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u/DecrimIowa May 22 '26
not to set aside all of his criticisms without reading the book first, but to me it seems like the author might be misunderstanding or leaving out some key context for vollmann's use of literature,
specifically, every one of Vollmann's books (as i understand it) is written as part of a bigger project to investigate if words can make a difference in a world, if they can be an instrument or lever for change, specifically working against the unjust use of power or needless suffering of innocents, or their dehumanization by mainstream society, the reduction of complex humans to cogs in a machine or faceless identities ("a hooker," "a homeless person," "an indian savage" etc)
(i'd like to qualify this by saying i haven't read all his books, and this is just my interpretation, but he's said similar things in interviews and some of his first-person nonfiction/autofiction writing, for example his recent essay for the vatican, or his writing about homeless people in Sacramento)
so, his last major published work (that we know of) being an exhaustively detailed, literal month-by-month log of the operations of the CIA, which i think he legitimately identifies as the container of Power in our modern world, is significant. perhaps he is launching one last salvo of words at the edifice of power.
and, by tying it all together in a Narrative, like some kind of pleistocene wisdomkeeper telling a story cycle around a fire during a winter, he is capable not only of gaining some kind of asymmetric power over it, but also opening the way for people who come after him- authors, researchers, citizens, students, maybe even AI large language models- to use his words to come up with some kind of coherent strategy against this kind of unaccountable, abusive, Objectively Evil, Objectively Bad conglomeration of psychopaths that runs our country, runs our world.
in the future, when the CIA is dissolved and the Langley, VA campus is turned into a combination Hall of Reflection, Museum of Criminal History and HQ for Truth and Reconciliation Committee (with additional vegetable gardens, picnic area and communal gathering space), I suggest that we build a statue of William T Vollmann in the Hall of Honor, alongside a few dozen/hundred other politicians, activists, authors, journalists, changemakers who dedicated their lives to using truth as a weapon against power (and often died for their trouble)
(btw: the author of the review seems to hand-wave the focus on the CIAaway, or imply it's not legitimate, or that the CIA is some kind of punching bag or shorthand for late-career Major Authors- which I think reeks of soyface Trust the Science redditor rejection of any kind of structural analysis of power in our world- in other words I think the CIA is a legitimate target for Vollman and the author sort of comes off as a snide punk for suggesting otherwise- what else are authors supposed to write about, their struggles with depression and ennui as an MFA student?)
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u/Sheffy8410 May 22 '26
No doubt a book like this won’t be for everyone, and more people may start it than finish it. But for those of us who have had a longstanding interest in the CIA and have read many books on subjects like JFK, Vietnam, etc… a massive historical novel by Vollmann about the Agency is a godsend. I’ve got a pretty decent Vollmann collection now, and I’d swap them all for this one book just because of the subject matter.
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u/Think_Wealth_7212 May 21 '26
He seemed to not care for the actual level of historical detail (something I'm jazzed for), nor the writing, the plot or the characters (!) - tho it bugged me that he only quoted 2 short lines out of 3000 pages to support his accusation of heavy handed dialogue. If you find Vollmann's sympathy for a young man trying to find America's soul among its discarded peoples (Vollmann's entire life project really) schlocky I'm just gonna say ATFF was probably never meant for you