Europe Central

Europe Central (2005) is a novel by William T. Vollmann that won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.[1]

Europe Central
Front cover, hardback edition.
AuthorWilliam Vollmann
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreHistorical fiction
PublisherViking Press
Publication date
2005
Media typePrint (hardcover and paperback)
Pages832 pp
ISBN0-670-03392-8
OCLC56911959
813/.54 22
LC ClassPS3572.O395 E97 2005

Plot

It is set in central Europe during the 20th century and examines a vast array of characters, ranging from generals to martyrs, officers to poets, traitors to artists and musicians. It deals with the moral decisions made by people in the most testing of times and offers a perspective on human actions during wartime. Vollmann makes use of many historical figures as characters such as revolutionary Nadezhda Krupskaya, composer Dmitri Shostakovich, artist Käthe Kollwitz, film director Roman Karmen, poet Anna Akhmatova, SS officer Kurt Gerstein, activists Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, as well as German general Friedrich Paulus and Soviet general Andrey Vlasov.

In an afterword, Vollmann admits that, while the book is heavily researched and mostly features real people, the work should be regarded as fiction. He calls it "a series of parables about famous, infamous and anonymous European moral actors at moments of decision." Though largely true to history, a number of anecdotes or details are created by the author, such as the "imaginary love triangle" between Shostakovich, Roman Karmen, and Elena Konstantinovskaya.

Reception

The Times Literary Supplement wrote that Vollmann "has turned to the historical novel and made it his own, fashioning a work which is cinematic in scope, epic in ambition and continuously engaging, [showing] that he is one of the most important and fascinating writers of our time."

The New York Times Book Review described it at his "most welcoming work, possibly his best book… part novel and part stories, virtuoso historical remembrance and focused study of violence."

gollark: I see. At least it isn't JS.
gollark: Haskell, being cool™, can infer basically everything, as well as apparently most ML languages.
gollark: So like Rust's requirements but with inferred return types too.
gollark: All the "oh bees I have had quite a lot of work already this week" of other days, none of the "yay it is nearly over" of Friday.
gollark: It's basically my least favourite day.

References
  1. "National Book Awards – 2005". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-27.
    (With acceptance speech by Vollman, introduction by Andre Dubus III, essay by Tom LeClair from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog, and other material.)
Preceded by
The News from Paraguay
Lily Tuck		 National Book Award for Fiction
2005		 Succeeded by
The Echo Maker
Richard Powers
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