Customer Reviews

The Rifles (Seven Dreams)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Although though it may be hard to begin Vollmann's "7 Dreams" series because each book in the series is so massive, it is certainly worth the time. Not only is Vollman attempting to create, with some fiction, the entire history of North America, each volume he writes is a totally new undertaking. New people, names,histories, and unique grammar reflective to the period. A truly talented author who has thoroughly researched his subjects and makes you feel that you are right in the middle of the action in the snow and ice, Vollman is writing the series out of the time seqences in which the history appears, but since each is complete in itself, that does not matter. I look forward to his next "dream."

Having now read all four currently published Dreams in this series, The Rifles, which is the shortest of the four at 340 pages (+ 70 of source notes, glossaries, etc.) seems the most strange and dream-like. It is a cutting edge blend of modern travelogue, historical research, and imagination. The ill-starred Franklin expedition of 1845-1848 to discover a northwest passage underlies this volume's take on the larger series theme of European and Native American interaction. Two central aspects of this theme are the Canadian relocation of Inuit peoples in the 1950's from Quebec to various Arctic islands, and the hypotheses that rifles were the ultimate source of demise for these peoples. As in each of the other Dreams, Vollmann injects heavy doses of modern realism into the "Rifle-text", having at once the effect of scattered shards of glass in a children's sand-box, and ice-bergs jutting from a tranquil sea. Landscape descriptions are consistent in their non-romantic portrayal of desolation, serenity, and danger. As Vollmann states in an end-note, it is a sort of companion-piece to The Ice Shirt. Both take place in the North American Arctic and include thinly disguised and candidly undisguised personal travelogues which complement the "ages" in which each novel dwells. Beyond the historical contexts of this novel, there is the sad & twisted "love story" between the modern Inuit-Quebecois girl Reepah & Subzero (who should be added to the list of male-female counterparts I mention in my review of Argall). But this is no ordinary love, since it sometimes involves Captain Franklin, his wife, the author himself, and the Inuit goddess Sedna. The author's alter-ego Subzero, exchanges delirious thoughts on women and exploration with Captain Franklin as though time and place were immaterial. In fact, distinctions are altogether absent in many passages and it's almost impossible to distinguish between sets of characters. On page 120 Vollmann (or is it Subzero?) asks, "...are you behaving differently at this very moment because someone not yet to be born for a century of more will someday think about you?" There are similar sequences in The Ice Shirt, and to lesser degrees in Fathers & Crows, and Argall (each work uniquely powerful & worthwhile), but here in the most "modern" dream this timelessness is much more pronounced. Sound confusing? Check out the source notes for hints & clues if necessary, but it definitely helps to stay alert to which "voices" are speaking (the narrative frequently alters between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-person) and to understand that much of the novel deals with the author's own (mis-)adventures in modern-day Arctic Quebec in relation to & for insight into the original Franklin expeditions. With Vollmann's Seven Dreams series it's best to read on and not get bogged down, because a lot of stuff that doesn't make sense at first will make sense later.

Next up, Volume 7: Cloud Shirt? From what I understand this will be about the Hopi & Navajo in the American Southwest during the 1970's-1980's. Volume 4, Poison Shirt might be about King Phillip & The Great Swamp War of the mid-late 17th century. And Volume 5, Dying Grass is slated to cover Chief Joseph of the Nez Pierce plains Indians. Whatever he turns out, whenever, I can't wait - Vollmann's dream series is forcing a much needed up-date in the consciousness of the various "Ages" of our North American continent.

This book is worth reading if only for his journalistic sections of his personal stay in an abandoned station in the arctic. Also, his section which describes the equipment used is pretty fun to read once you've finished the story.
I found sections of The Rifles to be quite monotonous, and the historical thread seems to run a lot thinner here than in dreams 1 and 2.

I enjoyed reading the Rifles quite a bit. That being said, it was not quite up to par with the Ice Shirt. The plight of the native people of Northern Canada (it depends on who you ask what they wish to call themselves) is not something one usually reads about. While there have been numerous accounts of the plights of other native peoples, the arctic is usually reserved for stories about the "great white explorers" and have little to do with those living there. I enjoy how Vollmann refuses to pass judgment on his characters, leaving them to become real humans. I will continue to read this series and look forward to the next installment.

Vollmann is working in this novel to trace the impact of technology on Inuit culture. Being Vollmann, time, point of view, mythology, everything is fluid. He goes to the first heavy arrival of whites in the Arctic; the Franklin Expeditions, and the many attempted rescues, and he details their failure. Thru the eyes of the expedition members, the native by-standers, the surrounding animals, and the omniscient overview of the Inuit mythical figures we readers are treated to the destruction. As the Franklin personnel succumb to lead poisoning based psychosis, and ergot based hallucinations, and scurvy; Vollmann is definitely in his element, a Hunter S.Thompson in Sorels. The Arctic consumed the expeditions because they could not anticipate the abundance of the environment around them nor communicate with the natives to save their own lives. The Natives,knowing that any non-arctic people could be only a burden, let the whites starve. Later in this book Vollmann documents how the snow-mobile riding, semi-automatic rifle wielding Inuits destroy their hunting culture for the tacit approval of the Canadian Government Managers, and the continuing welfare check. This book is diffucult to read because like any 'dreamer' Vollmann is all over the place, but the message is clear and sad.

In the last couple of years I've read a fair number of arctic and antarctic stories, including Chrisoph Ransmayr's well-reviewed "Terrors of Ice and Darkness." My wager is that when enough time has passed, they will all fade in memory except this one.

The reason is simple, although it's not entirely clear from the other reviews here. Vollmann really put his heart into this: he lived in the North (he fell in love there, and he may even have fathered a child there), and he subjected himself to brutal conditions near the North Magnetic Pole. The result is naked writing: there is no comforting sense of traditional heroism, no stage machinery of clearly predestined tragedy, no armchair spinning of dusty tales from yesteryear, no recondite reporting from the archives (as in Ransmayr's book). This reminded me, in a different register, of Peter Matthiessen's "Far Tortuga." They are both naked, and reading is like looking at the author's skin.

Vollmann's drawings are hokey and childish, his persona is often over the top, his theories about rifles are as heartfelt as they are slippery and abstract, his conceits about time are artificial and distracting, his sense of form is entirely undependable (the book could have been 5,000 pages, or 50, and it ends with a funny fizzle), but his emotions have unbearable strength and his distance from his subject is subatomic.

A tremendous achievement. It puts the other arctic books on lounge chairs in a tropical resort.

Unlike so many historical fictions that flood the marketplace, Vollmann's *The Rifles* strives for something unique, combining first person narrative, historical reflection and a fictional combination of the two which delves into the meaning of history and the attempt to render it to the present day reader. I found this book rich in poetic imagery and personal philosophy, at times dense, at others, whimsical. Overall, however, I enjoyed Vollmann's view on the desire of John Franklin to find a Northwest passage paralelled with Vollmann's own 'fictional' desire for a woman of the Inuit group. The two begin to merge as history merges with the present and we find ourselves lost in Vollmann's frantic mind searching for truth and perhaps a way out of his own obsessive drives. There is much more to say about this book, in fact I wrote a master's thesis on it, but I leave it for others to decide. I just wait to see where he goes from here.

THE RIFLES Was a powerful and graceful book that did everything I think a novel should do: It got it's characters, landscapes,and ideas across with a vivid feeling and then it imprinted these on my mind. This was not just a book with a good idea or a book with a whole lot of 'lovely' description, this was a book that melded these two to produce a piece of art. The style in which it was written seemed natural and not reminescent of a Vonnegut or over simplified or too wordy writer-the writing style seemed unique(I guess) and natural . The sentances change length and the voice is not sarcastic and carries feeling that changes (if it there at all) and is almost always perfect for the environment,or character,or time that it is being written in or for. The freedom concerning time and characters blending into each other in this book does not only help convey a dreamlike atmosphere but also helps provide meaning and a unique quality to the novel. It is hard to explain how the time frame the novel is written in makes this novel better,but it does. Though some parts confused me I am sure that they could be examined and reveal a meaning I am unware of. On the whole a great book very different from anything I have ever read.

Personally I found this book tiresome, repetitious, self-righteous, incoherent, and boring. What worked well for me in Ice Shirt didn't work at all for me here.

I recommend this book for people who are interested in experimental literature for its own sake, who find their entertainment value in reading as an abstract intellectual exercise.

If you like the inchoate disconnect of cyberpunk you'll like this, and it's very good for what it is. Just don't expect to be engaged, entertained, informed, or enlightened.