Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-75dct Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-04T12:04:06.657Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 5 - ‘History Shambles On’: William T. Vollmann and the Seven Dreams Cycle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2019

Rob Turner
Rob Turner
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
Get access

Summary

‘Rising up, rising down! History shambles on!’ beams William T. Vollmann at the start of his seven volume, 3,298-page, study of the meaning of violence. ‘What are we left with?’ he asks, before unrolling a long list of texts and objects that have been cast aside by this history (including ‘Trotsky’s eyeglasses’ and ‘Gandhi’s native-spun cloth’):

Memoirs, manifestoes, civil codes, trial proceedings, photographs, statues, weapons now aestheticized by that selfsame history – the sword of Frederick the Great, and God knows what else. Then dust blows out of fresh open graves, and the orange peels go grey, sink, wither, rot away. […] And that’s only natural: historiography begins before the orange has even been sucked; the peeler believes in the ‘great and beautiful things’, or wants to believe; easy for us to believe likewise, since dust reduces truth and counterfeit to the same greyness – caveat emptor. But ends remain fresh, and means remain explicable.

Type
Chapter
Information
Counterfeit Culture
Truth and Authenticity in the American Prose Epic since 1960
 , pp. 145 - 186
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×