article appeared in his book Poor People, but I enjoyed reading it again, especially in the context of the latter part of the article that deals with Safe Ground.  In all, this is a balanced piece of reporting, that does not pretend to have any solutions for the problem of homelessness.

A Good Death

by William T. Vollmann

Vollmann's father died recently, and his plans to avail himself of Switzerland's liberal assisted-suicide laws were foiled by happenstance.  This led Vollmann to examine his (and many other peoples') beliefs about death, and the degree to which we should be able to influence when that inevitable event takes place.

In typical Vollmann fashion, he goes about his investigation in an equally exhaustive and scattershot way.  He interviews the local coroner, doctors, and representatives of various religions.  He goes to a funeral home in Mexico, and speaks to old people in poor rural villages.

The answers he receives vary a great deal, and lead to many interesting ruminations on the nature of faith itself, and how different the United States is compared to Europe.  This is a very reserved and subdued version of Vollmann's usual prose, without the free association I've come to expect in his journalism.  The subject matter is something that many of us would rather avoid, but I think reminders like this have their place.

This is both a very personal, and universally relevant article.

McSweeney's Quarterly Concern #33

A year or two ago, I read Nicholson Baker's wonderful book Double Fold, which was about 'Libraries and the Assault on Paper', as the text beneath the title calls it.  In this book, Baker rails against recent library practice of disposing of tons of old and historic newspapers, replacing them with commercial (poorly) made microfiche, citing storage and space requirements.  Baker himself now owns a large collection of almost full early runs of such celebrated and wonderful papers as Joseph Pulitzer's New York World.  The descriptions that Baker furnished of large broad-sheet papers with detailed diagrams and loving illustrations, not to mention legendary comics sections, made me envious of people living in an earlier time.  We now live in a time of great newspaper poverty, as dailies suffer from endless cut-backs and diminished readership.

Into this dismal scene comes the 33rd issue of McSweeney's, Dave Egger's literary quarterly.  For this issue, Egger's et. al. constructed the San Fransisco Panorama, a one-time old-school newspaper of gigantic proportions.  The paper is a week-end edition, including two supplemental magazines, various sections, a generous and lovely comics section, and even a fold-up paper toy rocket ship.  The entire paper comes off as a labour of love and an almost forgotten sense of American journalistic craftsmanship.  It took me just about forever to read this thing.

The list of contributors to this thing is as impressive as the span of topics discussed and reported upon.  There is Baker himself (writing about paper mills in Maine); William T. Vollmann discussing mining issues in Imperial, an area about which he is most definitely an expert; Jesse Nathan on the marijuana growers of Mendocino; and J. Malcolm Garcia reporting from Afghanistan. 

San Francisco is the main topic of the paper, with various articles examining the state of the city and its inhabitants.  There is an eight-page section devoted to the new Bay Bridge, and all of the problems associated with that project, which features stunning illustrations and makes good use of the large-size format of the pages (this thing is much wider than today's newspapers).  The Sports, Food, and Arts sections represent the Bay Area a great deal.  There are also tons of human interest articles and interesting charts throughout.

The two magazines are very impressive.  The Panorama Magazine is modeled after the New York Times Magazine, with many long-form articles, some of which I've already reviewed.  Were this a weekly or monthly magazine, I would gladly subscribe.  The Panorama Book Review Supplemental was also very impressive, containing some great short stories from authors such as Roddy Doyle and George Saunders, as well as an interesting conversation between Dave Eggers and Junot Diaz.  The book reviews were wonderful in their variety, and I liked the way each review reproduced the first page of the book so potential readers could sample its style.

Of course, I wouldn't be me if I didn't say something about the comics section.  Art Spiegelman, Dan Clowes, Michael Kupperman, Gene Luen Yang, Adrian Tomine, Chris Ware, Erik Larsen (!!), and many others contributed, and it was a very nice little compilation.  

It's a shame that this project is not to be repeated.  I doubt very much that there is a market anywhere in the world for a regular paper like this, and that is all of our loss.  Reading this allows you to imagine a time when people were very well informed (and not just up on the celebrities), and also had the leisure to read the damn things.  This is a truly unique and impressive work of art.

Imperial

by William T. Vollmann

I have considered Vollmann to be my favourite writer for a very long time (I've been reading his books since I was in high school), and I've read every book he's written (with the exception of his newest, Kissing the Mask, which is on my bookshelf).  Having finished Imperial, his massive book on Imperial County, and the area surrounding it, including the Mexicali Valley in Mexico, I'm beginning to fear that our relationship is becoming an abusive one.

Imperial (the book) is 1306 pages long, although the main body of the text only takes up 1125 pages (Vollmann likes his notes), and it is frequently painfully repetitive.  Vollmann is the type of author who, if he interviews seven people about say the price of water in rural Mexicali, will include all seven interviews, instead of summarizing or aggregating, even though all seven people say just about the exact same thing.

The problem is, Vollmann is frequently a brilliant writer, and makes it worth the reader's while to wade through the duller portions of the book, hunting for the sections that confirm his talent and genius.

This book is as sprawling as the geography he describes.  He covers (exhaustively) the history of the region, but this is not just a history book.  He also goes to great lengths to portray the current state of Imperial, and meets with and interviews people from every station in life, although his sympathies and love remain with the people of Mexican descent, whether they work illegally in America or subsist in Southside (ie. Mexico).

The closest thing to a thesis statement I ever found in the book came on page 528, when he wrote "When I began to study the history of this period my mind remained unbiased by knowledge.  All I knew was that somehow Imperial county had altered from being one of the richest bits of farmland in the United States to the poorest county in California, and I couldn't fathom how."  Of course, the whole region is desert reclaimed by damning the Colorado River, and finding ways to bring and keep water in the area.

The book is at its best when Vollmann is in Southside.  There is an excellent section that involve him searching for tunnels in Mexicali that had been built and inhabited by Chinese migrants.  This involves page after page of investigation and pleading, before his is finally able to gain entry into some of the extant tunnels, and while they hold little more than Al Capone's famous tunnels did, this part of the book is fascinating.  Also memorable is the section where Vollmann attempts to gain entry into some of the maquiladoras that fill Mexicali, as he looks to confirm rumours of sexual harassment and mistreatment of poor Mexican girls.  These two sections, joined by a smaller segment on narcocorridos (ballads that lionize the actions of drug traffickers) are the most Vollmannesque, as is an early part of the book where he decides to raft down the New River to confirm reports of its feculence.  In that instance, he developed a number of skin infections.

It's hard to figure out how to classify Vollmann's non-fiction writing.  This book could work as a pretty straight-forward sociological history of the region, but for the fact that he will frequently include similes such as "as clean as a fifteen year-old Mexican whore", which I'm sure make academics incredibly unlikely to ever quote from him at length.  Similarly, there is a part of the book that runs close to one hundred pages in which he mourns the death of his relationship with an unnamed woman.  Frequent readers of Vollmann's oeuvre are used to things like this, but it must be quite off-putting to a casual reader (imagine if James Agee filled some of 'Let Us Now Praise Famous Men' by whining about getting dumped).

In the final analysis, this book is about the death of optimism and perhaps the American Dream in its far south.  The people that Vollmann interviews and profiles from the contemporary period feel beat down, and are happiest when life is simply 'tranquil'.  The pioneer spirit that he describes at length in people like Wilber Clark has left the region, and things are not looking good.  At the heart of this book lies Vollmann's love for this area and its people, as if his own personal optimism could prop up the whole area.

I enjoyed reading this book, but I'm damn happy I've finished it.  I rather wish Vollmann would return to writing novels (ideally, I want him to finish his Seven Dreams books - they are among the best books I've ever read), but no matter how much he pushes, I know I'll always return to read his next book.

A Head for the Emir

by William T. Vollmann

William T. Vollmann is my favorite author, although searching back through my blog, it would seem I've never written about him before.  I believe that when I last finished one of his books, this blog did not yet exist, although it's hard to imagine going more than a year without reading something from him, seeing as he is so prolific.  I am currently reading his newest book, Imperial, but seeing as it is some 1500 pages long, it's going to be a while before I write about it on this site.

Anyway, it was with great pleasure that I discovered Vollmann had an article in this issue of Harper's.  In it, Vollmann writes about his travels in Kirkuk, Sulaimaniya, and other places in the Iraqi part of greater Kurdistan, a nation that exists in the hearts of its inhabitants, if not on any recognized map.  Kirkuk is too dangerous for an American journalist to stay in, so Vollmann repeatedly makes the journey there for the day, each time increasingly pushing his luck, especially as he continues to travel in the same car, and boldly, eat in the same restaurant.  His fixer and his interpreter become increasingly nervous, and probably rightly so, as they have more knowledge of the kidnappings that occur in that region than Vollmann does.

Vollmann paints an interesting portrait of a people who have come through hard times, and who are continuing to suffer under ethnic strife and the almost constant interference of their neighbouring nations, particularly Turkey, Syria, and Iran, none of whom are willing to concede the right to existence of a greater Kurdistan.

Vollmann does keep his prose much more under control than is typical for him.  This is a relatively objective and flat piece of reportage, almost lacking in his typical flourishes and stylistic foibles (for example, there is only one footnote).  The usual Vollmann does shine through on occasion though, such as when he describes a young machine-gun bearer guarding the Kirkuk Security Directorate of the Kurdistan Democratic Party: "all in all, he seemed dressed for the weather of Kirkuk, whose meterorologists must sometimes report light showers of lead, steel, or concrete fragments."

As usual, when reading Vollmann, it is a wonder that he stumbles his way through his surroundings intact.  His optimism and faith in the goodness of people often comes across as blindingly naive, yet he's still journeying through some of the most dangerous places on Earth, and living to tell us all about it.