From the National Book Award-winning author of Europe Central – a hugely original fictional history of Pocahontas, John Smith, and the Jamestown colony in Virginia
Watch for Vollmann’s new work of nonfiction, No Immediate Danger, coming in April of 2018
In Argall, the third 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.
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Publishers Weekly
"Reader Right Honorable; I warn'd you that this Book of mine doth drag me down toward the worst," writes William the Blind, chronicler of this third "dream" of Vollman's projected seven-novel series. The settling of Jamestown, far from being a Disney movie fantasy, prefigured the genocide that was eventually to quell the "Salvage" resistance to the settlement of North America. Vollman's angle on the "romance" of Capt. John Smith and "Pokahuntas" is not pretty. Still, Vollman doesn't connive at rote political correctness, either. Inspired by John Smith's own Generall Historie of Virginia, the novel is a vast fresco unfolding the encounter between the Virginia settlers and Powhatan's "People." Smith is "Sweet John," who like a good Elizabethan has taken Machiavelli as his guide to "Politick." His rise to brief eminence as the governor of the colony over the snobbish objections of the council is a tragicomedy of disappointed expectations, yet his policy of bringing war to the "People" has long-range consequences. When Vollman turns to the enigmatic Pokahuntas, he paints a portrait that is both respectful and moving, much different from the author's usual mannered sexual outrageousness. The eponymous Captain Argall edges into the foreground in the second part, succeeding Smith as Jamestown's leading spirit; he has the sinister bearing of some Jacobean theater devil like Iago, there's menace in his meanings. He kidnaps Pokahuntas and manipulates her assimilation into settler culture. Vollman's ability to write in Smith's English and endow it with a contemporary snap is an extraordinary feat. For readers willing to undertake Vollman's somewhat forbidding oeuvre, this is the book to begin with.(Oct. 1) Forecast: Vollman hides his light under a bushel of huge tomes, which is a shame. If reviews convince readers to take the plunge, this could score big but there's no denying that a 700-page volume three of seven (not to mention the $40 price tag) is inherently daunting. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
A novel about the founding of the Virginia colony, this is the third volume in Vollmann's ambitious historical "Seven Dreams" series, which includes The Ice-Shirt and Fathers and Crows. The book is divided into two sections, the first focusing mainly on John Smith, the second on Pocahontas. Both parts are told in the voice of the dreamer William the Blind, who for this occasion adopts his own weird version of Elizabethan English. Aside from this minor stylistic difficulty, Argall is much more reader-friendly than the other volumes in the series, in part because of the greater familiarity of the material but also because the narrative is completely straightforward, without the intentional dreamlike obscurities of the earlier titles. Vollmann's history emphasizes the paranoia and cruelty of both the English settlers and the indigenous Virginians. Pocahontas's eventual transformation into a God-fearing Englishwoman is a chilling demonstration of 16th-century brainwashing techniques. In William the Blind's summary, the Powhatans lost their princess and their kingdom but gained discount cigarettes and gospel radio. Arguably the best installment in this magnificent series, this is definitely the place for new readers to start. Highly recommended. Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles, CA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
The story of Jamestown Colony and the personal histories of Captain John Smith and Pocahontas, among others, take center stage-in this huge and fascinating fourth installment in the indefatigable Vollmann's ongoing serial novel Seven Dreams Argall joins earlier volumes (The Ice-Shirt, 1990; Fathers and Crows, 1992; The Rifles, 1994) in a powerful (sometimes ponderous) indictment of the wrongs committed by colonizers in their encounters with native North American populations. Once again, Vollmann assembles materials gathered from multiple historical sources (here, William the Conqueror's Doomsday Book and the writings of Thomas Jefferson and others), as well as invented ones by the series' omniscient (though not at all objective) narrator "William the Blind" (a concept lifted from the medieval Scottish epic poem Wallace). After a lengthy prologue and somewhat briefer histories of earlier foreign interest in the Virginia territory, and of adventurers who would sail and settle there, the story itself settles into focusing on its several major characters. Chief among them are the powerful tribal leader Powhatan, his impulsive young daughter Amonute (a.k.a. "Pocahontas") and crafty kinsman Opechancanough ("more subtle & redoubtable than Powhatan himself"), the itinerant, weak-willed Englishman (Smith) who is the Indian maiden's unworthy first love, and the eponymous Samuel Argall, the satanic military commander and later deputy governor who introduces slavery and genocide into the pristine Virginia wilderness. Vollmann's tendency to digress and fulminate is kept under firmer control than usual here (though the narrative proper is followed by extensive addenda, glossaries, and source notes).There are longueurs, but the tale picks up speed and clarity as it progresses, graced by arresting figurative language ("Powhatan's greatest palace was long and narrow as a dog's jaws," etc.) and a brilliantly handled ornate period style. And his portrayal of Pocahontas-married off to an English tobacco planter and condemned to outcast status in the two worlds she moves fearfully between-assumes the shape of genuine tragedy. There's no getting around it: this is essential reading. Vollmann's eccentric, impassioned historical dream visions are, despite frequent redundancies and occasional infelicities, slowly carving their niche among the present age's most commanding and illuminating fictions. Author tour
From the Publisher
"No book since John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor has so thoroughly transported readers back in time to our nation's origins. Prepare yourself to confront the political and moral compromises that got us where we are today. You won't find a better guide."
—The Philadelphia Inquirer"Argall may bring us closer to the truth of America's first interracial romance than a thousand biographies written on the subject." —San Francisco Chronicle
"Readers are likely to come away from this story...appreciating the mordant resonance with writers from Defoe to Conrad." —The Washington Post
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