Tut tut. I have a plethora of these unfinished books lying around.

But really, he drones on and on, and I can't help but keep thinking. Didn't he already make his points? It's not that I don't appreciate the endless variety of illustrations of man's inhumanity to man and all that. (How bourgeois of me!) However, his moralizing becomes a drag after the first several outlines of what he thinks ought to be done.

It seems as if he is just repeating himself, going over the same ground again and again. I start to lose interest and my mind begins to wander. I find myself looking at the illustrations more closely, trying to find something new and interesting in them. But even they can only hold my attention for so long.

I think maybe he should have condensed his ideas and presented them in a more concise and engaging way. Then perhaps I would have been more inclined to finish reading the book. As it is now, I'm not sure if I'll ever get around to it.

This is a really mind blowing book. It actually took me almost a year to read, just one day short. After going through more than 700 pages, you might think I would be finished. But to be honest, I kind of just want to explore the unabridged 7 volume version.

Vollman's writing style is dense and free-flowing. It may not suit everyone's taste. However, from my personal perspective, I found it to be poetical. It serves as a perfect counterbalance to the grim and sometimes dry subject matter. His words seem to dance on the page, adding a layer of beauty and depth to the otherwise heavy content.

Reading this book has been an intense and rewarding experience. It has made me think deeply about many aspects of life and has opened my eyes to new perspectives. I can't wait to embark on the journey of reading the unabridged version and see what more it has to offer.

I cannot begin to fathom what the unabridged version of this book might be like. And I truly mean that in the most positive sense. Although, I wouldn't be at all astonished if someone were to misinterpret this as a criticism of the abridgment. At the end of this abridgment, I can peruse the table of contents of the complete version and attempt to fit what I've read into the appropriate places. However, what lies within those unread sections is simply beyond my imagination. This, to me, seems like the most compelling evidence of the utterly unique nature of this book.

This is by no means your run-of-the-mill ethical treatise. If only academic philosophers possessed this much courage and dedication to their task! It appears to me as the product of a mind constantly colliding with the intimidating reality of violence, striving to see what outcomes it can yield. I don't concur with every aspect of the moral calculus that Vollmann arrives at, yet I hold it in the highest regard. And, as he hopes it would, it has indeed made me reevaluate some of the things I had previously been convinced of regarding violence.

For me, the most overwhelming part of the book (whether this is a good or bad quality, I'm not entirely certain) was the Studies in Consequences. With the exception of two sections (the Europe and the North America selections), I felt more confused and disoriented than anything else. Perhaps this was the intended effect, but (maybe due to moral weakness on my part?) I found myself disinclined to read these exasperating accounts of warlords and factionalism in the context of the proposed moral calculus. As Vollmann states, violence has a tendency to assert its own immanence, and I discovered that the breathless narration of these studies generally made me despair of ever being able to justify my way through any of these situations. But I hope that some readers will have a stronger constitution than I do and succeed where I have failed.

Once again, referring back to the table of contents of the complete version, I noticed that the things I most wanted to read about in the Consequences section were not included. Perhaps different excerpts would have elicited a different response from me.

To adapt something that John Banville said about Calasso's books, one might have thought that books like this were no longer being written. It is a remarkable achievement, even in its abridged form.