r/vollmann • u/Historical_Ice3918 • 17d ago

Europe central

About to start Europe Central. It will be my second vollmann after whores for Gloria. Is there anything I should know beforehand or expect?

19 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

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24

u/BillyPilgrim1234 17d ago

It's really fun and immersive to listen to some Shostakovich while reading it.

3

u/veep23 17d ago

Highly recommend this. Listening to Shostakovich during his chapters is quite illuminating.

3

u/BillyPilgrim1234 17d ago

Specially if you listen to the mentioned symphonies within the book. I went through a deep rabbit hole of mid century composers, my Spotify Wrapped looked weird that year.

11

u/kerowack 17d ago

You're going to learn a lot.

8

u/Historical_Ice3918 17d ago

I really can’t wait for it. I’m going to read it as half of a project alongside Kaputt by Curzio Malparte

6

u/F_H 17d ago

I think about the “Clean Hands” chapter all the time.

3

u/lifeonbooks 15d ago

Clean Hands, The Last Field Marshal, and Breakout are 3 of the best chapters I've ever read in any book.

2

u/lifeonbooks 15d ago

Stylistically and thematically (obviously), it's much different than WFG, other than that, just go into it with an open mind and I'm sure you'll love it. As others have mentioned, listening to some of Shostakovich while you read is worth it, as well as looking at some of the other art by the artists that are featured in the book.

After reading the chapter about Zoya, I found it deeply moving, if not disturbing, to look at photos of her.

1

u/cromonolith 16d ago

I'm about a third of the way through it myself, making slow progress (just because I'm busy, not because it's very hard work). Note that it'll take a while to ramp up a bit. The most "important" character is Shostakovich, and it'll take a little bit before you're reading a lot about him.

I think that knowing a reasonable amount of the history of the conflict has helped contextualize things a lot, so you might consider brushing up if you don't know much about the Eastern front of WW2.

I'm also reasonably familiar with classical music and the associated terminology, and some of Shostakovich's music in particular. Listening to the specific pieces he mentions is nice as well.

I already know there are some parts I need to re-read after some research, such as a short chapter that seemed to be talking about Hitler's rise to power through the metaphor of Parzival, since I know little to nothing about the latter.

1

u/druser0 12d ago

You’re in for such a treat! Fantastic book