- Paperback: 800 pages
- Publisher: Alma Books (2 July 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1846880424
- ISBN-13: 978-1846880421
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 4.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 584,196 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
the sheer brazen scope of the thing commands respect and admiration --The Daily Telegraph
highly serious, extremely ambitious --The Times
Europe Central is an enormous accomplishment, but really only offers a starting-point to understanding this author s oeuvre... he has a scope and ambition far beyond the ability of most authors --The Independent
highly serious, extremely ambitious --The Times
Europe Central is an enormous accomplishment, but really only offers a starting-point to understanding this author s oeuvre... he has a scope and ambition far beyond the ability of most authors --The Independent
Review
"The New Yorker "one of the twenty best writers in America under forty." The Washington Post A daring new departure from a writer whose books 'tower over the work of his contemporaries' The Boston Globe Vollmann asks us to put aside what we think we know of history and immerse ourselves in it once again."
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Where to begin?
This is an enormous, serious novel. If you are interested by the history of the first half of the 20th Century (as I am), a fan of the music of Dimitri Shostakovich (as I am), and a lover of literary fiction (as I am) the this book is tailor-made for you. If you are none of those things, you should perhaps approach with caution.
Vollmann has taken a number of 20th Century lives (notably Shostakovich, the defeated Stalingrad general Paulus, the turncoat Russian Vlasov, the well-intentioned SS man Kurt Gerstein, and many others) and woven them into a fictionalised saga to explore the moral maze of Hitler's and Stalin's Europe.
But this is no airport novel. The writing style changes frequently, sometimes spare and straightforward, sometimes outrageously experimental, echoing the music of Shostakovich whose role - in what Vollmann calls "an imaginary love triangle" - is the heart and soul of the book (access to recordings of the symphonies, the cello sonata and the harrowing 8th quartet is highly recommended as an accompanying "soundtrack").
I find it difficult to find suitable comparisons for this book; what it reminded me of most was not literary, but sonic and visual: the aforementioned Shostakovich music, the films of Tarkovsky, the grainy black-and-white images of the 1970s TV series "The World At War". Whatever one tries to compare it to, there is no denying that this evocation of the Berlin-Moscow nightmare world of the 30s, 40s and 50s is a remarkable achievement by a young(ish) American writer, whose work I will be exploring further.
The word "masterpiece" is undoubtedly over-used, but I feel it is justified here.
This is an enormous, serious novel. If you are interested by the history of the first half of the 20th Century (as I am), a fan of the music of Dimitri Shostakovich (as I am), and a lover of literary fiction (as I am) the this book is tailor-made for you. If you are none of those things, you should perhaps approach with caution.
Vollmann has taken a number of 20th Century lives (notably Shostakovich, the defeated Stalingrad general Paulus, the turncoat Russian Vlasov, the well-intentioned SS man Kurt Gerstein, and many others) and woven them into a fictionalised saga to explore the moral maze of Hitler's and Stalin's Europe.
But this is no airport novel. The writing style changes frequently, sometimes spare and straightforward, sometimes outrageously experimental, echoing the music of Shostakovich whose role - in what Vollmann calls "an imaginary love triangle" - is the heart and soul of the book (access to recordings of the symphonies, the cello sonata and the harrowing 8th quartet is highly recommended as an accompanying "soundtrack").
I find it difficult to find suitable comparisons for this book; what it reminded me of most was not literary, but sonic and visual: the aforementioned Shostakovich music, the films of Tarkovsky, the grainy black-and-white images of the 1970s TV series "The World At War". Whatever one tries to compare it to, there is no denying that this evocation of the Berlin-Moscow nightmare world of the 30s, 40s and 50s is a remarkable achievement by a young(ish) American writer, whose work I will be exploring further.
The word "masterpiece" is undoubtedly over-used, but I feel it is justified here.
Format:Paperback
The other reviewers were pretty spot on but this only deserves four stars, for me, as it is too long. The editor should have sorted that out but as it stands it goes on forever.
The first half though is stunningly good. The chapters about hitler and paulus especially, the 'sleepwalker' and his downfall are portrayed exellently, entirely convincing and even scary.
Read this. Then go and read life and fate by Vassily Grossmann.
O.
The first half though is stunningly good. The chapters about hitler and paulus especially, the 'sleepwalker' and his downfall are portrayed exellently, entirely convincing and even scary.
Read this. Then go and read life and fate by Vassily Grossmann.
O.
Format:Paperback
William Vollmann's EUROPE CENTRAL is quite simply a magnum opus. Utterly brilliant. I would go so far as to say that with it he must go into serious contention for the Nobel Prize. One review in the LA Times compared it to WAR AND PEACE. This is not hyperbole. In fact, Vollmann deliberately and cleverly draws up this comparison in the book himself, without ever saying it. He wants it to be compared. It should be.
What's it about? It's about the conflict between Stalinism and Nazism and the aftermath. The impossible choices that it left people. The bravery and heroism that can exist even in appalling regimes, and among those working for appalling regimes. It's about humanity, and what it's capable of. And if that's enough it's also about the nature of the creative process, how life becomes music, and what akes a work of art.
It's a vast, sprawling, huge work, something to take on a long journey (as I did) to get into it. But it's also hugely readable and gripping. If you could compare it to any author living it would be to Pynchon, but it's much more readable than Pynchon.
In a word, a masterpiece.
What's it about? It's about the conflict between Stalinism and Nazism and the aftermath. The impossible choices that it left people. The bravery and heroism that can exist even in appalling regimes, and among those working for appalling regimes. It's about humanity, and what it's capable of. And if that's enough it's also about the nature of the creative process, how life becomes music, and what akes a work of art.
It's a vast, sprawling, huge work, something to take on a long journey (as I did) to get into it. But it's also hugely readable and gripping. If you could compare it to any author living it would be to Pynchon, but it's much more readable than Pynchon.
In a word, a masterpiece.
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