William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion ed. by Christopher K. Coffman and Daniel Lukes (review)

Abstract

Coffman, Christopher K., and Daniel Lukes, eds. 2015. William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion. Newark: University of Delaware Press. $90.00 hc. xvi + 366 pp.In the preface William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion, Larry McCaffery outlines the between Vollmann's literar y aestheticism and his the grim, often horrific social and political realities he continually returns to (xiv). This dichotomy is highlighted frequently throughout the volume, but there are those who concede that on occasion the writer's attention the latter can outweigh his devotion the former: book by Vollmann may feel more like a collection of notes toward study rather than the study itself (272), as one of the contributors admits of Kissing the Mask (2007). One of the reasons for this is Vollmann's immense output, which runs roughly book year since the early 1990s, several of which are over thousand pages long. These factors go long way explaining why, despite Europe Central (2005) winning the National Book Award, public acknowledgement of Vollmann's work remains muted, and little critical attention has been devoted it. As the first significant volume on the author, A Critical Companion is landmark in Vollmann scholarship.As much as the sheer volume of writing that Vollmann produces, it is the range of subject matter in his corpus that startles: historical fiction, sociological surveys, entomological allegories, and artist books constitute just sampling of the kinds of texts which Vollmann has turned his hand. Such range ensures that the twenty-five pieces offered in this companion are themselves varied and generally absorbing. The editors have organized this material under four thematic headings: Engaging People, Space, and Place; Engaging Narratives: History, Historiography, Ethics; Sex, and Politics; and Methods and Mores: Texts, Paratexts, Aesthetics. Inevitably, these categories are loose and there is overlap between essays and some repetition; however, the framework allows Vollmann's major thematic concerns be brought the fore. So, the first essay, by Aaron D. Chandler on Poor People (2007), immediately highlights what is, my mind, the major engagement of Vollmann's career: empathy. The essays here suggest that serves as both means and end for Vollmann, who, as Georg Bauer writes, is concerned encounter the people he wants learn from as honestly as possible as way take closer look at the Other (74-75). It is instructive note that while Bauer is commenting on Vollmann's sociological work, Miles Liebtag reaches similar conclusion in his postcolonial reading of Vollmann's first published novel You Bright and Risen Angels (1987), which he argues extols engagement with subaltern reality not as means epistemic mastery, but as means greater empathy (196). Both Michael K. Walonen, who reads Imperial (2009) dialogically with Harold Bell Wright's 1911 novel The Winning of Barbara Worth, and Joshua C. Jensen in his essay on Paradigms of Power, demonstrate that Vollmann's should not be tacitly equated with sentimentalism.The need develop nuanced understanding of the nature of Vollmann's relationship with his subject is imperative when it comes considering Vollmann's engagement with the sex industry. Former sex worker Melissa Petro lauds Vollmann's writings because they clearly acknowledge multiple perspectives and plural industries-not falling into the trap of inadvertently re-enforcing the notion that sex workers are either empowered or oppressed, point backed up by Daniel Lukes's observation that Vollmann recognizes that our moral and ideological frameworks are seldom enough through which see the world (245; 250). …