Volume 56, Number 15 · October 8, 2009
Blood on the Border
By Madison Smartt Bell
Imperial
by William T. Vollmann
Viking, 1,306 pp., $55.00
Imperial
photographs by William T. Vollmann
powerHouse, 223 pp., $55.00
In the twenty-two years since the appearance of his first novel, William T. Vollmann has published such an intimidating quantity of excellent work that it has become challenging for any single mind to get a complete grasp of the whole of it. His latest book, Imperial—about the region that includes not only Imperial County in southern California but the Mexican side of the border as well— replicates this problem in miniature. Absurd as it may seem to refer to a text of 1,125 pages (1,306 pages including bibliography, notes on maps and sources, etc.) as 'miniature,' Imperial is by comparison to Vollmann's study of violence, Rising Up, Rising Down (3,352 pages distributed over seven volumes), rather small, yet long enough to permit the reader to have forgotten much of the beginning before reaching the outer edges of the middle. It is the sort of document to which a concordance would have been a useful adjunct.
Review, 4034 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |