Book Description
One of the truly legendary figures of American history, the soldier, explorer, and colonist Captain John Smith was a vivid and prolific chronicler of the beginnings of English settlement in the New World. This volume brings together seven of his works, along with 16 additional narratives by 13 other writers, that recount firsthand the tragic, harrowing, and dramatic events of the settlement of Roanoke and Jamestown.
A founder of Jamestown in 1607, Smith's courage, determination, and leadership proved crucial to its survival. A True Relation tells of the colony's perilous first year, while The Proceedings and The Generall Historie continue the story of its struggle to survive and prosper. A Description of New England and New Englands Trials describe Smith's exploration of the northern coast and the prospects for its settlement. In The True Travels Smith recalls his adventures as a soldier in Eastern Europe and his amazing escape from Turkish slavery. Advertisements for the Unexperienced Planters, his last book, is a critical examination of the successes and failures of the English colonial enterprise. Written in a consistently lively style, Smith's works are filled with suspense, astonishment, and keen observations of American Indian cultures and New World landscapes.
The 16 additional narratives include accounts of the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke, the horrific "starving time" at Jamestown, and a shipwreck off Bermuda. Amplifying and sometimes challenging Smith's version of events, these narratives capture the fear and fascination of early encounters with the Indians; the brutality, desperation, and ingenuity of settlers facing extreme hardship; the complex interplay of feuds and rivalries, both between the English and the Powhatan Indians and within the colony itself; and the enduring story of Pocahontas, who came to occupy a unique place between two cultures. Included in the volume are 29 pages of contemporary drawings, 15 of them full-color illustrations by John White.
Customer Reviews:
A must have for all who are interested in the early settlement of Virginia and New England.......2007-04-05
Captain John Smith did an amazing amount of living in the fifty-one years he lived on Earth. His life's journey began in 1580 at Willoughy, England. He left home at 16 after his father's death to become a soldier fighting in France for Dutch Independence from Spain. In other words, he was a mercenary. He went to work in the Mediterranean Sea on a merchant ship in 1598. In 1600 he went to the Austrians to fight in Hungary against the Turks and fought so valiantly that he was promoted to Captain. Fighting in Transylvania in 1602, he was wounded, captured, and sold as a slave to a Turk. He was then given to a girl who sent him to her brother to get training for Imperial service. Being very ill treated by this Pasha, Smith killed him and escaped. He fled through Russia and then Poland, was released from service, received a large reward and spent time traveling throughout Europe. During the winter of 1604-05 he returned to England. All this before the events we know him for began in Virginia and New England!
His restless nature somehow got him involved with the plans to colonize the Virginia territory for profit. King James I granted the charter and the expedition set sail on December 20, 1606. While this is more than a century after Columbus, it was still a huge and costly undertaking to what was almost unknown territory. The three tiny ships were the Discovery (20 tons), Susan Constant (120 tons), and Godspeed (40 tons). They did not land in Virginia until April 1607 after a voyage of more than four months. Smith was on the list of seven council members that was designated to govern the colony. The winter was harsh, fresh water was hard to come by, sickness ravaged the colonists, and the local Indians, ruled by Powhatan (Wahunsonacock), were antagonistic to the newcomers. Smith became the leader and led the fight against the Indian raids and negotiating with them for food enough to supplement their meager stores.
In December of 1607, the famous incident of Smith being taken to Powhatan and being saved by Pocahontas occurred. Like much in Smith's writings, it is hard to separate the braggadocio from the fact. Apparently there was some kind of ceremony that involved a ritual death and renewal of life whereby Smith became some kind of subordinate chief member of the tribe. Smith may not have understood the ceremony well and indeed may well have believed that the 11 year old princess saved his life.
Life was very hard at Jamestown and dissent grew. Smith was elected President in September 1608 and has the fort reinforced and emphasizes military training among the colonists. During the winter, Powhatan refused to provide food because he believes that the colonists are not there to trade but to take Indian lands. After difficult negotiations they trade swords and guns for food. Things continue to be difficult and now the resentment focuses on Smith. He is badly burned when his powder keg caught fire. A group leading colonists deposes Smith and he sails back to England part in resentment and part for treatment of his injuries in October.
He is active in promoting colonization of the new territories and heads back in 1614, but he cannot go to Virginia. He focuses on the area north that he called New England. Smith traveled to many areas there and in 1615 founded a colony in Maine. He is captured by a French privateer and is unable to return to England until December. In 1622, Indians kill more than 300 colonists. Smith's offer to lead the military fight against the natives is rejected.
During these years in England, Smith published some works to provide him some much needed income. He finds the right stories to tell and several of his writings sold quite well. He died in 1631 at 51 years old and was buried at St. Sepulchres in the City of London.
This summary of his life is there merest outline of events. There is much much more covered in this treasure trove of a book.
The wonderful Library of America provides us with Smith's "A True Relation", "The Proceedings of the English Colony in Virginia" (parts written by a variety of folks), "A Description of New England", "New Englands Trials" [sic], "The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles", "The True Travels", and his "Advertisements for the Unexperienced Planters of New-England". The words in these titles such as "trials" and "advertisements" had a much different meaning four hundred years ago. The point was that by 1620 thousands of people were risking their lives to try to settle in Virginia and New England and they wanted information. Smith gave them good information about what they were going to face. Oh, he certainly boasted and gave himself credit for things that others did, but his descriptions of what it takes to survive there are quite good.
This volume does not contain Smith's two books on sea travel. However, it does contain an additional four hundred pages of writings by others about the settling of Virginia. One covers the settlement of Roanoke before the Jamestown voyage. Others are written independently of Smith, at least one was written in response to his "Generall Historie" that upset some who felt he took to himself their deeds. They are all fascinating.
There are also pages of black and white plates showing aspects of Smith's life and other aspects of the early settlement including etchings of Smith and even of Pocahontas (Lady Rebecca) in her English finery during her one, fatal, year in England. There is another set of plates that are in color and show Indian life at the time of the events of this book. We get many useful maps, and index, notes on the text, notes on the plates, and a chronology of Smith's life.
This is a rich text that provides important history of early American settlement that everyone interested in the founding and history of our nation will want to read and know. The early events with the Indians are fascinating as are the descriptions of the trade and battles. Even the variety of spellings are fascinating. Yes, orthography was not standardized, but it is interesting how the same words are spelled differently even within the same writing let alone between authors.
A must have for all who appreciate American history.
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The Complete Works of Captain John Smith, 1580-1631
John Smith
Manufacturer: University of North Carolina Press
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ASIN: 080781525X |
Book Description
This award-winning title continues the world's story near the turn of the 16th century during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Set amidst the drama of Shakespearean England, readers will also be introduced to the prominent personalities of Smith's world: Sir Francis Drake, Mary Queen of Scots, the Medici of France, Galileo, Henry Hudson, Sir Walter Raleigh, Pope Gregory, Chaplain, the Czars of Russia, the Pilgrims, the Puritans and many more. Dozens of key events such as the closing of the Orient, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the writing of the KJV Bible are included.
Customer Reviews:
You forgot New England!!!.......2006-03-15
Though the title mentions that this book is about the founding of the Virginia colony, to exclude New England from the "american genesis" is a bit presumptuous and possibly even truculent! However, for all other purposes this book is lacking in its examination of the Indian perspective and their experiences in light of a over burgeoning neighbor who suffers from a "holier-than-thou" complex. it does however discuss the plight of african slaves but for some peculiar reason, the book gives the impression that slavery flourished due to a cultural mypoia of the english (though it ought to be american since england did not expressly practice slavery in any of its other colonies). it states that the ethnocentrism of the english led them to equalize black with evil and thus justify their oppressive manners. i feel this approach is a bit incomplete as the economics of slavery played a significant part in the rise of slavery.
on a whole, an easy read, usually for a freshman level history course, as was in my case.
The early history of Virginia Colony.......2005-02-05
The eventual success of the British colonial establishment in America belied its inauspicious beginnings. Failing twice in the 16th century, it was only with the establishment of Jamestown in 1607 that the English succeeded in placing a permanent settlement in the New World - and even this nearly failed on a number of occasions. Its success can be attributed in part to John Smith, one of the leaders of the expedition and the subject of Alden Vaughan's book.
Smith's early life proved adventurous. Growing up during the age of Elizabethan heroics, he inherited its adventurous spirit, and as a young man served as a mercenary in Continental armies. His return to England coincided with the renewed interest in colonizing the New World, and he soon was recruited for the London Company's exhibition to Chesapeake Bay. Vaughan notes the tensions created by Smith's selection, which as a yeoman was resented by the aristocrats that had signed on in the hope of winning vast wealth for themselves.
This resentment soon emerged on the voyage to America, as an effort to discredit him temporarily cost him his role on the governing board. After reaching Jamestown, he soon emerged as the principal negotiator with the leader of the local Indians, Powhatan. Though Smith made a favorable impression with Powhatan, this did little to mitigate the hostility that quickly emerged between the two groups, which was just one of the many problems the early colony faced. Vaughan states that in the early years of the colony's existence, the only time that it met the basic needs of survival - political stability, economic prosperity, and peaceful relations with the Indians - was during Smith's tenure as its president.
With his departure from Virginia, Smith retreats to the sidelines, making only sporadic appearances until the final chapter of the book. Instead, the focus shifts to the colony itself, which continued to struggle to survive. It was only when Powhatan agreed to a peace treaty and tobacco cultivation was introduced that the colony's immediate was assured. But long-term viability was dependent upon creating a stable society, which led the company to encourage more women to emigrate. Though by the early 1620s the company's directors were optimistic about their colony's future, the devastating attack on the colony by the Indians in March 1622, coupled with infighting among the directors in London, doomed the Virginia Company and precipitated a takeover of the colony by the crown in 1624.
Vaughan tells this story well. While a little dated (his examination of the slaves' condition is in need of some revision), he conveys the development of the colony briskly and succinctly. Readers seeking a greater focus on the fascinating life of John Smith would do well to reference the biographies he lists in his bibliography; for those seeking a good introduction to his life or a survey of the early years of the Virginia Colony, this is the book to read.
Founding of Virginia.......2004-04-23
This book is written in the style of an "historical account of happenings." I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the book which told of John Smith's early adventures and his coming to America then setting up the first English colony. The second half of the book however, did not include John Smith himself, just his policies and ideals. The latter part of the book told of many subsequent men who headed Virginia and how their successes were based on John Smith's early ideals and requests (usually not met by England or the colonists of his era). It is a good book for study with the first half being the better read.
PS. Students can get all the information they need on the founding of Virginia by reading only half of the book's 190 pages.
Book Description
This richly illustrated, informative, and inviting book intertwines two fascinating stories of discovery. The first, among the earliest classics of New World adventure, recounts Captain John Smith's exploration of Chesapeake Bay 400 years ago; the second revisits this stunning landscape as it is today—both to showcase its still-unspoiled splendors and to issue a timely warning of looming threats to its vibrant but fragile ecology.
Dozens of dazzling full-color contemporary photographs evoke the Chesapeake spirit in all its many moods, while a wonderfully wide-ranging selection of archival images span the four centuries since John Smith first sailed, rowed, and wandered its woods and waterways, mapping the wilderness shores of an untamed America.
The author, a veteran naturalist at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, has spent decades leading tours and teaching classes about the region. An ideal guide, he shares both his delight in the Bay's glorious diversity and his deep concern for its future. In addition, his unique blend of experience, environmental sensitivity, and historical expertise offers modern visitors a rare opportunity to discover the Chesapeake as Smith did so long ago, leaving beaten paths and familiar waters behind to learn why Congress will soon designate it as the first of America's official National Historic Water Trails.
For history buffs, conservationists, armchair travelers, tourists planning a trip, and anyone who simply loves first-rate nature photography, this beautiful book more than meets the high standard readers have come to expect from National Geographic.
Book Description
"America was the place Smith had dreamed of his whole life.
There, his character, determination, and ambition had propelled him to the top of society. He spent the rest of his life trying to return.Though he failed, he pointed the way for others, who were drawn by the dream that opportunity was here for anyone who dared seize it. It was a powerful thought, one that had as much to do with creating the country we have today as anything Smith did to keep Jamestown alive. Smith founded more than a colony. He gave birth to the American dream."
—from Captain John Smith
It is one of history's ironies that the person who guaranteed the success of English settlement in America first arrived as a prisoner under sentence of death. Captain John Smith tells the real story behind this swashbuck-ling character who founded the Jamestown colony, wrote the first book in English in America, and cheated death many times by a mere hairbreadth. Based on rich primary sources, including Smith's own writings and newly discovered material, this enlightening book explores Smith's early days, his forceful leadership at Jamestown that was so critical to its survival, and his efforts upon his return to England to continue settlements in America. This unique volume also reveals the truth behind Smith's relationship with Pocahontas, a tale that history has greatly distorted. As the four hundredth anniversary of the first colony in America at Jamestown approaches, Captain John Smith serves as a great testament to this confident, brash, and heroic figure.
Customer Reviews:
Another good Jamestown/John Smith book.......2007-05-11
I read "Captain John Smith" after reading Price's "Love & Hate in Jamestown". Both books I enjoyed tremendously. What I liked about Captain John Smith, and one could have presumed this by the difference in titles, is that it educates the reader about Smith's life before Jamestown. I was amazed by his encounters with the Turks and shortly thereafter his escape from slavery. We also learn about the relationships Smith built and skills he acquired before boarding the Susan Constant. Smith's adventures before Jamestown give him much more credibility as a leader once he arrives in the New World.
As a side note do NOT watch the movie The New World. It will cloud your mind with inaccuracies. I thought the movie was poor enough to turn off part way through.
A masterpiece of investigative history.......2007-02-06
I had not given Pocahontas much thought, till I had heard that the great Terrance Malick was going to make a movie based on her life. I eventually watched "The New World" and was just knocked out. What a hauntingly beautiful film. I just had to know if this was historically accurate? In the DVD of the film there is a great special section where you see to what lengths Malick went to recreate "Jamestown". The feel and look of authenticity is complete on all levels, so it would seem, except....the actual story. I read through a few web sites that comment on the film; the views of some native American's (quite understandably upset....) put me in touch with the Hoobler book. Took it out from the library and read it. I was knocked out for the second time. What a triumph of hard investigative work. They uncovered material that has not seen the light of day since written, some of which dates to Smith's own hand. The upshot of this is that while "The New World" is a fantastic film, it is alas not historically accurate as far as the relationship between Smith and Pocahontas. This does not detract from the film as such; it is entertainment and not someone's scholarly PhD disseration. Yes, Malick strangely opted to craft the script along the lines of American folklore, which insists that there was some sort of love affair between the two. No, there is not a shred of reliable historical evidence that this ever came about.
The best thing to do is to watch the film and then read the Hoobler book. If you accept the reality that the film does a superb job of recreating the look and feel of Jamestown but does not tell the exact story, then the discord between what is entertainment and what is history can be properly framed. An excellent book well recommended to those who are interested in the founding of America.
Superb.......2006-07-25
This is a concise collection of Smith's adventures that is interspersed with Smith's own words. The piece is well organized and written, and most importantly provides insight into the mindset, motive, and philosophy of Smith and the early American settlers. It certainly provides the reader with a greater understanding of how America has become what it has. And how it will continue be the land where individual spirit is rewarded.
Book Description
Drawing from Smith's own personal journals, this concise biography paints a rich and detailed portrait of one of America's most intriguing founding fathers. Historian John Thompson guides us through annotated selections of Smith's most important and compelling writings, adding authoritative perspective and commentary to round out the picture. The volume includes some of the earliest primary source accounts of life in colonial Virginia, including excerpts from Proceedings of the English Colony of Virginia (1612), Generall Historie of Virginia (1624), and The True Adventures and Observations of Captain John Smith (1630).
Readers share eyewitness accounts of Smith's capture and imprisonment by the Indians, his explorations of the Chesapeake Bay region, and various other adventures and exploits in the New World. We get a firsthand look at Smith's pivotal role in the founding and governance of colonial Jamestown and his attempts to establish trade relationships with the Native Americans. We also learn the real facts behind Smith's relationship with Pocahontas—an American legend that pervades our popular culture, from the animated Disney classic to the critically acclaimed 2005 film starring Colin Farrell.
With the upcoming 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, a whole new generation of readers and history buffs will be seeking more information about Smith and his fellow colonists. This lively, illustrated edition will be a valuable resource—providing a fresh, accessible look at a key historical figure and conveying a vivid sense of what life in the New World was like.
Book Description
In Argall, the newest 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.
Customer Reviews:
"About Our Continent in the Days of OKEUS, from whom . . ........2005-05-19
We Stole Puccoons; and whose Snake-Erring'd Nation the ***POWHATANS*** Lost, By the Scheming of our Counsell-Men, Princesse Poka-huntas (a country lass) to TOBACCO (but gained Discount cigarettes); Lost Kingdoms to *ARGALL* . . ."
In the Seven Dreams series one may begin with any volume, but of the four currently published volumes, Argall would be the most "American". Here we have a post-modern retelling of English colonization. As with volumes one and two, Vollmann adapts his writing style and language to the flavor and times in which he dwells. His research is deep and impeccable, and one of the most interesting things to me in reading the Seven Dreams is his unique style and method of mixing ". . . colors not only from the palate of times, but also from the palate of places" (The Rifles, 377). Did I really read of a bullet or bullets laying on the frozen ground in one foreshadowed scene from The Ice Shirt (which took place in the 10th Century)? There are a few such strange instances in Fathers & Crows. Less so in Argall, though, which mostly sticks close to the life and times of Captain John Smith (1580-1631). Smith is a similar "yeoman" type character to Poutrincourt & Champlain in Fathers & Crows, and perhaps Eirik the Red in The Ice Shirt. Vollmann utilizes these men as launching points into their time-periods, reassessing their trials and tribulations, conquests and failures. Likewise, in each of the first three volumes we find historically forgotten, but important women. They include Freydis Eiriksdottir & Gudrid Thorbjornsdottir in The Ice Shirt, Born Swimming & Tekakwitha in Fathers & Crows, and in Argall, Pocahontas. As of yet, I have not read Vollmann's so-called prostitute novels/trilogy, but am familiar enough with his research into and use of prostitutes in his various stories. Having now read the first three volumes of the Seven Dreams in order (and looking forward to #6, The Rifles), it's not surprising to find this recurrent theme of a male "glory seeking adventurer doomed to failure meets and interacts with his depraved and deprived female counterpart" (note also, interactions between Pere Brebeuf & Born Underwater in Fathers & Crows). What's fascinating about all this is that through Vollmann's modern day lenses (and those are some thick lenses!), "historie" and "histoickall facts" come across as more than the "Symbolic History" he is creating. What happens is exactly what he wants to happen, and that is to ". . . further a deeper sense of truth". The phantom-like, piratical title-character Argall, as is the town of Gravesend which John Smith hales to & from (in "several compass circles") are good examples of the blending of truths and untruths in order to create "an account of origins and metamorphoses". In reading Argall you are not reading history, exactly. It is based on history, but is closer to poetry than a novel, because poetry transcends the strictures of a traditional novel. Its genius lays not only in its concept as part of a larger North American landscape puzzle, but in its execution. While The Ice Shirt contains a captivating dis-harmony of time & place, myth, legend, history, and modern travelogue; Fathers & Crows a more refined and fine-tuned sense of direction & story-telling; Argall is a magnificent culmination of language & character. It felt very enlightening, especially to one who grew up with very idealistic and naïve notions of adventurous Pilgrims arriving on the Mayflower, trading and sharing Thanksgiving feasts with blissful, welcoming Indians. And Pocahontas seemed some romantic "Indian princess" who delighted those bold and faithful colonists. Of course, most of us become less naïve and more enlightened as we grow older and expand our horizons. As with any deep poetry or "meditation", Argall (and The Ice Shirt, & Fathers & Crows) is an enlightening experience for those able and willing to venture forth. Admittedly, as less enthusiastic reviewers have pointed out here and elsewhere, Vollmann can seem long-winded, wanting of an editor, and somewhat superficial in terms of character morality, etc. Personally, I take my time with books, and enjoy the lengthy narratives, twists and turns, use of chronologies, maps, lengthy source notes, whimsical drawings, so on and so forth. I feel like I've got my money's worth. (As one should for a $40 coverprice!). In terms of morality, I think Vollmann (as a post-modern writer) comes across as dry and lacking "wisdom" in any deep moral sense, as compared to say the Victorian-era writers such as Tolstoy and Dickens not because he can't feel or provide insight into his characters, but because: 1. it would be disingenuous given the subject & overall plan of the Seven Dreams, and 2. it frees up YOU, the reader to interact with the text using your own values and judgments without the author getting in the way. It's up to you to find your way (but there are plenty of notes to guide you in whichever direction you so choose).
That said, I hope you take some time to read Argall, and the Seven Dreams, as I think you'll learn more about our (the North American) continent than you thought you knew, including the exploits of various peripheral characters you may never have heard of, but who certainly existed - especially one Captaine Samuel Argall.
Postmodern Pocahontas (or Pockahuntiss).......2002-06-13
It helps if you're a little bit compulsive about reading Vollmann. Oh, he doesn't need the help, but as a reader, you do.
It's easy to compare him with Pynchon, since they both attempt a similar feat of matching subject with style in an expansive format that contains much humor peppered within the story. But Vollmann isn't a humorist at heart, he's part historian and part seer. He brings you the characters that you'd love to believe really are; he worms his insistent way into their hopes and imaginings so that he can present you with their characters.
You learn a lot of history reading the Seven Dreams series, of which "Argall" is a part. You learn more about how Vollmann regards history. But what makes the author so necessary and integral to my reading is that way of making me see how his characters regard themselves.
So throw your reading schedule out the window. Pick up "The Ice Shirt" and start in on this yet-to-be completed chronicle of how the Europeans came to the Americas and what that meant for both the Europeans and the people who were already here. Catch up soon, because you'll want to starting wishing for the next book in the series to appear... compulsively so.
Vollmann's Career = Revenge of the Nerd.......2002-04-07
William Vollmann is like the nerdiest person you knew in college or high school. He grew up to become a novelist who gained notoriety by writing in great detail about his experiences with prostitutes and having the audacity to claim that it took some sort of moral heroism for him to smoke crack with them in roach-infested transient hotels. Of course, it wouldn't do to be slumming all the time -- otherwise he'd just be another John Rechy or Bruce Benderson. So he adds Ivy League intellectual patina to these books by positioning them as meditations on the history of North America, or as reflections on how "all loving relationships are really forms of prostitution." He writes long, long books hoping that you'll be very, very impressed with him.
Folks, read this book or any other book by William Vollmann and keep in mind that this is an author with a profoundly stunted emotional growth. There's nothing cute about celebrating prostitution as the "most honest form of love" -- it's sickening writing, the babbling of a man still stuck in the fantasies of adolescence who will never understand that real love transcends economic exchange into a pure giving of oneself to another. He pats himself on the back for his "ferocity," when in fact he's never really outgrown being a journal-scribbling teenager who thinks every word he scribbles needs to be published and admired. His writing amounts to one big infantile gesture of lashing out at his Mommy and Daddy -- he admits as much in his interviews -- but at the same time hoping all these books he writes will make his parents love him. It's sad.
The fact that Vollmann has a big crowd of admirers says a lot about the sheep-like mentality and the moral vacancy of too many people who like cutting-edge literature. Read the bombastic praise Vollmann receives that is printed on the dustjackets of his books, and reviewers envious of his lifestyle just look like fools with the pumped-up praise that lavish on Vollmann. Go to a Vollmann reading and look around -- the people there are the sort who are hip, cynical, wear funky glasses and hate their parents, and whose main worry is keeping up with the latest slick novels and edgy CD's to hit the shelves. They have no ability to think for themselves and they are bored with life -- so they are profoundly impressed by this guy who writes about his experience with prostitutes. If you recognize yourself in this description, you need to get a life.
There's a certain sort of bourgeois person who believes their life can be redeemed by writing a novel in which they'll "show 'em all" -- the 'em being Mommy and Daddy, the cool kids who rejected them in high school, the jocks who called them nerds, etc. Vollmann is the "patron saint" of this sort of misfit. I read an interview in which Vollmann stated confidently that he is as important as Shakespeare or Faulkner. He doesn't seem to understand that the self-absorbed navel-gazing of a well-read prostitute's john doesn't quite cut it as great literature, no matter how many big words and descriptive phrases he tries to pack into his sentences. Vollmann's delusions are as bloated as his books, and his vision lacks even a hint of the universality or breadth or understanding that literary importance requires. Nobody but a few misfit loners and antiquarians will be reading Vollmann fifty years from now. Vollmann is a Montherlant in the making -- that is, an irrelevant curiosity that even most highly educated people will not have heard of.
Please think for yourself and don't buy this book just because you think it's kind of neat and edgy that this guy writes about his experiences with prostitutes. Don't engage in the sad spectacle of living vicariously through William Vollmann's sad, warped world. You'll just put yourself one step closer to moral oblivion.
Like Trying to Find the Northwest Passage.......2002-01-20
Ok, Vollmann is brilliant, a genius. One has to give it to him with this and his other huge tomes in which he goes full-tilt in an attempt at literary greatness, and his passages are often riveting.
The book tries to out-do ULYSSES. It does. But finally, around the 400th page, who cares?
William is blind to his own failings........2001-11-30
Vollmann's books are a shotgun wedding of Kerouac keyboard improv and finicky, ultra-thorough research that would shame the most hardcore library mole. His unique voice is the result of the collision between his modern sensibility -- which he's endlessly amused by instead of, like too many contemporary authors, uncritically in love with -- and his passion for exhausted and outmoded forms of thinking and of writing. For Vollmann, "modernity" is sometimes a sort of limbo, the temporal version of the Greenland in his book The Ice-Shirt, where everything that can happen has already happened and the former sites of great battles, couplings, and doomed utopian experiments are now bare swatches of anonymous turf -- witness the last few pages of Argall, where "William the Blind," as Vollmann calls himself, drives through Pocahontas' former haunts and finds an endless cortege of theme parks and strip bars -- and sometimes an ongoing process to be participated in. As is well known, Vollmann is something of an adventurer, doing his Geraldo Rivera guerilla-journalist bit with the Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan long before they were the flavor of the month. What fascination his books have comes from this contradiction. Are we living history, or is everything over?
Sadly, I must report, his books are not yet as fascinating on their own merits. Argall is admirable in almost every way -- Vollmann is obviously stoked with the passion to rescue marginalized figures from the rubble of history, and he even works up genuine anger about wrongs committed centuries ago, whereas most people these days conform more to William Hazlitt's dictum: "The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings." On top of this, his prose is impossibly energetic and rich, like that of a postmodern Fielding. But as industrious as he is in terms of researching and writing, that's how lazy he is in terms of his conceptions and grand designs. His graphomania works against him, in short -- he fills seven hundred pages here without stopping to think, as most people will before half the book is over, that Blood Meridian has already been written and was done quite well already. There is literally zero distance between Vollmann's title character and McCarthy's The Judge -- both are seen as omnipotent spectres representing the depredations of America's colonial thrust, and both even talk in the same Shakespearean-Melvillean patois. And though the unquestioned verbal virtuosity of Argall ( the book ) is more than enough to carry you through to the end, it ultimately turns out to have very little staying power, being essentially a linear, straightforward account of the events contained in John Smith's autobiography, leavened with a peculiar brand of political correctness also swiped from McCarthy ( he admits the Indians are savage and unknowable, but still treats them as sacred for that very reason. )
Vollmann makes me think of what DeSade's doctor says to him in the movie Quills: "You produce more pages than you consume -- the mark of a true amateur." Let's face it, no one who writes as much as Vollmann has a well-honed sense of self-criticism. Part of me thinks that he would be better off laying aside the latest 900-page opus, reupholstering his crude if touching Weltanschauung, and then returning a decade later with a compressed and fully mature work of genius... But then he wouldn't be William Vollmann, he'd be Russell Hoban. For that reason, I doubt he'll ever write anything that attains a status above "James Clavell for eggheads," but nevertheless, there's a place in the cosmos for his brand of blunt, belated justice. Just don't call him The Judge.
Book Description
Captain John Smith was one of the most insightful and colorful writers to visit America in the colonial period. While his first venture was in Virginia, some of his most important work concerned New England and the colonial enterprise as a whole.
The publication in 1986 of Philip Barbour's three-volume edition of Smith's works made available the complete Smith opus. In Karen Ordahl Kupperman's new edition her intelligent and imaginative selection and thematic arrangement of Smith's most important writings will make Smith accessible to scholars, students, and general readers alike. Kupperman's introductory material and notes clarify Smith's meaning and the context in which he wrote, while the selections are large enough to allow Captain Smith to speak for himself. As a reasonably priced distillation of the best of John Smith, Kupperman's edition will allow a wide audience to discover what a remarkable thinker and writer he was.
Customer Reviews:
By His Own Hand.......2000-08-25
The definitive work on Smith's writing is Barbour's three volume set, which is expensive and difficult to find (special order on Amazon - $250). That said, Kupperman's work is a useful introduction, arranged in themes she perceives in his works: life and legend, leader of Jamestown, relations with the Indians, interpreter of environment, and advocate of a concept of colonialization. As such the reader does not progress through Smith's writings in the chronological order in which he created them, but there is a cohesiveness which might otherwise be lost if she clung to the actual timeline. No volume of this size could encompass all aspects of this complex, albeit difficult, man, but Kupperman puts the limited space to effective use. I found her introductory essay on Smith to be among the best material I have read on him. If someone had time to read only one thing about Smith, I would recommend these 23 pages. There are some things about the book I wish were better. Kupperman helps the reader with some of the more arcane lingustic artifacts of Tudor English, but I wish she had explained more about the context and references than she did. I also wish she had said more about Smith as a cartographer. His map of the Chesapeake was the definitive map of the region for about 60 years and was copied by the most famous names in cartographic history. His map of the coast of New England were instrumental to further English settlement there, inc. that of the Pilgrims and Puritans. She touches on this but I would like to have heard more. These points aside, however, I found this to be a useful and well written volume.
Insight into a misunderstood historical figure.......2000-04-01
This book provides a good look at Captain John Smith. Smith, a complex man, led an interesting life -- including neing sold as a slave in Turkey. This book illuminates his tough demeanor, which helped the early colonists survive, but also led to quarrels with them. For those of you who want to know the real Smith -- not the Disney version - this is the place to look.
Book Description
In 2002, Susan Schmidt retraced John Smith's 1608 voyage on the Chesapeake Bay. In Landfall along the Chesapeake, a cruising guide for Chesapeake boaters and a field log for naturalists, Schmidt compares the beauty of ancestral legacy and childhood memory to her observations on a 100-day voyage in a 22-foot boat.
As she circles the Bay counterclockwise from Jamestown, she explores Smith's encounters with Native Americans and the Bay's ecological changes over the past four hundred years. On each river and creek, she quotes Smith's journals on matching wits with Powhatan, meeting Pocahontas, surviving thunderstorms, ambush, and a stingray's barb. Anchored on wild creeks, Schmidt observes swans and dragonflies, lightning and sunsets; in port she interviews colorful characters and working watermen about blue crabs and oysters.
Scientists explain the Bay's nitrogen overload, water-level rise, anoxia, Pfiesteria, Kepone, and the Ghost Fleet. Native American chiefs discuss their heritage then and now. Ashore, Schmidt walks on her ancestor's farm, now a military chemical dump, and climbs her grandfather's lighthouse. Despite her despair at bad air quality and diminished fisheries, and her dread of high wind and rough seas, Schmidt expresses gratitude for small-town hospitality and the navigation skills her father taught her.
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