Europe Central
New York : Viking, 2005.
Format: Book
Description: 811 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Audacious. Wildly ambitious. Prolific. All describe William T. Vollmann, author of the seven- volume nonfiction work Rising Upand Rising Downand the ÂSeven Dreams sequence of novels, which the Chicago Tribunehailed as Âlikely to become one of the masterpieces of the century.ÂIn Europe Central, Vollmann presents a mesmerizing series of intertwined paired stories that compare and contrast the moral decisions made by various figuresÂsome famous, some infamous, some unknownÂassociated with the warring authoritarian cultures of Germany and the USSR in the twentieth century. He conjures up two generals, one Russian and one German, who collaborate with the enemy for different reasons and with different results. Another pairing tells of two heroesÂa female Russian partisan martyred at the beginning of World War II and a young German man who joins the SS in order to reveal its secrets and halt its crimes. Several stories concern the complex and elusive Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich and the Stalinist assaults against his work and life; also explored are the fates of artists and poets such as Käthe Kollwitz, Anna Akhmatova, and the documentary filmmaker Roman Karmen. Europe Centralis another high-wire act of fiction by a writer of prodigious talent.
Contents:
Steel in motion (Europe, 1939-1945) -- Saviors (USSR, 1918) -- Mobilization (Germany, 1914) -- Woman with a dead child (Germany, 1927) -- You have shut the Danube's gates (USSR, 1936) -- Elena's rockets (USSR, 1931) -- Maiden voyage (Germany, 1933-1939) -- When Parzival killed the red knight (Germany, 1934) -- Opus 40 (USSR, 1935) -- Operation Magic Fire (Germany, 1936) -- And I'd dry my salty hair (USSR, 1937) -- Case White (Germany, 1939) -- Operation Barbarossa (USSR, 1941) -- The Sleepwalker (Germany, 1936-1945) -- The palm tree of Deborah (USSR, 1906-1942) -- Untouched (Germany, 1939-1945) -- Far and wide my country stretches (USSR, 1936-1968) -- Breakout (USSR and Germany, 1942-1946) -- The last field-marshal (Germany and USSR, 1942-1957) -- Zoya (USSR, 1941) -- Clean hands (Germany, 1942-1945) -- The second front (USSR, 1943) -- Operation Citadel (USSR, 1943) -- The telephone rings (USSR, 1944) -- Ecstasy (USSR, 1945) -- Operation Hagen (Germany, 1945) -- Into the mountain (Germany, 1945) -- Denazification (Germany, 1945) -- Airlift idylls (West Germany, 1951) -- The red guillotine (East Germany, 1963) -- We'll never mention it again (USSR, 1959) -- Why we don't talk about Freya anymore (East Germany, 1960) -- Operation Wolund (USSR, 1961) -- Opus 110 (USSR, 1943-1975) -- A pianist from Kilgore (USSR, 1958) -- Lost victories (West Germany, 1962) -- The White Nights of Leningrad (USSR, 1941).
Subjects:
Germany -- Social life and customs -- Fiction.
Soviet Union -- Social life and customs -- Fiction.
Germany -- Social life and customs -- Fiction.
Soviet Union -- Social life and customs -- Fiction.
ISBN:
0670033928 (hc : acid-free paper)
Availability | |||
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Call Number | Location | Shelf Location | Status |
F Vollmann | Main (Downtown) | Second Level, Fiction | In |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 753-808) and index.
National Book Award for Fiction, 2005.
National Book Award for Fiction, 2005.