You Bright and Risen Angels (Contemporary American fiction) (Paperback)

~ William Vollmann (Author) "Just because they found Martin Bormann's skull doesn't mean he's dead, my best beloved; for everyone knows that competent observers from every neutral country have..." (more)
Key Phrases: blue globes, risen angels, yeast food, Big George, Society of Daniel, Great Beetle (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"The story is an epic brew of technology, magic, politics, history and entomology, by turns fiercely satiric and good-naturedly humorous," maintained PW of this "ferociously talented first novel," about (among other things) a pitiless war between insects and the inventors of electricity. Illustrated by the author.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In this surrealistic allegory, America is populated exclusively by revolutionaries and reactionaries. The reactionaries are led by the mysterious Society of Daniel, a group of electrical engineers who worship the sacred Book of Generators. The revolutionaries, humanoid insects who pledge allegiance to the Great Beetle, are united by a common experience of torture at the hands of crewcut bullies. Vollmann calls the book a cartoon, and although he clearly sympathizes with the radicals, they are, after all, only bugs. In addition to an undigested mass of information about power plants, entomology, and hand guns, there is a lot of good writing herebut not nearly enough to fill 600 pages. With better editing this might have been outstanding. As it stands, it is a fascinating flop, but one that readers interested in experimental fiction will want to take a look at. Edward B. St. John, Loyola Marymount Univ. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 656 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (December 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140110879
• ISBN-13: 978-0140110876
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #604,280 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Come into the cartoon, September 21, 1999

By A Customer

In the way the best caricatures can tell you the truth in corrective-lens fashion--to distort the view against your own distortion so you see it plain--Vollmann's first book--which he calls not a Novel but a Cartoon--caricatures the outlandish oppression & cruelty of the human being: especially the human male, especially the American. Seeing where Vollmann's career has taken him--on a nightmarish reporter's journey through the 3rd World, into the ragged world of the San Francisco Tenderloin, deep into an ambitious 7-novel project recounting the history of the New World--it's no surprise to see his concerns with power & preterition set up here in his first work. A tale of America's dream of the bullying, Protean, endlessly inventive, heartless power of money, this Cartoon pits the authoritarian powers against the scrappy underdogs: Electricity(Power) vs. Bugs(the little guys). If this reminds you of Thomas Pynchon's fabulist (& fabulous) Gravity's Rainbow, there's good reason. Vollmann's the next ecstatic drop running up that literary vein. Along with all this, there's the metafictional struggle to tell the story throughout, as 2 narrators (at least 2) wrestle over the helm: 1) a lowly employee with subversive tendencies & sentimentalities whose affection for the characters & obsessions about his ex-girlfriend sneak into the telling, and 2) the being who gives him dictation, the shapeshifting, immortal, amoral Big George, whose exaggerated accounts of his own adventures are a pastiche of every Big Fish tale ever spun in America's history, but who nevertheless is in the service of the kind of truth that only comes with the heartlessness of the fact that everybody (else) dies. Lodged, of course, in the best sort of eyebrow-raising fiction. I, the reviewer, am trying to tell you that I liked this book, and that I am a picky reader. But I, the writer, keep getting mixed up as to how to get you to buy it. For the sake of postpostmodern literature--for the sake of the longevity of the love of literature--read this insane, awkward, gorgeous thing.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's worth the effort, July 17, 2004

By A Customer

The first 50 pages took me almost three hours to read. I was worried I made a big mistake in reading this book. And then Vollmann's world captures you. By the end my opinion had changed: this is the best book I've read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Drove Me Buggy (but that's a good thing)!, May 7, 2008

By	Dick Johnson (Oklahoma USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

I loved it. I'm sure I didn't understand all Vollmann wanted me to. The writing style, while difficult, is extraordinary.

I do not have the literary background to do justice to any deep analysis, so I'll just give you a reader's appraisal. The closest comparison I can make is to David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest". The method of writing and the characters reminded me of "IJ" within a very few pages. I feel safe in saying that if you do not care for DFW, you will not care for this book.

We are taken on a journey in an unrecognizable USA (and world). There is a bare bones description of what is happening to people and places other than that necessary for us to follow the characters through their travails. The list of characters at the beginning is of benefit so you can remind yourself of who is on what team.

The other reviewers have done an excellent job of describing the story and the other literary devices. I read this at about a third of my regular reading speed, and at times had to go back to reread a page or two because I had lost the thread.

To put it in a nutshell - I had fun reading this, which is my goal with any book I read.