Declare Books To Argall: The True Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith (Seven Dreams #3)
| Original Title: | Argall: The True Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith |
| ISBN: | 0142001503 (ISBN13: 9780142001509) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Seven Dreams #3 |
William T. Vollmann
Paperback | Pages: 746 pages Rating: 4.14 | 223 Users | 34 Reviews
Rendition In Favor Of Books Argall: The True Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith (Seven Dreams #3)
From the National Book Award-winning author of Europe Central - a hugely original fictional history of Pocahontas, John Smith, and the Jamestown colony in VirginiaIn Argall, the third novel in his Seven Dreams series, William T. Vollmann alternates between extravagant Elizabethan language and gritty realism in an attempt to dig beneath the legend surrounding Pocahontas, John Smith, and the founding of the Jamestown colony in Virginia-as well as the betrayals, disappointments, and atrocities behind it. With the same panoramic vision, mythic sensibility, and stylistic daring that he brought to the previous novels in the Seven Dreams series--hailed upon its inception as "the most important literary project of the '90s" (The Washington Post)--Vollmann continues his hugely original fictional history of the clash of Native Americans and Europeans in the New World. In reconstructing America's past as tragedy, nightmare, and bloody spectacle, Vollmann does nothing less than reinvent the American novel.
Itemize Containing Books Argall: The True Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith (Seven Dreams #3)
| Title | : | Argall: The True Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith (Seven Dreams #3) |
| Author | : | William T. Vollmann |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 746 pages |
| Published | : | November 26th 2002 by Penguin Books (first published 2001) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Historical. Historical Fiction. Literature. American. Novels |
Rating Containing Books Argall: The True Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith (Seven Dreams #3)
Ratings: 4.14 From 223 Users | 34 ReviewsEvaluate Containing Books Argall: The True Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith (Seven Dreams #3)
the elizabethian prose was drudgery at first but i was used to it by the end. and it kept you in the spirit of the story through the pages where nothing much happened. all-in-all i really liked the book, though. i came away from the book feeling sorry for both smith and pocahontas, and at the same time wishing the story were really as true as the title suggests.80%, on the Vollmann scale anyhow, which is like ten times the rating scale of mortal books. William the Blind wrote this massive novel in old English, probably to challenge himself or stave off boredom, and that decision made me struggle and need to remain alert at all times, so one star out of five is lost. As grim as its predecessors in Seven Dreams, Argall follows the establishment of Jamestown, Virginia, by the British, and the shitshow that soon unfolds around it. Every nasty trait of
Well, that took longer than I thought it would. If I ever give any advice to people that's worth taking, let me say that one shouldn't start a lengthy and complicated novel around the same time one starts a new job, especially one where the training hours are in mid-day shifts that don't give you a lot of time on either side of them to sit and read. Things are gradually stabilizing into whatever shape the new normal will take but if there is a book that is designed to be read in scattered
Forgive the lack of review, which is something this novel deserves. Please see the wonderful reviews already up here. I did feel there were some sections where my interest and enthusiasm waned a little, and some sections which felt as though he simply felt the need to re-tell some of the stories he had uncovered in his reading, regardless of their relevance. My least favorite of the three dreams I have read so far, but still an incredible work.
William Vollmann is undoubtedly a genius, stylistically and otherwise. Depsite this, I find his prose tiresomely overwrought albeit occasionally rewarding. The tale of Pocahontas is stripped of its romanticism and related in a historical context in a mountain of purple prose.
What a sad story. Vollmann goes deep into the world and the heads of John Smith, Pocahontas, and many others, writing in some crazy sort-of Elizabethan English he came up with. It is something else, this book. It is certainly not romantic. How could it be? Smith was an opportunistic liar, and by today's standards genocidal. At the time, he was one of many who rightly figured that killing the so-called savages was the best way to keep them at bay. And Pocahontas. Her people routinely slaughtered,
Weighing only a little less than his latest book Imperial, Argall is Vollmann's 746-page retelling of the "true story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith -- though by "true" Vollmann refers to what he calls a "Symbolic History", and that the facts contained within are "often untrue based on the literal facts as we know them, but whose untruths further a deeper sense of truth." I can't claim to be any good arbiter of the ethics behind this, only to note that it's fiction, after all, and that
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