Fathers and Crows: A Book of North American Landscapes

Seven Dreams #2

by William T. Vollmann

With the same panoramic vision and mythic sensibility he brought to The Ice-Shirt, William T. Vollmann continues his hugely original fictional history of the clash of Indians and Europeans in the New World. It is 400 years ago, and the Black Gowns, French Jesuit priests, are beginning their descent into the forests of Canada, eagerly seeking to convert the Huron--and courting martyrdom at the hands of the rival Iroquois. Through the eyes of these vastly different peoples--particularly through those of the grimly pious Father Jean de Brebeuf and the Indian prophetess Born Underwater--Vollmann reconstructs America's past as tragedy, nightmare, and bloody spectacle. In the process, he does nothing less than reinvent the American novel as well.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Novels, Canada, American, Literature, The United States Of America

990 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

William Tanner Vollmann is an American author, journalist, and essayist known for his ambitious and often unconventional literary works. Born on July 28, 1959, in Los Angeles, California, Vollmann has earned a reputation as one of the most prolific and daring writers of his generation.

Vollmann's early life was marked by tragedy; his sister drowned when he was a child, an event that profoundly impacted him and influenced his writing. He attended Deep Springs College, a small, isolated liberal arts college in California, before transferring to Cornell University, where he studied comparative literature. After college, Vollmann spent some time in Afghanistan as a freelance journalist, an experience that would later inform some of his works.

His first novel, You Bright and Risen Angels (1987), is a sprawling, experimental work that blends fantasy, history, and social commentary. This novel set the tone for much of his later work, characterized by its complexity, depth, and a willingness to tackle difficult and controversial subjects.

Vollmann's most acclaimed work is The Rainbow Stories (1989), a collection of interlinked short stories that explore the darker sides of human nature. His nonfiction is equally notable, particularly Rising Up and Rising Down (2003), a seven-volume treatise on violence, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Over the years, Vollmann has continued to write prolifically, producing novels, short stories, essays, and journalistic pieces. His work often delves into themes of violence, poverty, and the struggles of marginalized people. He has received several awards, including the National Book Award for Fiction in 2005 for Europe Central, a novel about the moral dilemmas faced by individuals during World War II.

Vollmann is known for his immersive research methods, often placing himself in dangerous situations to better understand his subjects. Despite his literary success, he remains somewhat of an outsider in the literary world, frequently shunning public appearances and maintaining a low profile.

In addition to his writing, Vollmann is also an accomplished photographer, and his photographs often accompany his written work. Painting is also an art where's working on, celebrating expositions in the United States, showing his paintings. His diverse interests and unflinching approach to his subjects have made him a unique voice in contemporary American literature.

Reviews

[Geoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

where the stream of time opens up and pours into the great endless ocean mist rises through the spangled air like reversed rain (or is that bright brume the souls of the saved soaring to PARADISE?), and indeed thundering clouds are there on earth bellowing from pools where the stream of time commingles with the ocean, so that earth is sky and sky is earth, for if we have come to the end of the stream of time then it must be the end of the world; so we can only ascend toward its source (that is our only choice); and at the end of the world the air is filled with the roar of rushing gusts from the mouth of Aeolus who kills us when he speaks, but being dead already, this is of little consequence to us; at the end of the world the ocean encircles earth and in its depths the serpent Jörmungandr sits swallowing its own tail and waiting to destroy shallops that have been cast afar by the breath of Aeolus; so we begin the Exercise of Ascension and dive into the stream of time but at the end of the world the water is ice cold and our limbs are benumbed and begin to turn blue and our vision clouds in the gray-green glacial current that pushes back toward Jörmungandr’s snatching jaws and death; but making the Exercises gives us strength and endurance (we ask HIM for ENDURANCE now as this is a very long book we are wading into- we must remember the Current of Patience) and our joints are stiffening and our ears are ringing but we move our arms and legs and slowly the blood begins to warm and flow again and we creep forward but still we have not caught our breath; we are only starting; this is the First Rapid (or is it the Forty-Second?); and here thousands of cataracts scream in our ears, rapids running skyward up up over bedrock and flying upward over the lip of the gorge, and behind where the water meshes against the canyon we see through the curtain of rippling quicksilver upturned eyes of wooden saints (who has placed them there?); and the push of the water is strong and our bodies are punished by effort but this is good and sends us ever nearer the Cross (for every suffering we endure allows us to understand THE PASSION all the better, and thus brings us closer to HIM); [and here so close to the end of time strange things rest on the riverbed- canisters oozing green goo that kills everything it touches- clouds of agent orange and radiated cribs and large discarded ovens- casings of two-ton shells upturned like the feasting cups of the Jötunn- the burnt and twisted skeletons of metal birds and iron Glyptodons]

but
by HIS
Power
we
scale these
obstacles

and find ourselves in the calm of an eddy, where the bed of the stream of time forms a kind of bowl or chalice, and the water is still enough that a blue-green moss has grown smoothly over the rocks there, and the effort of swimming eases, and we break the surface for a badly needed breath and find the river narrowing into a boreal forest, the bone-white birch trunks spindle upward like skeletal fingers; the air thickly scented with leaves and running sap and decaying bark (but what is that curious whiff we catch at the tail end of our breath, coming off the wind from the west, like singed hair or roasting flesh?); the dim light also is blue-green as the moss in the stream of time, filtering as it does through the canopy; and the cacophonous noise at the end of the world has ebbed away to a whirring breeze and we hear geese laughing and crow-calls from above; Dante’s frogs watch and croak from lily pads (Brekkekek Kekkek...); and as we feel that we are being watched from the shadows of the forest (there might be glinting eyes) we dive back into the stream of time and continue our ascent; but as we climb through the still water of the eddy we see a bleached-white form curled up on the silt of the riverbed- the bones of a beaver cast back into the water, so that it might return from the Country of the Dead (but who will drape my bones from the limbs of a weeping pine in the depths of the forest so that I might return?...); and its skull seems to turn and watch us pass farther upstream (it is already beginning to live again!); and we swim more strongly now, and the treetops pass more quickly above, and the clouds are red-tinged, and from the dark places beneath ragged tree trunks we hear what might be far off songs or the overlapping whispers of many voices, but again it might be the wind brushing branches or the babbling of the brook; and then, though our attention is directed to the effort of making the Exercise of Ascension, above the forest roof we think we spy very tall strange trees made entirely of stone and glass- weird angular forests of Cathedral Trees there on an outcropping, and strangely clad men surmounting them- but this can’t be, and though we hear the whispered song again (kewec kebec kewec) we understand we must be hearing only the rush of the stream of time; then the current again begins to gain in strength and push against our arms and kicking legs so we dive down where it might be smoother swimming through this Rapid, but ahead a black heap undulates slowly with the movement of the water, a mass of dark fabric sunken where shafts of water-light only barely break on it, and the current lifts the material of this black gown and beneath the waving hood a denuded skull peeks and hides- poor martyred Père Nicolas, the last wisps of his beard caught between the seams of rocks-

but those wisps
of beard
begin to thrash
and reach
from the riverbed
long translucent
venom-
filled
tentacles

and from the blackness the black body of the martyr Père Nicolas has become a thing many-armed, with the razor-sharp beak of a DEVIL BIRD and now GOUGOU lunges toward us, but some dark magic or OKI has given us great speed and strength, and past the whirlpool and the wreckage of a canoe we dart and feel the faltering grasp of GOUGOU give

so we swim again at ease, wondering if that sea monster was but a nightmare caused by a bit of indigestion brought on by our last long ago meal, a paltry birch kettle of corn flour mush, spittle, and dog marrow;

but perhaps it wasn’t a dream because something has sliced us on the ankle (though it might have been one of those many stone and iron hatchets rising from the river floor like tube worms- there are many bloody hatchets discarded in the stream of time); we are bleeding; the stream of time is flushed red with blood; but the red of the water is too much for the little we are bleeding to account for; it is as if the stream of time itself has turned to blood once we passed the place where the whispers sang kebec kebec...;

and frightened by the reddening water we pray Lord I thank you for your light and grace because our fear and tired limbs and suffering minds bring us closer to HIM and for that we are thankful; but we feel we need a rest and so we limp ashore on our bleeding ankle and rest on a rock jutting above the water; and smelling the cool air and feeling the autumn on our backs we recline and peer into the stream of time; our wavering mirror image is many-faced; the brown wash waves against the stone; the sky is reflected like a toothy grin on the surface of the water, the water-sky is hemmed in by purple reflections of waving tree tops; something flits there in the water and we are startled but it is only a mirror-thing in the reflected sky, a crow has unfolded its wings like a book and ascended into an alder;

we study our many-faced reflection on the surface of the stream of time; there we are, all of us readers of the Crow-Text; and there looking sideways in dark silhouette is the story-weaver William the Blind (he is distracted just now); there is Champlain filling in the white leaves of his map-pages with the black script of fleuves and rivieres, patterning the void; there is Robert Pontgrave, somewhat father of our tale; there is Amantacha, where the raspberries are dreaming; and Born Underwater, wampum gifts dangling from her ears and her eyes like deep brightblack wells lost in seeing-ahead; and there is Père Brebeuf acting out THE PASSION; and Pontgrave the elder swollen with gout; and what might have been the slick black back of a carp in the depths is Him Whose Face Is Darkness; and there the story-shapers Ruth Holmes Whitehead and Bruce Trigger give well-intentioned admonitions; and Membertou waves an arquebus triumphantly from the Country of the Dead; and over our shoulder Jean Duval’s skull grins from atop a pike; and Tekakwitha is supplicant below a Cross;

the stream of time is silent and smooth here, but on either horizon the hum of Rapids rises; the forest buzzes and we remember MANITOU the eater of man-flesh lives there in blackness; and as this is the stream of time the seasons are rapidly changing, and autumn is becoming winter, and we do not wish to be caught out all the long cold season within the reach of MANITOU’s mandibles; so back into the stream of time we dive (the chapters begin to succeed with quickness and narrowness of intent); and we wish to reach Ville-Marie (which along another branching riviere has come to be known as Montreal) before the Fleuve Saint-Laurent becomes a ribbon of ice (who was it that brought the FROST to this Country anyway?); (and what is a frozen river but a road that no longer walks, hours that do not toll, the end of motion and thus our lives, a voice gone silent, a closed book?); and we have many rapids to ascend before we reach the endless expanse of the Sweetwater Sea; but there in Montreal when we finally leave the stream of time, unseen locusts will be singing the song of eternity; and The Eagle will kill The Fox; and St. Catherine Tekakwitha will be frozen too like our fleuve, but in the amber liquid light of stained glass; and the cathedrals will be the new forests; and whores will walk the street which was given her name; and our Pères and Saints will be stone and metal; and we will have ascended the 17th Rapids (which is LOVE); and the 73rd Rapids, and beyond the 15th Rapids (Burial) we might come to rest on the 2nd Isle of Prayer- which any good reader will recognize as The Meaning of Words

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

And when are you going to Huronia? Is your ambition as dead as your sex life? Here it is page 403, my plot more or less in place, all destruction finally ready to happen (and what about the poor Jesuits, sidelined again? You’re their friend and this is their book!) -- and you? You count beaver-skins for De Monts! --William the Blind

Fathers and Crows is our Second Dream of the American landscape of a history which is better not to tell, told us by William the Blind, our Dreamer of these landscapes which we see around us covered over with pavement, but once, and still in our Dream, Under the pavement, ourselves!

William T. Vollmann has undertaken a series of historical novels in which to describe a symbolic history of the North American continent upon whose lands The People encountered possessors of Iron-Power, an encounter whose result is our inheritance. The history is vetted and true. Liberties taken, and who will not take liberties in a Dream, are confessed even should that confession require burning. In these histories the victors and vanquished both speak with a kind of nakedness, a kind of surface representation which puts no one under a clinical methodology which would eviscerate the life of those whose lives disappeared down The Stream of Time. There are no sops for the soft-hearted and sentimental. Life was violent. It remains so even as the whores continue to stroll along Rue Sainte-Catherine.

Friend Stephen P, in a comment to his review of The Royal Family, remarked upon Vollmann’s voice, his ability to sustain a kind of voice rarely heard, across hundreds of pages. And I ask myself about this in conjunction with the question--and sometimes the accusation--of Vollmann’s prose. Prose we think of often as style, a way of putting words down on the page in regard to both syntax and semantic choice. Sometimes we readers and reviewers speak of prose as if it were an independent set of decisions, that there is good prose and bad prose. But with only a little sophistication we reflect further that decisions about how to place syntax and execute semantic choices are determined foremost by the material, that form and content must align themselves in a unity; that form becomes itself content, and the content is reflected in those prosaic decisions. “Bad prose” can often be rescued by such considerations, that the content, what it’s about, demands that it get itself expressed in a way which aligns with what it is. But I wonder if this view of prose as form for a pre-existing content is true, or if it is true, which it likely is, whether it is sufficient. And by that, I ask, what about voice?

Can we for the nonce separate out voice from prose, separate voice out from content as if a character had a pre-existing manner of speaking which must then be reflected in prose? That perhaps voice is not just a matter of how something gets said, but is the formation itself of how something gets said. If prose forms content, can we think voice as the formation of prose itself? That prose is the material upon which voice goes to work, raising it above the dead letter on the page? Voice not as emergent, but as always already acting? One thing perhaps which Vollmann’s fiction teaches us is not so much that the prose must be authenticated by the content, but that voice itself is not content nor mere prose. And further, that voice is not Vollmann’s voice nor the voices of his characters, but rather of the work itself, of the book itself. Clearly, Vollmann has a voice which one recognizes with pleasure from work to work. But each work itself speaks of itself and from itself, and even our storyteller, William the Blind, who has seven voices, each of which he speaks in each of the Seven Dreams, is nothing but the voice of the work, the story our bard relates. Even if we separate out one from the other--content, prose, voice--they possess an internal unity, but that unity is stitched in the case of each work by a voice, perhaps a voice of conscience of the era in relation to the unity of that era with its people, its landscapes, its Power, its eventual fate. And when the voice is the voice of Dream, it is strange.

May you listen. And by listening hear the voice of Fathers and Crows.


____________
The other part
In which is related how I, Not-Regarded, made the Exercises and ascended to The Seventy Third Rapids

The Seven Dreams are novels and should be read as such. The Seven Dreams are histories, and so shall we read them. The Seven Dreams are symbols, and we know what that means.

I began at the beginning, a method which often works well but can at times deceive. Title page. Copywright page. Initial epigraph (from Father Francesco Giuseppe). The Dedication (“to all Canadians” and “against all dogmatists”). Contents (n.b., the box lower on this page pointing The Reader to Chronology, Glossary, Source Notes, etc). List of Maps. An Accurate Chart of Goals, Straits & Obstacles to Be Found in the STREAM OF TIME, Keyed to the “Spiritual Exercises” of Ignatius of Loyola.

At this point, on the cusp of Crow Text, The Jesuit Relations 1610-1791, A Historical Note, I skipped across the wide breadth of the Atlantic, returning to France for the winter, and found myself on page 869 face to face with a concluding epigraph from Père Biard taken from a letter of 31 Janvier 1612. Thus I spent a few hours in the library at Paris, also known as End Matter (those two words are mine, Not-Regarded’s) of This Dream.

Glossaries. The note on page 874 contained valuable warnings. This is followed by Orthographic Notes; I read these two pages in their entirety. But the following--Glossary of Personal Names--I merely skimmed, taking note of a few things that interested me, such as, “Fernando and Isabella [Spanish] ‘Their Catholic Majesties.’ It was under this royal pair that Columbus discovered America. They unified Spain, reconquered the province of Granada from the Moors, and expelled apostates. Bully for them.” I did the same for Glossary of Orders, Isms, Nations, Races, Hierarchies, Shamans, Tribes and Monsters. Here’s the entry for Christian, “Originally followers of CHRIST, they later grafted various other tenets to His, dividing into factions in the process. In seventeenth-century Canada, they thought to coerce, and so combined with their beauty of purpose an ugliness of execution.” The Glossary of Places I passed over. But you shouldn’t. As noted earlier in this Relation, there is a list of maps at the beginning of this Dream. They should be consulted occasionally and as the Spirit moves. Glossary of texts I read in detail, but it’s short and most of you won’t be reading any of the 73 original Jesuit Relations. Glossary of Calendars, Currencies and Measures is the kind of thing one always requires when encountering the strange habits of people past. Next I encountered the 6th Glossary, this one called General. Here is where you will learn several Frenchified means by which to call someone a sonofabitch.

Once I had traversed the Glossaries in a rather non-meditative fashion, I encountered A Chronology of the Second Age of Wineland. This I read in detail and with a fair amount of attention in order to get the lay of the land, so to speak, and to have somewhere to hang my hat as the plot was likely to leave me more than a little out of breath on the bottom of le Fleuve Saint-Laurent where GOUGOU would surely take me in his hairy arms ... And kill me! The Chronology is indeed exhaustive, beginning when “A SKY WOMAN named AATAENTSIC falls to the watery earth” and ending in 1989 when “William the Blind visits Kateri Tekakwitha’s relics at Kahnawaké.”

After this whirlwind through Time-Power I read what Arthur C. Parker, from his book of 1923, Seneca Myths and Folk Tales, has to say about poets. That was page 934. On page 935 came an important Note which introduces William the Blind’s Source Notes. These Source Notes I read accordingly as they sourced materials from each individual chapter, which, otherwise expressed, would mean the I read them in parallel with the novel itself.* I mean the Novel, the thing itself, not all this extra pretentious junk that some writers can’t help indulging themselves in. I mean the novel with its plot and characters and prose. Be damned! your indulgence with historical facts and accuracies and representations. Dream already!

And whether you each decide for the Before or for the After, do not avert your eyes from the Acknowledgement page found as a coda to the bulk of this Dream. Even here, in my own humble Relation, I would like to give you two names which you will encounter over and over again, two people who wrote in the margins of the manuscript of this Dream. I mean of course, Mme. Ruth Holmes Whitehead of the Nova Scotia Museum (Halifax) and Professor Bruce Trigger at McGill University’s Department of Anthropology (Montréal).

At this point in making the Exercises, I shot the rapids down The Stream of Time to Crow-Text. Crow-Text followed by Fathers and Crows and its first part, “Kingdom Come or, How the Black-Gowns Sailed to Canada.” As I swam and climbed back up through The Stream of Fathers and Crows I met many Canadians and many who would become Canadians and many who would die. When everyone who mattered was dead, I read The Six Glossaries as if they were my very devotions upon which my life would one day hang.





* Those dogs who would spurn and chuck aside a footnote or an endnote or a Sacred Source Note shall themselves be chucked aside where their bodies will rot and their bones will not be recovered to be mingled with all the bones of the People and thus such dogs who feel they may dispense with the Source shall forever be expelled from the Source itself which (as we all know) is the People, and their bones shall not mingle. They shall be like the moose whose bones have been cast in the water, like the beaver whose bones are hung in the tree.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...because what they did they did for love of something, bravely doing what worldly minds must call insane actions. Without them the disasters would probably have happened anyway."

It is a very delicate path to tread - to feel pity, respect and even, at times, admiration, for people whose actions, beliefs and justifications you find abhorrent. WTV has the skill, the intelligence and the compassion to stay beautifully upon that path. I salute his achievement.


The Personal and the Universal

It is impossible to explicate, to illuminate, my response to this text, without some explanation or, more appropriately, exploration, of the links between its subject matter and the events of my life.

There are two primary intersections: Canada, and the Native American peoples.

Firstly, and most simply, my connections to Canada are, as an Englishman, deeper than would be expected. Not only is my wife a born and bred Vancouverite, but I have spent a great deal of time in that country myself, both with her and her family, and with my brother, who moved to Victoria about 10 years ago. I have had a curiosity about the country, and with its history, for some time, and have seen the landscape, in all seasons, with a traveller’s eyes.

This move of my brother provides the link to the second (though primary in importance) link between my life and this text: not only was he adopted by a Dakota Sioux family about 15 years ago, but he now works with the Canadian government, mostly as a negotiator in respect of Indigenous affairs.

I, too, have travelled through Canada alone (prior to meeting my wife), and visited with the (wonderfully kind) Sioux family, who formally adopted me too, and I stayed with them on the reservation for a while. The grandmother was a highly respected medicine woman within the tribe and, at the Pow-Wows we attended together, I saw at first hand the power she wielded (I remember once one of the eagle feathers from a fellow dancer's head-dress fell on the floor. Immediately everything stopped, and she walked onto the field, placed a hat over the feather and raised it from the ground. Only after she had removed the sacred object from the sacred space could we begin moving again), and had the great honour of being invited to be one of the family’s representatives during the ceremonies. As a tall, red-haired Englishman, this was, to say the least, an exposed and exposing experience.

So, as with the Ice- Shirt, this text touches on many themes that are close to my heart, and it is impossible for me to review it without taking into account these personal connections.

And yet, and yet…I cannot help but think that the most important, and most profound, responses one can have as a Reader to a text like this are more in terms of the Universality of the Human, in the individual as individual yet existing in empathy with other members of our species, as fully Other as they are. For if I compare myself to a man of the early 17th Century, must there not be as great a distance, if not more, between us, as there is between Donny, the father of my adoptive family, and a member of another tribe four hundred years ago? The “Indians” I know, and the experiences I have had with them, are almost unconnected with the lives described in the Novel. And yet to give up, to turn away from this Other is a failure.

This makes me think of my first seminars in Medieval History as an undergrad. We were told, quite correctly, of the impossibility for a Modern human to enter the mind of a medieval man, a man living in a completely different universe to us, with alien thought patterns, alien beliefs, living in a world teeming with Devils. For how completely different must ones attitude to life be, if one knows that an eternity in Heaven of Hell is a reality? What care I of my life, of suffering, if, after such a brief flash of pain, I will spend eternity in God’s presence? How can I imagine contemplating the image of a God who chooses to suffer torture and pain for my benefit? To be “worthy” of the suffering of another human being is impossible enough, but the suffering of a God? No wonder they were riven with such self-disgust, and such a strong desire to punish and reprimand their own bodies (and, though there is no space for it here, the Catholic and/or Jesuit attitude towards the Body is a truly fascinating and conflicted one – there is so much of the “savage” in it, and so much that I see echoed in the “torture porn” of modern Horror films – the depictions of the flaying of saints does, for instance, out-extreme those dull Saw movies by a long way).

But we can try, we can reach towards these vanished minds, we can extend the tendrils of our empathy back through the years, and perhaps learn something about ourselves in the process. One of the many things that impresses me about WTV and his project is the attempts he makes, detailed in their research, and complete in their Dreaming, to express something of the Truth of these minds, and to give them the respect they deserve – not to moralise, not to judge, but to express, to conjure up, to find the echo of vanished voices. This is a brutally difficult task, and one I have not seen attempted before.

Digressions

Reviews of this novel have, I notice, oftentimes commented on the frequent digressions it contains, on the hundreds of pages it takes for the Reader to meet the so-called “main characters” (googling “Vollmann digression” brings up almost every review of his work in existence). This criticism raises some interesting issues, both in terms of the assumptions these critics are making about the text, but also, more fundamentally, what a novel is or, is for.

So, a novelist is accused of wandering from the main path of a journey, of filling a book with passages or sections that deviate from the central theme. This accusation does, of course, rely on a number of assumptions: (1) that there is a “main path”; (2) that there is a “central theme” ((1) and (2) are not, it should be noted, necessarily the same thing); and (3) that such sections are “wandering”, or perhaps “aimless”, or perhaps, more fundamentally, somehow “irrelevant” (to what and to whom?).

One can see how such digression would, of course, be entirely possible in many forms of novel – for example, if one is narrating a love story in the traditional sense (with meeting, crisis and resolution (marriage)), to introduce a 300 page section on trout farming would, no doubt validly, be criticised as digression. However, should the “central theme” of said novel be freedom, for example, one can see how such a section (perhaps from the point of view of a trapped and melancholic trout) could, in fact, bear fruitfully upon such a theme and be no digression, no deviation (though those Readers who long simply for PLOT, and for whom the movie version would be much preferred, such a section would be rather frustrating – but who are these people to demand that the Author structures his novel on their terms?). It is therefore clear that to speak of a “main path” is much less helpful than to speak of a “main theme”.

So, we must, in order to ascertain whether Vollmann is guilty of “digression” in the negative sense, we must first state the main theme that he is alleged to have wandered from. Such theme may, I think, be formulated in a number of ways but is, in essence, an attempt to explore, or to summon up in a symbolic sense, some “truths” (not facts) about the history of America, and of the conflict between the Native Peoples and the Europeans. This history takes place over a few hundred years, at the very least, and involves hundreds of thousands of potentially relevant players, and potentially illuminating events. What, then, would amount to a digression in such a text? Perhaps a narrative of the moon landing (though, of course, we can immediately see how, in dreaming, this could shed light on some aspect of the main theme), or a re-telling of a Chinese myth (though, of course, we can again see immediately how juxtaposition could, for example, illuminate the main theme). How then can critics complain that the story of a Jesuit Priest, or of Vollmann’s description of key locations as they exist in the modern day, thereby contrasting and comparing these places with their history, is digressive? If one’s theme is so vast, then digression is almost impossible. This is, of course, the heart of the tradition of the “maximalist novel” :

“The sense of randomness and accident, the role of chance, the principles of absurdity, the confusions in communication, the authorial tone and direction ­ all these follow naturally from the description of a novel whose intention is to create a fictional world that parallels the realities of experience." Robert Spector

These maximalists are called by such an epithet because they, situated in the age of epistemological uncertainty and therefore knowing that they can never know what is authentic and inauthentic, attempt to include in their fiction everything belonging to that age, to take these authentic and inauthentic things as they are with all their uncertainty and inauthenticity included; their work intends to contain the maximum of the age, in other words, to be the age itself, and because of this their novels are often encyclopaedic. As Tom LeClair argues in The Art of Excess, the authors of these ʺmasterworksʺ even ʺgather, represent, and reform the time’s excesses into fictions that exceed the time’s literary conventions and thereby master the time, the methods of fiction, and the readerʺ Takayoshi Ishiwari

So, in my opinion, the question becomes simply, are these digressions pleasurable? Or, do I, as Reader, gain something from their inclusion? In this I can state a resounding “yes”. I am interested in these people, in these events (and it is part of the Novelist’s art to encourage and facilitate such interest, not, - it is important to note – to ENSURE it (and also note I say “interest”, not “enjoyment”). For the Author cannot be expected to write in such a way to guarantee the interest of all potential Readers. S/he can, however, be expected to go some way to indicating both why s/he has bothered to write it down, and why anyone should be bothered to read it) and I therefore get both pleasure and an increased knowledge, a more detailed picture of the world and of the human beings which populate it. This is not, as Vollmann himself has repeatedly insisted, a “history” of the period, and most particularly not definitive (if such a thing was even possible) in its selection and exploration of people and events, but there is, most definitely, a “truth” of sorts at its heart.

The theme of this novel is, I believe, important, and in much need of exploration. He delves into it in an exceptionally rigorous and detailed manner. The prose is, at times, extraordinary and, at other times, simply perfunctory (this is not a criticism – prose should do different things at different times – though, in a novel this large, it is inevitable that there are slightly clunky sentences here and there). It is a-digressive, it exists in a realm where digression is impossible, is inconceivable, where, if the Author’s brain makes a link between two events, or decides to include a section in the novel, this alone is reason enough for it not to be a digression. Any tale told to us by William the Blind, no matter where or when it occurred, is always already pertinent, is always already bound tight to the theme. The great stream of time is wide and deep, and carries us swiftly out of sight. There is no story too shallow to be spoken, no action too small to be recounted, all is worthy of recognition – with no God left to record our deeds, we have great need of such Writers to take notice of our passage, and to scratch us down onto paper.

[Christopher Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Midway though Fathers and Crows, there’s a short chapter about Père de Nobili, a Jesuit who spread the faith with much success in India due in no small part to his cultural leniency. You see, he didn’t require his converts to completely do away with their every social custom and long-held tradition. Rather, he came to the conclusion that they could be Christians and still retain their cultural identity. This didn’t sit well with the presiding powers. They accused him of corrupting the faith, and indeed he was censured and stripped of his ability to perform baptisms for thirteen years, until the Pope ruled in his favor in 1623. When he retired in 1654, there were just over 4100 Christians in South India, where there had been none upon his arriving in 1608.

This is important. It seems like a digression, and it is, but it’s an important digression because of what the book is telling us to consider.

“So, if it had to be done at all, it could have been done that way in Canada. It could have been done.” (p. 477)

Of course, it wasn’t done that way. Had it been, Fathers and Crows would have been a significantly less troubling read. I’ll say no more and leave it to you to decide whether or not you’d like to experience the horrors directly.

- - - - - -

This was my second Vollmann, and my second of the Seven Dreams. The Ice-Shirt was brilliant, but Fathers and Crows took it to another level entirely. I’m stunned at Vollmann’s ability to shoehorn so much damn information into the text while still somehow managing to compellingly tell the story, and in gorgeous, poetic language no less.

For example:

“Green leaves crawled down darkness like water-droplets. Once they crossed into the Country of the Haudenosaunee, they divided their forces into three groups, as was the advice of their Old Men: the scouts, the hunters, and the main body of the warriors. Each night they built redoubts of logs to guard themselves as they slept. When they were very near to the Nation of the Sonontrerrhonons, they began to travel only by night, and ate corn meal soaked in stream water, so that no fires would give them away. They shared dreams with each other in great anxiety. Now as every summer it was the time of nightmares.” (p. 614)

I really can’t say enough good things about Fathers and Crows. It ticked all of my boxes. Great writing, great storytelling, meticulously researched, epic and sweeping but never boring, digressive but never without reason... just brilliant, stunning from start to finish. I’ll be reading much, much more Vollmann going forward.

This gets my highest recommendation.

[Jack Waters · Rating 5 out of 5]

“This book is dedicated against all dogmatists and their armies. Whoever they are, I cordially wish them a warm stay in Hell.” -- from the author’s dedicatory page.

*******

William the Blind, dictating through William T. Vollmann’s pen, writes as if Dostoevksy’s & Hemingway’s writing were having a ménage à trois with an atlas near the chilly mouth of a constantly-birthed-by-glacial-melt river.

The Second Dream of William The Blind flies Crow-Like(but certainly not in the attenuated vector path in which the phrase ‘as the crow flies’ would allude) over inlets of emergence and convergence as if the First Dream, The Ice-Shirt , is melting.

*******

We’re flung as salmon upstream toward Canada’s non-Canadaness circa the first half of the 17th century. The Huron tribe along with its warring opposition Iroquois tribes -- all waiting in the We Were Here First way -- are greeted by everyone’s favorite motive-wielding intruders: Christian missionaries. Hailing from France, these clergy are highly-trained Jesuits(called Black Robes by the natives) and arrive to share and trade their knowledge of eternity and salvation, which -- as all dogmatists know and portend -- comes at a price(but what of value?).

Emigrate and gentrify according to Our Team cultural determinants seems to be the modus operandi of a great number of European explorers, especially those driven by THE LORD. Having settled, what invariably comes next? The rapid fluctuations of: price, value, trade, currency. Currents, see?

What better way to encourage the free flow of the curren[ts;cy] than to prevent the Dam[nation]s raised by busy-bodied beavers? Simply give them -- the beavers -- a price, a value, a CONVERSION. Catch, skin, and tan THEM. Pelts for all! Cloak the rich with the coats, fill with pelts the boats.

Exchange is necessary. Pelts for Iron. Death for DEATH. The ultimate zero-sum game of DEATH whose backing lacks assets yet boasts ASSETS ASSETS ASSETS.

But the greed -- try as you surely may to pick a team -- runs both ways. Too many Yeses and not enough Nos or Knows. As the cultures gristle at assimilation, the tensions mount and bubble and wash over the rocks until, as blind as a riverbend, the valences of RAPIDS and WATERFALLS disturb the tranquil and offer obfuscating foam during the turbulent acceleration toward the UNKNOWN. Which among the boulders is to blame for the TURBULENCE?

Ascension offered as covert condescension; a promised DEATH sans resurrection. Why Dream of a Floating Island when HEAVEN awaits those baptized?

Until all requisite pronouns KNOW, all manner of means will be deployed. A means to THE END of which Our FATHERS have spoken.

Is Canada Canada, or is Canada New France, or is Canada of New France, and just what in THE WORLD was it before? Who can lay claim? Is claim lain?

“He flew now the way a river bends without reason. He flew for the same reason (I suppose) that snow is darker than clouds; for hunger is no reason; hunger simply is. He flew until he could not fly anymore. Then he landed upon a snowy branch and died. History devours what happens, without any reason. History devoured the crow.” -- A Bird in Winter(215)

All these questions posed because what do ANSWERS expose?

Thy will be done.

Thy will, be done.

No? Know.

Know? No.

*******

[Chris Via]

O, Sainte Kateri Tekakwitha, please do help me to review this in such a way as to express appropriately its worth.

Video review: ‪https://youtu.be/fCDM6KbJaV0

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

The French come to Acadia, to Quebec, to New France. But there are people already there. The People. The People have beaver skins and Paris is fashion. The French have Iron and the People have enemies. Natural trade partners, you’d think. Except, the Iron People also bring smallpox; and they also bring religion. So along with the soldier, the adventurer and the governor come the Black Gowns. How to tell this story, where both sides are certain that they can explain the mysteries of life? The Iroquois and Huron left no contemporary accounts. So Vollmann must necessarily create “the People’s” view of this clash of culture first from the record left by the French, the Iron People, but also with some sympathy towards the Indian context.

this book is perforce a tissue of speculations, prejudices and falsehoods (thus Vollmann).

That’s okay, of course. It’s some sort of fiction. But what Vollmann forces us to look at is how the myths of the Iron People must have seemed to the People. The Black Gowns are there to “harvest souls”. So, when dozens die from the transported disease, that’s actually a good thing, as long as they can be baptized before they die. To end this earthly strife and be reunited with God in eternity brings a smile to the faces of the Black Gowns. Which makes the Huron think these guys are evil sorcerers. And yet, the French have Iron. So a brisk business in beaver, and in souls, continues.

Do you who are called Charcoal think that you will succeed in overthrowing the Country? asked a Huron very politely.
Ah, we are not so presumptuous to suppose that, said Pere Brebeuf, but it is easy enough for GOD.

And…Our bodies are made of stronger stuff than hatchets (thus Brebeuf).

I mean, how can you talk to someone like that?

Vollmann revels in telling of the tortures and cannibalism of the People. Repeatedly. It was the ritualized practice for the various tribes to raid and capture others. There were, of course, the usual depravities. But then the captured warriors had to run the gauntlet. Flesh was cut, eaten. Parts removed. A rival was supposed to suffer this gladly, laughing. Otherwise, no one would respect him enough to eat his organs. Perfectly understandable, no? But after all the cutting and un-membering, the burning would begin. It would be a success if the burning could last three days. Smiles all around.

The Black Gowns frowned on this. But as Amantacha considered, “they also lie, for though they tell us not to burn men they do the same in Paris.” And that was just the Inquisition. By jumping ahead to the present, Vollmann invites the reader to think again. Not just to the barbarous times of continent-acquisition, but to all times. I mean, was the mustard gas at Passchendale better because more scientific? Was Katyn Forest more humane because quicker? Were the Nazi ovens any less ritualistic? Is Hiroshima a bad analogy because the killing was at a distance (and they started it!)?

How long will GOD allow this country to continue to be a land of horror, when, without these wild men, it could be a land of Paradise? asked Pere Ragueneau in 1650. Don’t hold back Pere; say what you really mean.

This is Volume II of Vollmann’s Seven Dreams series. I’m not reading them in order because Vollmann isn’t writing them in order. And, by the way, isn’t he due for another installment? I imagined I would like this as much or more than Argall because I recently read David Hackett Fischer’s superb Champlain’s Dream. Vollmann draws Champlain more of a buffoon, a pedant, than Fischer does. But I don’t begrudge someone poetic license. I can’t even say he’s wrong.

The Seven Dreams series obviously has a niche audience. But I’m invested and look forward to the rest.

[Darwin8u · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote a review. I lost it. Feels appropriate

Volume 1: The Ice-Shirt (1990)
Volume 2: Fathers and Crows (1992) ✔ Read
Volume 3: Argall(2001) ✔ Read
Volume 4: The Poison Shirt (unpublished)
Volume 5: The Dying Grass (2015) ✔ Read
Volume 6: The Rifles Landscapes (1994)
Volume 7: The Cloud-Shirt (unpublished)

[Larou]

The second of Vollmann’s Seven Dreams, Fathers and Crows takes up more than the twice the number of pages than The Ice-Shirt did and deals chiefly with the Jesuits’ attempt at converting the natives of French Canada during the first half of the seventeenth century. While very different both in size and subject matter, there are several structural similarities between the two novels that appear right from the start.

Both are based on a specific source text (this time this is the Jesuit Relations , an account of Jesuit missionary work among the natives of New France, extending from 1610 to 1791), a text that is described in its physical form in the course of each novel’s first chapter – and a chapter that both times comes across as very dense and cryptic when one encounters it for the first time because it presents all of the following novel’s themes and motifs in an abbreviated form, much like the overture to an opera. The whole Seven Dreams project certainly has a grand operatic sweep and a certain megalomaniac hubris that are rather reminiscent of Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen, and Vollmann’s tight interweaving of themes and imagery has something of Wagnerian Leitmotiv technique about it. (One might even go a step farther and view Vollmann’s forays into drawing and photography of an extension of his work into the visual arts, and wonder whether he isn’t nurturing some ambition towards a Gesamtkunstwerk.)

This interweaving is not limited to a single volume but spreads out among the whole of the series, and many of the motifs and images one encounters in Fathers and Crows are already familiar from The Ice-Shirt. I was somewhat surprised to find, though, that the shirt metaphor does play only a very minor part in the second novel in the series – it is referenced in passing but nowhere near as central as in the previous novel. Instead, it turns out that water imagery forms a strong link between the two novels, each of which is characterized by a different form of it – ice (obviously) in The Ice-Shirt while for Fathers and Crows the river turns out to be central on a multitude of levels. One of them a quite literal and realistic one, in so far as much of the novel is set in a landscape dominated by a river, namely the St. Lawrence River along which the French Canadian colony was situated. More pronounced even than in The Ice-Shirt with its long, gorgeous descriptions of nature, Fathers and Crows presents itself as what the subtitle of the Seven Dreams sequence promises: “A Book of North-American Landscapes”. The St. Lawrence river runs through this novel, dominates it both literally and figuratively, determines the flow of its plot and fuels its imagery, and the novel itself resembles nothing so much as a sprawling landscape through which a winding river meanders its slow way.

The novel moves like a river itself, but it does this in very strange ways, moving simultaneously upriver and downriver, from the innocence of the source towards the ocean of experience, but also from the sprawling ocean to the focused source. That particular double-movement apparently is an image Vollmann takes from Ignacius of Loyala’s Exercises which works as a second, minor source text (much like native origin myths did in The Ice-Shirt) which I have not read but which from what I could gather depicts the God-searching soul as moving towards a communion with God (ocean) at the same time as seeking for the knowledge of God’s essence (source). Fathers and Crows uses river imagery and variations of this double movement on almost more levels than one can count, probably the most fascinating (for me, anyway) is how Vollmann uses it to structure the novel – which does appear as a huge, sprawling chaotic mess at first, but as one reads on, one notices that there is a clear direction to it, or, precisely, two directions: on the one hand there is a narrowing, as the story starts out with a history of French Canada, then concentrates on the Jesuits, to end wit the story of Father Brebeuf. At the same time, however, there is a broadening, as the bare-bones narrative of the beginning gradually evolves into long descriptions and extensive character exploration, the narrative granting increasingly more room to individuals and what moves them.

Something that was probably already present in The Ice-Shirt, but really comes to the forefront only in such a massive volume as Fathers and Crows, is the degree to which Vollmann is obsessed with contextualization. One can easily imagine how he started out with the story of Father Brebeuf, then wanted to balance it out with an Indian point of view and thus added the story of Born Underwater. Obviously, neither of their stories would can really be grasped without some background on the native life at the time and history and intention of the Jesuit mission in New France, so the novel had to branch out to encompass that as well. But to understand both the Jesuits’ mission and the situation of the natives it is necessary to view them in the wider context of the settlement of French Canada (not to mention Indian mythology and the origin of the Jesuits). All of this is of course placed in the implied context of the whole series, i.e. the history of America / Vineland. And there is no intrinsic reason at all to stop there, this contextual spiral moves towards infinity, and the secret (or not so secret) desire of Vollmann’s prose appears to be to encompass it all – it’s the Gesamtkunstwerk again, but on a scope even Wagner didn’t aspire to: When everything is said and done, Vollmann’s writing strives to contain simply everything there is. Hence the multitude of genres and subjects, his travels all over the world, his constant switching between fiction and non-fiction (often in the same book, as with the Seven Dreams series) and the always astonishing versatility of his prose that seems to adapt to every style and tone imaginable (and to still remain distinctly Vollmannian). His work aims at nothing less than to be all-embracing – and yes, that also includes a certain affirmation, an understanding if not a forgiveness, a humani nil a me alienum puto. I think that among the great novelists of this and the last century, Vollmann is the most humane (besides Joyce, who has a similar empathy for everything human, no matter how low and insignificant others might consider it), and that nobody has such an enduring love for or attempts a similarly thorough exploration of absolutely everything human.

If the genesis of Fathers and Crows is conceivable as a constant broadening of its context, then the reader moves in the opposite direction, beginning with the big pictures and watching it narrow down as he follows the course of the narrative, until it flows into the (almost) straightforward story of two people, the Jesuit pater Father Brebeuf and the native woman Born Underwater. The story of a man and a woman, then, it really does not get any more basic than that – and in a weird and twisted way this is indeed a kind of love story. As the story between a European male and a native female it can’t not be reminiscent of the more famous legend of Pocahontas (which Vollmann tackles in the next of his Seven Dreams, Argall), but what happens between Father Brebeuf and Born Underwater is quite different. The visible part of their relationship is mostly antagonistic – Born Underwater is actively plotting Father Brebeuf’s downfall, while he never ceases his attempts to convert her to Christianity, even though she clearly has no wish to be converted – but at the same there is undeniably an attraction betwee them – even a very strong one, I would argue, maybe even all the more so for it mostly remaining buried and, when it does raise its head, an enigma to them both. In the end Father Brebeuf, with all the best intentions, is instrumental in destroying Born Underwater’s way of life, while Born Underwater, in attempting to destroy Father Brebeuf, fulfills his mostly deeply held wish, i.e. to become a martyr to his faith. And all those doublings, cross-directions and cross-purposes are variations on the theme of following the river in two directions at once.

The alternating chapters from the European and the native Indian perspective highlight again what might very well be Vollmann’s greatest strength as a novelist, and that is his stylistic versatility. The effortlessness with which he changes tones and registers, the various degrees of sublety with which he adjusts his prose style to various perspectives and subject matters, the sheer range and variety of styles at his command never ceases to astonish. And yet, even while proving himself the most versatile of prose chameleons, his writing always remains unmistakeably his own, bears some hidden, but very noticeable Vollmannian watermark. This is even more noticeable in Father and Crows than it was in The Ice-Shirt – here, there is something almost Faulknerian in the way he gives voice to his protagonists – even the identity of the narrator seems to shift depending on who is writing about, William the Blind is European when writes about the French, Spanish and English, native Indian when he writes about the various tribes. “Rather than be a totalitarian, I have preferred to let the variants stand in all their charm,” as it says in the note on Glossaries (showcasing another Vollmannian trait, namely to hide his self-reflective methodological statements in out-of-the-way places). It’s his conception of the Gesamtkunstwerk again, and some of its political implications: In a Vollmann novel, nobody is excluded, everybody’s voice gets heard – he aims for totality, and hence is profoundly anti-totalitarian.

And part of this is that, just like in The Ice-Shirt, Vollmann takes his sources absolutely, totally serious. As a historical novel, Fathers and Crows is not chiefly interested in facts (although Vollmann certainly put a lot of effort into getting those right - even a brief look at the appendices shows the stupendous amount of research that went into this), not in how its protagonists and their factions are perceived objectively from the outside, but in how they perceive and present themselves. Vollmann never sheds even the faintest doubt on the Jesuits’ claim of wanting to save the Indians but takes them by their word that their attempts at converting them to Christianity is all done with the aim of saving the natives’ souls, with the best of intentions. And then he goes on and shows relentlessly how good intentions and altruism and can be by far more destructive and devastating than greed and self-interest – it’s not the early settlers’s greed that destroys the Huron tribes but the well-intentioned zeal of the Jesuits who believe themselves to be acting in their best interests. And, from a Jesuit point of view, they of course are, and Father Brebeuf, who longs so intensely to become a martyr, would likely have argued that it was better for them to perish than to lose their souls. It would be very easy to pass judgement on them, but Vollmann, while never flinching away from showing what went wrong (and the novel is very drastic in parts) tells a tale that is ultimately without villains. It is also a tale that even though it is a challenging read has a huge impact on the reader willing to brave both its slow meanderings as its rapids, a novel that I consider a major contribution to contemporary literature and the historical novel. I’m even starting to understand those rabid G.R.R. Martin fans who kept clamoring about a continuation of A Song of Ice and Fire and find myself wishing Vollmann would cut the minor stuff and get down to finishing Seven Dreams already – I don’t doubt that dressing up as a woman is fun, but the man has a Major Work of Western Literature to complete!

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a lot of books in my time. This is the only one that has ever given me an erection of the heart.

If non-conventional narratives bother you, than you should probably be checking out James Patterson's novel-of-the-week.
Fathers And Crows will take you elsewhere. Vollmann truly understands the grammar of the heart and, as one novelist once wrote me, is "the hurdy-wordy man," bringing 900+ pages to the scene. Sure, his editors beg for cuts, cry for the trees that will be sacrificed. To his credit, big Bill says "Fuck it. I'll take no royalties to have it published in full." Thanks, Bill. I, for one, have been touched by your greatness.

When Bill wins the Nobel, I expect to be invited. I sang the cry in the early days and I sang the cry here.
And, for me, it all started with this book. As the National Book Award has become more adventurous in recent years (Vollmann, Powers, Johnson...whoulda thunk it), my hope burns bright and springs eternal (the Red Sox fan in me). See you in Stockholm, someday, you fucking genius, you.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fathers and Crows sat on my shelf, mocking me for about five years after my first attempt. There was even a layer of dust on the top that I had to polish off with a rag. I backtracked to about halfway through because I could barely remember anything from where I'd left off. I'm glad I dove back in – it was incredibly rewarding. Right away the second half seemed much more focused than the first (which probably has more to do with circumstances and my mindset then and now). So, starting again from about page 500, the book went from good to great to awesome.

The structure is a little chaotic since it mostly follows the path of actual historical documents. Just like real history, characters show up and drop out unpredictably - which gave me a bit of trouble my first time. But the themes build and develop in a satisfying way and he does an amazing job re-creating French and Native American cultures, making them feel disarmingly alien and familiar, and above all, real. It was an amazing world to be in for a few weeks.

One of my favorite parts was the powerful love/hate story between Indian seer Born Underwater and the beatific Pere Breboef. There’s a kind of inevitability to their story and most of the other characters – literally in the sense that the (often gruesome) fates of many of these characters can be found in the historical record, not to mention hints and outright spoilers from Vollmann throughout. But you also get this sense from the characters themselves. There’s a tremendous emphasis on ritual and knowing roleplaying. The characters know they’re doomed, but the question for them is how will they meet their fate – are they living correctly, and most importantly, will they die correctly?

It’s no spoiler to say that many of the characters (and actual people) in this book die horribly. The Indians at times take on a joyous rapture in torture, ritualizing violence and hate – a captive can make a quick shift from fellow human to other and back again. There is often a mocking sympathy. The goal, to delight in and play your role to its fullest as torturer – but also, to take seriously your role as tortured, a role the Jesuits take to, in some cases, almost ecstatically. As tortured, the aim is to be full in that moment – know these are your final moments, lose yourself in that role.

There is an air of inevitable disaster on a larger scale too. You see the French and Dutch pushing goods on the Indians, playing tribes off each other with exploitive trade and violence; while the Indians are not unwilling, or unknowing agents in their own demise. The French use the Jesuits to play an important role as a subjugating tool. Failures for most of the book, once the Indians’ world is destroyed, the Jesuits are there offering salvation in the next.

The characters have fascinating takes on religion. The Indians idealize living very much in the now, in harmony with your surroundings and tribe, knowing your role and playing it. Demons and spirits are real and both influence and personify events. Some spirits from the Ice-Shirt get a call-back. The Jesuits promote a philosophy around the renunciation of comfort, worldly things, and personality – destroy the self by giving it completely to God. It’s an almost Buddhist idea but, at the same time, opposite in that it fetishizes suffering - enlightenment through constant self-shaming; so that the self is eventually too humiliated to show its face and disappears.

There are some incredibly moving passages, and fittingly, some of the best happen toward the end. The conclusion of Pere Breboeuf’s and Born Underwater’s relationship is stunning, as is Pere Breboeuf’s final ascent up the rapids. The very end contains a beautiful, ecstatic vision of St. Catharine, An Indian Jesuit saint, a kind of synthesis of both cultures, existing in her time and our present simultaneously, embodying what North America would come to be, and also the author’s attempt to reach back and discover how it got there.

[Paola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Questo autore mi é stato consigliato da David Foster Wallace, o meglio lui lo nomina quando parla degli autori che ama, che ha amato leggere, quelli che lo facevano sentire meno solo. (cfr. “Un’antidoto contro la solitudine”)
Ho deciso di saperne di più.
La mia libraia disponeva di questo titolo e quindi.
Inizio a leggerlo, non ci metto molto a capire che la faccenda é assai impegnativa datosi che:
- di Vollmann non sospettavo nemmeno l’esistenza, quindi primo giro su internet per saperne di più su di lui, sul sito web di Saviano scopro che é un suo fan accanito; scopro anche i Sette Sogni, cioè i sette volumi che Vollmann consacra alla storia dell’America, “Venga il tuo regno” é il secondo volume;
- in geografia sono sono sempre stata una schiappa allucinante ne consegue che mi sono fatta un bel tour di mappe del Canada su internet;
- di Ignazio da Loyola e della sua compagnia dei gesuiti e dei loro esercizi spirituali, (terrificanti) sapevo della loro esistenza, ma mai andata oltre, e quindi altro giro di giostra interdettiana;
- della prima santa pellerossa mai sentito parlare, meno male che esiste wikipedia;
Poi mi sono fatta un bel giro del libro, glossari, note, cronologia, etc., mettendoci tutti i segnalibri necessari alla bisogna.
E da ultimo, ma forse dovrebbe essere messo all'inizio, c'é un'importante indicazione (almeno per la scrivente e leggente che son io) per comprendere meglio lo stile della prosa, essa est faufilée a pg 721 nelle "Note ortografiche", "Nota sull'ortografia francese" e ci informa che:
"Ho cercato di integrare parole francesi nel testo ogniqualvolta fosse possibile, per corroborare la finzione che questo libro sia una specie di Relazione dei Gesuiti".
Finalmente ho iniziato a leggerlo.
E comincio a capire perché piaceva a David Foster Wallace.

Arranco, arranco faticosamente... ho deciso che me lo porto in vacanza in montagna quest'estate e... giuro che lo finisco!
----------——•—•—•—-•—————————————————————————————
Marzo 2016
Finito. Non mi par vero.
W.T.V. ti ho odiato, mi hai fatto venire la sindrome della zucca vuota, (domanda ma quanto ignorante sono eh?), tu e tuoi indiani canadesi, i tuoi francesi colonizzatori, i gesuiti! i gesuiti porca miseria e la loro fregola evangelizzatrice, i morti, i quasi morti, spiriti e sante mai sentite nominare, e la tua prosa da onirica, e a volte, scusa eh, francamente delirante, anche se certo ci poteva stare, i deliri mistici sono una grande e brutta faccenda con conseguenze nefaste, e poi morti ammazzati da tutte le parti, ché la morte non sta mica da una parte sola, e le nefandezze son faccenda umana che riguarda tutti quanti, dicevo la tua prosa da "gesuita" a volte mi ha fatto venire poca voglia di girare la pagina, e ci ho messo un po' a finirti anche per questo, ma non ho mollato l'osso(mi son sentita come uno dei tuoi coloni francesi, che non mollavano le postazioni malgrado inverni da ammazzare un orso polare) e, sai, son qua soddisfatta come un ratto nel formaggio.
Perché tu sei uno che la fa difficile e già, proprio come quell'altro DFW, uno che se una come me ti vuole leggere ha da tirar giù qualche santo dal calendario e andarsi a cercare un tot di conoscenze qui e là e grazie alle dee e agli dei hanno inventato internet.
Ecco.

[Aiden Heavilin · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It could have been done."

On page 477 of Fathers and Crows, the final sentences of the short interlude “Temperance” come as a sudden shock to the reader. Throughout the novel, Vollmann’s feelings towards the events he narrates remain ambiguous. Yet, after narrating the life of Father Roberto de Nobili, Vollmann seems to take a sudden and firm moral stand. Father Roberto de Nobili wasn’t your usual missionary, preaching about the fires of Hell that awaited those who didn’t obey him. Rather, he sought to first understand the culture of the people he sought to save, and he lived among them and allowed them to carry out their own deeply rooted traditions. Pere de Nobili was a kind, gentle man, and that kindness and tolerance resulted in his censure and condemnation by the Jesuits he served. But ultimately, his efforts produced far more results than his more radical brethren; he converted thousands. After narrating this small story, Vollmann suddenly speaks to the reader, and the effect is chilling. “So,” he writes, “if it had to be done at all, it could have been done that way in Canada. It could have been done.”

But it wasn’t done that way in Canada.

Fathers and Crows is the tale of conflicting ideologies, how beliefs wax and wane and do battle. Vollmann is obsessed with contextualizing the events he documents. He refuses to blatantly condemn or endorse the actions of his characters. As such, it is fitting that the main character of the novel, Pere de Brebeuf, arrives almost halfway through the book; the four hundred pages before his entrance are all essentially exposition for the “main story” he wishes to tell.

Which is not to say that the opening four hundred pages are in anyway useless or subsidiary. The first half of the novel focuses primarily on the immensely complex character Samuel de Champlain, the first governor of New France. The sections focusing on Champlain’s relationship with his twelve year old wife Helene are gripping and horrifying, not only due to the topic, but the tone by which Vollmann presents it. Even when dealing with the most outrageous events, he writes steadily and seemingly casually. The disturbing elements of Fathers and Crows (and there are many), become doubly disturbing as you realize they were normal to the people of the time.

Vollmann’s writing style is arresting and engaging; he pulls out countless tricks to maintain the attention of his reader. His books offer a great deal of “in the moment” satisfaction. They are fast paced and vivid, relishing in visceral descriptions and brutal action. Fathers and Crows, however, is far more patient than the wild Europe Central or You Bright and Risen Angels. Vollmann allows his tight cast of characters room to develop over dozens of years. This book is far more grounded than the dream-like The Ice-Shirt, which I found to be somewhat disappointing. The weaknesses of The Ice-Shirt are almost all remedied in this novel. Things I found distracting, such as the flash-forwards to present day in The Ice-Shirt, are utilized more sparingly in this novel, and when they do appear, they are extremely effective. The ending of Part Seven, “The Ascension of the Hiroquois Virgin”, utilizes these “flash-forwards” to almost euphoric effect, and he surrealism of the oft-referenced “Stream of Time” provides a welcome contrast to the dusty realism of the majority of the book.

This increased maturity is perhaps represented best by the heart of this novel, the lengthy Part Six. “Glory” could have been published by itself. It tells the tale of Jean de Brebeuf; one of the best characters in the Vollmann books I have read so far. Brebeuf, perhaps more than anyone else in Fathers and Crows seeks to do good for its own sake. “Glory” is a complicated, nuanced portrayal of a good, albeit flawed, person in a very, very harsh world. Nearly every character in “Glory” meets a painful ending. Some are captured and tortured to death by the Iroquois, others torture themselves in the name of martyrdom and mortification. The relationship between Brebeuf and Born Underwater is amazingly portrayed, and its ultimate culmination is the emotional peak of the book. The final few pages of “Glory” brought tears to my eyes, something I have never experienced from Vollmann’s writing.

The fact that Fathers and Crows even exists is incredible. The sheer amount of research and attention to detail lends the book a sense of authenticity missing from much historical fiction, and the fact that such deep research is married to a writing talent like Vollmann is a stroke of luck for all of us. Fiction such as Fathers and Crows has the power to improve you as a person, to create empathy and encourage you to think broader than the easy moral black and whites. Anyone who wants to understand how people can do seemingly unthinkable things to themselves and to others should read it.

[Kevin Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely phenomenal piece of writing from one of the greatest writers I’ve ever read. The attention to detail is incredible. The research is beyond anything I’ve seen. While I found this to be more challenging than The Ice-Shirt the end result was unlike any other piece of literature. Beautiful language on a sad and and terrible subject. Each and every Vollmann impressed me more and more. And I’m thankful to have read this. Read alongside a number of friends on IG #vollmannia ✌️

[H · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his essay about Sollers, Barthes discusses how pre-Homeric poets would always preface every story they told with a lengthy apology for beginning arbitrarily - because every story necessarily is a continuation of something that came before, and every beginning is more or less a shot in the dark saying "well here's a good of a place as any."

Vollmann makes the opposite apology. His historical novels (and that's exactly what they are, don't let MFA candidates try to convince you these are anything other than America's answer to Ivanhoe) never really begin at all, let alone end, and he knows it. But despite being almost nothing but infinite context, one does get a sense of development, and, most surprisingly of all, real personal depth and fulfillment and christ even some sort of HUMANITY or another. By the "end" of it (of course not actually an end, even after the 100+ pages of endnotes and glossary the narrative isn't really over) there's a weird emotional transcendence that's achieved, or almost achieved, or hinted at in a very nice way. I liked this book.

As for the much-derided biographical digression about St. Loyola, yeah that's completely superfluous and dumb.

[E. G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

List of Maps
An Accurate Chart of the Stream of Time
Crow-Text: The Jesuit Relations (1610-1791)

--Fathers and Crows

Black Wings (1611-1990)
Note
Orthographic Notes

I Glossary of Personal Names
II Glossary of Orders, Isms, Nations, Races, Hierarchies, Shamans, Tribes and Monsters
III Glossary of Places
IV Glossary of Texts
V Glossary of Calendars, Currencies and Measures
VI General Glossary

A Chronology of the Second Age of Wineland
Sources and a Few Notes
Acknowledgements

[AB · Rating 5 out of 5]

This river's mouth waits to devour you. And it is good that it desires to do so. For it is the way to God. But you must comprehend another thing. To be devoured is a great labor and mortification. You must go upstream, surmounting new rapids, to reach the narrow place where it shall be finished at last. It is only when this occurs that you are in heaven. Do you Comprehend?

A really amazing book to say the least. I hesitated to pick it up because I really did not think that the Ice Shirt was anything too special and am I ever happy that I stuck with it. It felt long at times but Vollmann always managed to suck me back into it. There was and still is so much to think about. One of the best books I've read in a bit.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

William T. Vollmann’s Fathers and Crows is the second instalment in his epic and ambitions Seven Dreams series—a sprawling work that intertwines history and myth, meticulously exploring the conflicts and interactions between European colonisers and Indigenous peoples in North America.

The novel centres on the French Jesuit missionaries’ attempts to convert the Huron and Iroquois nations during the 17th century—a tale steeped in blood, faith, betrayal and cultural clash.

Vollmann’s narrative is dense and panoramic, his prose simultaneously grand and intricate, weaving together historical accounts with imaginative, almost hallucinatory sequences that bring the past vividly to life. His exploration of the collision between European and Native American cultures is unflinching, portraying the devastation wrought by colonisation on Indigenous communities. Yet, Vollmann doesn’t simply cast the Europeans as villains; instead, he explores the complexities of human nature and the brutal consequences of ideological fervour.

Vollmann ain't just merely recounting historical events here… his fictional retelling puts the reader in the world of 17th-century North America, from the desolate cold of a Canadian winter to the spiritual rituals of the Huron. His interpreted narrative shifts between perspectives, from the Jesuit missionaries, struggling with their own doubts and ambitions, to the Indigenous peoples, whose world is irrevocably altered by the arrival of the Europeans.

[Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

You do good to your friends and you burn your enemies. God does the same.
-Pere Le Jeune, to an Algonkin chief (1637)

Vollmann isn’t one to idolize the natives. They engage in casual torture, just as the Iron People engage in casual rape. Every culture he writes about is portrayed as ruthlessly human. I expected the Jesuits to be the antagonists of the narrative, and was surprised by their sympathy, however misguided were their intentions. Despite this, we spend the entire book anticipating their martyrdom, maybe even looking forward to it. This is a huge exercise in moral relativism. The main thing I’ve gotten out of the Dreams I’ve read so far: relations between natives and their colonizers were way more complex than any required Humanities Credit can ever begin to relay. Even at 900 pages, this feels like a mere drop in the Stream of Time, of which we’re lucky to have William the Blind as our chronicler.

[Louis-Jean Levasseur · Rating 4 out of 5]

First the skin, then the soul. The foundation of Canada starts with the trade with the "savages", and later, their religious conversion. The first encounter of the european with the native peoples began with an exchange of gifts, and from then on, the relation between these peoples has not changed too much, exchanging as they did iron tools and beaver skins for many years. The french power over the native peoples stood on the savage’s dependancy to iron, but to that economic ascendancy was to add sociopolitical conformity, and to subdue the natives with christian belief suited the colonial strategies of the King of France. This historical context is often depicted as colonialist assimilation, but Vollmann seems less interested in the dynamics of domination than what is at stake from man to man, beyond politics.
Beforehand, the map, but underneath : the real world. Father and Crows is the experience of the land, the daily life of this new being who is born of the crossing of two cosmologies, let loose in a boundless territory. Along the stream of time, from a Loyola’s spiritual exercise to another, the novel measures the psyche of the new world.

[Alexander Weber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a solid 4.5/5 stars. I can't give it a full 5/5 because, unlike The Rifles, I don't feel as if it transcended the 'novel' and rose above to touch me in an intensely human way. It did touch me, oh certainly. But perhaps it was more history than human emotion. With that one criticism said, let me expound on the glowing qualities of this book.
The history! Holy shit! This book is a textbook made flesh, human burning flesh.
The first section, as with all of the first preludes to the Dream Novels, is fantastic beautiful strange gorgeous prose. Mmm, yum! Best to re-read this section when you finish the book. His devotion to Catherine will make more sense, and will be all the more beautiful / tragic.
My favourite characters are Champlain, Robert Pontgrave, Born Underwater, Pere Brébeuf (holy hell what a final scene!), and Amantacha. There are so many characters, though, it sometimes gets really confusing. I love how Vollmann switches ethnographies based on which cultural perspective he is using.
Torture, be it Huron on Iroquois or vice versa, or religious ascetics on themselves, was incredible, as with misunderstanding. How Vollmann makes the Jesuits appear from the Huron perspective is really fascinating.
I don't know what else to say. There's really too much to say I'm left a little dumbfounded. I'm sure others have written better reviews.
Ultimately, what I want to convey is this is one long and deep exploration of Canadian history and native/european history which is fascinating and epic and fun and scary and morbid and so many things! Lose yourself to this book, and you won't be disappointed :D

“During her life she considered herself to be a great sinner, because it seemed as if she had a stain on her body, which she was very careful to hide. - What did he mean by this? What did she mean? Was it simply her ugly smallpoxed face that she covered always with her blanket? But even if I had enough Power to make her live before me, even if I had enough goodness to truly reach her through some loving agony of kindness and grief, she would only have turned away...
... In such a fashion perished Louys Amantacha. And yet I think that his death was a greater martyrdom than Tekakwitha's, for she chose hers; he did not. - Did he die screaming or singing? - Ask the Haudenosaunee.”

[Bryn Hammond · Rating 5 out of 5]

A documentary-novel on contacts between Savages and French (with English and Dutch) in Canada. It has an exhaustive feel, as if he's put in every contact - whether or not you'd pick them for a novel. He does dives into people's heads for a page here and there, but otherwise, these figures from the Jesuit records seem to be written with an external or objective hand... a bit like a closely-observed documentary, more than a novel. Canada itself, savage Canada, is as real as if filmed, and I, who skip description unless of people, never did. He keeps to two sentences at a time anyhow, as I'd have description, except when a metaphor for human mood or airier things - and his can be that.

There's merry torture - the Indian Nations' art and practice with each other, before they get to Jesuits. In spite of the culture clashes, the Black Crows and the Savages are often strikingly alike. Sorry to those concerned. The Savages have a Feast of the Dead, gruesome to French eyes, tenderly significant to themselves. The Jesuits' baptism - which they only perform on the nearly-dead, to prevent the wickedness of backsliding - has them hover over those at last gasp with a ghastly persistence, and to Savage eyes they are very unhealthily obsessed with death.

Given how rude they are by each other's standards of courtesy and decency, it's a wonder either understands an utterance from the other side. But the book ends with Canadians, who can now be neither - every Canadian has both, in his/her history, inside.

I wrote a lot in status updates. See them.

[Robert Corbett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the quickest I have ever read a Vollman. But then this is the Vollman I would advise beginners to start with, because it has a terrific hook, at least for people interested in colonialism in America, since it concerns the French's efforts in the part of North America that mostly became Nova Scotia and Quebec, but also upstate New York. The story is mostly from the perspective of the French and the Huron, so it reverses our ordinary way of thinking about them. And it is fascinating the areas it gets into, whether it be Ignatius Loyola and the founding of the Society of Jesus or Champlain's geographical ambitions. What is remarkable, too, is the continuity of Vollman's concern with violence and resistance, as his ambition to cover all versions of its manifestation, which came to fruition with that book that few will ready completely, Rising Up, Rising Down.

Fathers and Crows is the "Second Dream" in Vollman's Seven Dreams sequence, of which four have been written to date. But the book probably to turn to next after this one (for a beginner) is You Bright and Risen Angels. More than any other of his postmodernists, Vollman mines a vein of romanticism in its full glory, seen not merely a spilt religion or simple escape, but as a desire to experience everything that is human without making those exceptions we make to live in the world. And Vollman proves that this remains a vivid and haunting mode for literary expression, regardless of the stupidity of the New York Times Book Review and the narcissism of bloggers.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Because of a two week set back due to a misprint, and just the fact that this is 900 dense pages, this has taken me quite some time to finish. But! It was mostly worth it.

I did not like The Ice-Shirt because it was told in a scattered manner without real characters but still attempting to make you feel for and understand the shadows of the characters there were.

This, however, is better. It fictionalizes and humanizes the real history of these events, giving motives and personalities to the colonized, the colonizers, and everyone in between. It is nuanced in how it views them all and yet still in unforgiving in its criticism of certain people and groups. And the characters are fully formed and representative of both their historical and fictional iterations.

It is over long and does fall into repetition. But that is part of the point of this type of work: getting down into the very minutiae in order to explore the entirety of this history. That level of excess creates some boredom yet is still important since the reader gets to understand the malleable perspective of each character and each group as events repeat or motives change.

So in all, a good book that can be a bit much at times. If you like Vollmann, give it a shot. Even if you didn't like Ice-Shirt like me. I'm still not big on it, but many are.

[Ploppy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some books make you thankful. Thankful that somebody went to the trouble of reading thousands of pages of background material in order to craft a beautiful, sweeping, tragic tale that swallows you whole. Thankful that a publisher considered that although it wouldn’t sell all that much, it was still worth giving it a chance. Thankful for simply being there to read it. Fathers and Crows is one of those.

"Seven Dreams of Northern American Landscapes" is a fairly ponderous yet mysterious title for Vollmann's collection of historical novels recounting the clashes between Natives and European settlers in North America over the centuries.

In F&C, dreams operate on several levels. For a start, the very writing of a historical novel is a kind of dream. You may base your work on fact (and facts are ever-present to support the narrative here), but in the end, if you are using the freedom of fiction, you still have to use your imagination to "dream up" a time you never lived, characters you never met, and events you never witnessed. Reading is also a kind of dream. You are given words on a page and pictures form inside your head. As Vollmann beautifully puts it in the dream-like overture to the novel, “if you read and blink, you may be able to glimpse a forest behind the lids of your eyes.” Ironically, he is not speaking about his own text (although he does so a few paragraphs later in similar terms, telling the reader to “dream harder”). Rather, he is commenting on a historical work, one of the many that have fed his own novel. So there is a kind of cyclical dream-sharing across history, from the original witnesses to later records - already looking back and thus “dreaming” in their own way - all the way to contemporary historians/novelists, reading these records, dreaming their own histories and writing for us reader-dreamers (dream-readers?).
But dreams do not only serve as a metaphor for the subtle mechanics between reader and historical novelist. In Fathers and Crows, the characters themselves are dreamers, in a variety of senses. European explorers dream the continents they later explore. This is what drives them to go there in the first place, hearing about these faraway lands first and already picturing their exotic landscapes and peoples. When they arrive, they dream their boundaries (Champlain dreams of finding a way to China through the rivers of Canada), dream of the resources they might find (we are told of a fruitless quest for gold mines), dream up projects to subject the land and people to their religion and will in order to build a new ideal nation.
The dreams they have are not only hopes and wishes, however. They also have visions, whether they are Natives or Europeans. Dreams of this kind are readily associated with religious beliefs, whether of the Christian or local “magical” kind, and one of Vollmann’s great strengths is to be able to blur the boundaries between historical objectivity and a kind of magical realism. Native sorcerers naturally attribute great power to dreams. To them, dreams (and especially their own) can give the dreamer a certain power. This may sound fanciful and primitive to our modern ears but in the novel, these dreams have a very real potency. One major character, Born Underwater, has the ability to see into the future; and in the carefully imagined, highly documented world of the novel, it is believable. The Jesuits do not so much disbelieve this power as they find it demonic, and for them, demons are true beings that intervene in the lives of humans.
The Jesuit priests (the fathers and crows of the title) like to pride themselves (though they would never use the word “pride”) on having what we could call “controlled” visions in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignace de Loyola, meditations that here are described almost as visual hallucinations. So they have their own dreams. And when both Jesuits and Natives meet, their dreams start to mingle, clash and compete.

Fathers and Crows also completely justifies the expression "North American Landscapes". Though these are essentially stories about people, the characters are always somehow subservient to the landscape. Aside from the numerous (perhaps even too numerous) descriptions of plants, trees, lakes and the Saint Lawrence River (which is the one constant presence in the novel, with its monster Gougou lurking beneath its surface), the geography also serves different literary purposes.
For example, a waterfall can serve as a visual vehicle in a simile, like in the sentence "He'd already seated himself in his grand fauteuil, the arms of which spilled down in smooth wooden waterfall-curves." Or as a more abstract, psychological vehicle when describing the travails of Sieur Biencourt in the forest, where Vollmann writes "at the end of a day of fruitless hunting, silver ribbons unrolled in his brain like waterfalls and he sank down in the snow with a groan." Images that may seem odd at first glance, but within the context of the novel, where the landscape engulfs the characters in its vastness, forcing them too struggle against the natural hardships of terrain, river flows and weather, having waterfalls, rivers and trees pop up in unlikely places becomes seemless.
Vollmann often goes further, seemingly endowing the landscape with a mind of its own: "Here the waterfalls lived, and they were still asleep." Or else blurring the line between real and metaphorical:

One of Governor Montmagny's guards had recently related to him (swearing upon the Cross that he had seen this with his own eyes) that the drowned corpse of that ancient Grey-Gown, Pere Nicolas, had been seen at Sault-au-Recollet, a falls which had been named after him almost twenty years past. He lay curled with his elbow on his knees, and waterfalls spewed from his pale and soggy flesh, but these essences of dank lifelessness made no puddles or streams, but vanished into thin air.

This section could be considered ironic, because when somebody swears that he saw something "with his own eyes" it often has the effet of putting his tesimony into doubt, but once again, within the context of the novel, one can't be quite so sure. Indeed, strange things often happen in F&C that cannot be explained withregular logic, and Vollmann does a magnificent job of putting you into the mindset of people of that time, for whom demons, monsters and magic were very real. And this, without the reassuring distance of a witness's testimony. That to me is the pinnacle of what a historical novel can do.

[Andrew Sare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes books live on your block, and you run into them unexpectedly. Sometimes you pass in the night without knowing it.

In his notes for Father's and Crows (and the Ice Shirt) Vollmann gives thanks to Ruth Holmes Whitehead with the Nova Scotia Museum. Unfortunately, I only came to know that Ruth worked on these projects after she had retired, and I no longer ran into her. I would have loved to have asked her all about it. Funny enough I did not even know that a good part of this book was about Nova Scotia until I started reading it. What a great surprise.

Vollman also had indirect correspondence with Mi'kmaw linguist Bernie Francis through Whitehead for research for this book. If only they had been in direct contact, and sat together because Bernie Francis is an excellent storyteller, and his humor could have not been prevented from shining through into this. So close.

In all, it was a significant saga, perhaps lacking the magic of The Ice Shirt but as Canadian I feel completely honoured that Vollmann used his time, effort and talent to feature the place where I live.

[Michael Battaglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its quite possible there are people that made it through the first volume in this series, "The Ice-Shirt" and thought, "Gee, for someone who's supposed to be a difficult author, Vollmann wasn't bad at all. Now that I'm used to it, the rest of the books should be a breeze!"

Unfortunately those poor souls would have only had to wait about two years before that illusion was cruelly shattered once they held this doorstop of a book in their hands. Clocking in at over eight hundred pages (plus notes!), it takes the same basic formula of the first volume and basically triples it so you have more historical fiction, more myths, more dreams, more hilarious cultural misunderstandings that lead to brutal violence and more slow motion genocide in the guise of "civilizing the savages", now with the extra bonus of studying what happens when you introduce non-native viruses amongst people with no natural immunities. In the words of Stefon from "SNL", "This book has EVERYTHING."

Continuing the theme of depicting encounters between Europeans and native North Americans, this time the spotlight of bad ideas falls on the French, who arrive in the 1600s, look at all the beautiful unspoiled land around them and then immediately think "le commerce!", beginning decades of trade/dominance of the native peoples without seeming to have the faintest understanding of the customs and rivalries that already exist among them. But because there's no bad idea you can't make worse, before too long the Jesuits sniff out a whole territory of souls to be saved and elbow their way in, just in time for a bunch of missionaries to learn whether being a martyr gets you into heaven faster or just more painfully.

Hopefully the broad strokes of the history here shouldn't be news to anyone but unlike the first volume which covered a huge amount of time before focusing on a relatively short period, here Vollmann does a deep dive pretty much from the start on a much narrower slice of time (the bulk of the action takes place in the 1600s, with some before and after for context) but with so much more going on he's got a much bigger story to tell here, taking us from the earliest explorations of Samuel de Champlain and right through the arrival of Father Jean de Brebeuf and the rest of the Jesuits, and what that means for everyone already living there. The canvas is much broader this time out and as such the book can feel daunting at times, like an entire history course crammed between two covers but written by that funky English teacher down the hall who advises you sagely that "history isn't about what happened, man, its about the being."

Yet, and surprisingly so, its not difficult to read. Given that Vollmann tends to take the "you are there" feeling to what for him are probably logical extremes, I half expected the prose to be written in the style of something like Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon" or Barth's "The Sot-Weed Factor" when instead its written in a very readable style that feels archaic but doesn't feel like it was transported directly from the past (as it turns out, the next book, "Argall" is written in the style I was afraid of). Don't get me wrong, its dense, and on some pages the wall to wall text straining against the margins can be terrifying but if you allow yourself time to settle into it and don't skim (a habit I sometimes have when confronted with that much verbiage) you'll find that it flows very nicely, with Vollmann again taking on the poet-reporter persona of William the Blind and guiding us through the mess this gradually becomes. Even his habit here of avoiding quotation marks for dialogue and instead putting a couple extra spaces beforehand fits right in with everything else very quickly. His descriptions of the landscapes, especially seen through Champlain's eyes, are often stunning in how both grounded and languid they feel, a dreamscape that the French are awake for but no one seems to appreciate.

That said, once you've weeded out all the people coming here expecting a proto-Canadian version of "Outlander", is slogging through eight hundred pages of this stuff really worth it? I'm going to venture "yes". More than the first volume, Vollmann displays a knack for immersing you in a certain time and place, switching back and forth from the French and native perspectives to the extent that even the names they call each other can change depending on whose eyes you're seeing the story through (it took me a while to figure out that the Huron and Wendat people were the same). Starting with Champlain's attempts to map out the area (always thinking his ultimate goal of China is right over the next hill) and form a settlement while everyone slaughters hordes of beavers to satiate the sudden desire for France's hottest fashion. Merchants jockey in the background, figuring as long as they can retain a monopoly over the area and get the natives non-lethal iron goods (i.e. not guns) all the furs will keep flowing and everyone will be rich.

Needless to say, its not going to work out that way and what's interesting is how in Vollmann's hands we see the land and the relationships gradually shift and change as the seasons pass by, drifting in a sort of dream-state as the French seek to transform a land that was doing quite okay on its own before they showed up, thank you very much. Most of the French's dealings are with the Huron/Wendat people, but with the Iroquois, Mohawks, and Algonquins (among others) also in the mix you start to get a sense of lot of balances being upset and frictions being introduced, just in time for the Dutch and the English to show up and start spreading their own brands of chaos. Vollmann doesn't try to keep things simple, while the Europeans are very much lacking the moral high ground here, he doesn't treat the natives as one monolithic group but instead details the differences between tribes and even amongst the members of a certain tribe. Some fight each other, some help the Europeans, some just want to be left alone. Its never truly cut and dried. But nor does he shy away from the brutalities that could exist, especially the ritual tortures that the tribes engaged in with captured enemies, tortures that are sometimes uncomfortably graphic.

But just like any situation where one side fails to comprehend the other, its not something that can remain stable and before too long the Jesuits are muscling their way in bringing their special brand of saving souls to a people who, again, weren't really in the market for being saved. These parts are the most interesting, with Vollmann depicting the Jesuits' utter stubbornness in insisting that they have to transform the natives' way of life in order to bring them to salvation, continuing everyone's tendency to treat them like small children in need of an education. Around this revolves the relationship between Father Brebeuf and Born Underwater, a native woman who's the product of a rape. Their sort of sparring stabs at understanding put a more personal face on everything that's going on around them, but only serves to highlight how drastically the Jesuits have it wrong. While sincere in their devotions and desires to convert the locals, they have no idea how to approach the natives on their own terms, sometimes acting as if baptisms were part of a scorecard for a contest the priests are playing amongst themselves.

It can't end well. It won't end well, and once the epidemics start rolling in, courtesy of our friends measles and smallpox, the natives start losing patience just in time for a whole bunch of guns to enter the picture, taking old rivalries to new levels. Vollmann doesn't make it feel inevitable so much as unnecessary, a greed slicked descent into violence from people who feel and see their worlds changing in ways that only winds up leaving a bunch of dead bodies lying around.

It’s a dense and at times almost overwhelming journey, the passage of time so gentle that its surprising to see how much some characters seem to suddenly age in the course of it. The main story is compelling enough but somehow he manages to make the numerous sidetrips as the book bends back and forth along the timetrack, reversing itself to give us a better context before plunging inexorably on again. Is every digression essential? Probably not, but there's a strange draw to the tale itself, a history book that knows how to bleed, that puts you where the people are and forces you to confront a different time and place on its own terms, with cultures that might seem alien to us now. Regardless, you feel this is how it was and Vollmann remains the best guide to it, his voice never stuffy or pretentious but sly and compassionate, with surprising humor that sometimes gives way to a quiet anger. Because throughout the book you really start to understand the tragedy of it all, that if the meetings had to happen they didn't necessarily had to unfold this way, that if someone stopped feeling cultural superior for the moment and bothered to ask the natives what they wanted or tried to truly bridge the gap, it could have come out differently. And it wasn't impossible. In one of the more powerful moments of the book, about halfway through, he relates the story of a Jesuit priest who went to India and proceeded to convert the people there without imposing his culture and putting his faith in their contexts. Its maybe seven pages of a massive book but its when he boils the outrage to a single quiet sentence it stuck with me throughout the remaining pages: "So, if it had to be done at all, it could have been done that way in Canada. It could have been done." It didn't have to be what it was but they chose not to see it any other way. And its haunted this continent ever since.

[Amy]

I abandoned the book. Sometimes a challenging novel can be rewarding. It seems that Vollman is a smart man, but refuses the possibility that his readers may not be able to keep up with him, and hardly allows us to come along for the ride by making it possible even (through editing, perhaps?) for us to come with him. For me I came to the point where I saw that the energy I would need to put into the book would far exceed what I could possibly get out of it. And I didn’t want to start to hate reading time.

[Slow Reader]

Starting this in earnest as a break before going back to read part II of the Quixote ...the perfect book to read during a melting Canadian winter. Incredible history so far and some of Vollmann's most in-tempo, gravitational prose. Images explode across the pages.

[Graeme · Rating 4 out of 5]

These “Dreams” are epic in scope, horrific in execution, with nations, people, lands, and animals among the wreckage that centuries of colonialism has brought to the Americas. Vollmann’s Born Underwater is definitely one of my favorite characters of this series, so far.