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Rising Up and Rising Down (December 2011)
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December's book is William Vollmann's Rising Up and Rising Down. I am publishing this well in advance of December for two reasons:
1. I want to make sure people are able to get the book as soon as possible, as it is quite lengthy.
2. It seems like folks finshed up November's book rapidly, as best I can tell.
I want to add some notes to this post, as well. First, this is the ABRIDGED version of the book, NOT the seven-volume 2003 printing. I have the unabridged book, and I count it as my most important piece of personal property. However, it is out of print, hard to find, and expensive if you do find it. If you are strongly gripped by this abridged edition, know that the unabridged is vastly superior; it may be worth the passionate fan's money to acquire the full work.
Second, yes, this is a long and winding book even in its abridged form. Vollmann is not always an easy read, and the issues discussed in this book are of a rather esoteric nature. That said, I implore you to fight through it. This is the most important book I have ever read, and I am a fiery advocate of its wide consumption. I am convinced it is vitally important. You may think I am wrong, but I ask that you at least try it before saying so. Thanks, book club friends! -
It is in the mail.
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A saint as always, Mr. White.
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Ordered. Kind of disappointed to find that it wasn't available as an ebook. You have no idea how quickly the Kindle app has made me see physical books as these big clunky, annoying, useless things. All that weight just to hold one single work!
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I put a hold on a copy at the local library.
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Yeah, in particular, I want the seven-volume set in an electronic edition. Do you know how long it'd take to do my own digital conversion with a camera and some batch scripts? We're talkin' 3400 pages for the first edition. That's just a stupid amount of work in order to electronically archive a book for personal use.
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The heft of a book is a delight to its holder. I was recently in The Strand ogling books bound in faux-leather with all manner of useless decorations thinking "I will never own a kindle." It might prove true. I just like physical books too much. I like the space they take up and the imposition they are. Good books take up space and I'm fine with that; to a degree I celebrate it. I'll probably be a luddite in this regard forever and hopefully to the embarassment of my children.
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I want both physical and electronic copies of my books as 1) insurance against fire or other loss/damage, and 2) ease of transport when traveling, as I found six books in my backpack made it far too cumbersome.
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my problem is I already have 2 bookshelves that are 2 books deep full of books, plus another 2 or 3 boxes full of books in my already small room. Ebooks let me eliminate books that I'll either only read once and never touch again or books that won't cause people who look at my books to think I'm smart.
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I don't disagree that there's aesthetic value to a physical book. As I've said before, I just think it's kind of like the aesthetic value of horseback riding. Someone can say "I like horseback riding", but (outside of a few specialized circumstances) you wouldn't expect them to ride a horse as their daily commute, or use a horse-drawn plow to farm.
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I want to commute by horse. I guess I need a job first...
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Not if your job is "Lone Ranger".
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Just got my copy today (amazon prime is great). As soon as I get to a stopping place in 'The Brothers Karamazov' I'll start this up.
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Very good! And while I do not love Karamazov like so many do, it is still a good book. The philosophical arguments juxtaposed with the Russian Homer Simpson dad char are just perfect.
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My grandmother was yelling at me for reading the book the other day. Well, more she was yelling at me for reading a book written by a Russian, since in her mind all Russians are communists, thus this book is nothing but left-wing propaganda. She then was complaining about me going to the opera, saying I should be listening to country music instead. God I love my family.
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Jon, you forgot to mention how happy and cheerful this book is.
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It's a romp. A frolic, even! You know this thing isn't going to be all rainbows and sunshine right from the beginning, as it starts off with his observations of this joint:
I can attest that it is a hell of an odd place:
And since he quotes one of the signs, here it is:
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PJ ORourke on Russian literature: "Here's Tokstoy gibbering on tmfor fifty pages about the Russian peasant's spiritual relationship to yakety yakety yak, and me going 'Leo, why did she fuck the guy?' "
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I'm slowly making my way through this, due to finals coming up I've only been able to read it on my lunch breaks. I'm near 100 pages in so far and it's mostly good so far. I like his examination of the limits of satyagraha and his arguments that it can't always be affective. He mentions briefly (like one or two sentence I think) that carrying a weapon for self defense has the potential to escalate a situation and result in a worse outcome but he really didn't go into to much detail on it, I'm hoping he revisits it before the chapter ends. I should be able to sit down and read it properly after next week, so I should have something better to say on it soon.
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I really dig the meditations. The 24 page introduction has done nothing for me so far, save convincing me that the author masturbates to a video of himself writing the 7 volume version of this work. I have one more page of introduction, and then onto the real stuff.
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my favorite part of the intro is when he casually mentions that he kidnapped a child prostitute.
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It starts getting better in the first chapter. he still writes in his own experiences, but it is to a lesser extent then the openings. a good chuck of it so far is examining Gandhi's philosophy and whether turning the other cheek is always a good idea. I'm curious to what got the cut in the abridgment.
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I get the sense that the full version is pretty much "my diary for the past twenty years"
