Europe Central is a remarkable work that immediately makes one wonder what brilliant mind could have given birth to a book of such artistic, stylistic, and narrative significance.

Vollmann tells the story of 20th-century Europe during the interwar period, weaving together the lives of real and fictional characters through invisible yet seemingly inextricable threads. These snapshots of life are described as they unfold, when the characters face fundamental decisions for the history of World War II or their daily and personal existence. In these pages, we read about the stories of people who wonder whether to make a deal with the regime or fight it, how to make one choice or the other, and the inevitable consequences that this choice will bring.

Vollmann's uniqueness lies not only in his undisputed narrative abilities but also in the fact that he manages to instill existential doubts in the reader on every page. We are completely immersed in the world he tells, in the characters whose stories we follow, to the point that it makes us wonder what we would have done if we were in their place, how we would have maintained our humanity under the harshest dictatorships. And this is not something everyone can do.

Throughout this epic work, we will get to know the stories of the German communist sculptor Käthe Kollwitz, the author of lithographs that represented the pain of the marginalized, of women always victims of war, who was confused and disoriented when she had the opportunity to visit the Soviet Union; of Shostakovich, the Soviet composer full of fears and insecurities, who spent his life between censorship and praise from the Soviet regime, which he only yielded to at the end of his existence; of Kurt Gerstein, who tried several times to揭露 the horror of the concentration camps; of Hitler himself, also called the Sleepwalker, because he chased his destiny, exactly like a sleepwalker cannot help but make the movements he makes while sleeping (…and just like a sleepwalker is separated from the rest of humanity): in a few pages, Vollmann explains evil, never mythologizing the author of this, but, on the contrary, relegating him to a non-human entity; of the Soviet filmmaker Roman Karmen, who put his cinematic ability at the service of propaganda; of the German general Paulus and the Soviet general Vlasov, who in their parallel choices (one deserted the German army for the Soviet one and vice versa) faced opposite destinies; of the Soviet marshal Chuikov, liberator of Stalingrad and who then took part in the battle of Berlin.

Around these characters, there are many others: musicians, soldiers, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, partisans like the little Zoja, widows, old people, lovers, poets like Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetaeva… all wrapped in the darkness that were the cities in that period: Stalingrad, Leningrad, Warsaw, Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, before and after the war, reduced to rubble and a symbol of regimes that do not want to collapse and disappear.

A monument, a hymn to those souls who tried to oppose the rubble that was destroying Central Europe or, on the contrary, who were the architects of it.

The best historical novel I've ever read is truly a masterpiece.

It is composed of several captivating stories or episodes that center around the Russian/German front of WWII. The life of Dmitri Shostokovich weaves in and out of the war and its aftermath, serving as the dominant and engaging narrative. However, the parts about the Nazis don't seem fully integrated with the Shostakovich story line. After long sections dedicated to the Nazis, the book simply reverts back to talking about him.

The Nazi story line is often told through the language of Germanic myths, which they perverted and used to seduce the masses, leading them into doom and eternal disgrace. This was the period of big patriotic talk before any war. The Nazis, on one hand, tried to use the language of myth and poetry, while on the other hand, they spewed out insane and obsessional racism and incitements to mass criminal behavior. It makes one wonder about the masses' capacity for critical thinking. As the saying goes, there's a sucker born every minute. Many of the Nazi crimes and beliefs are vividly presented throughout the dialogue and descriptive passages, giving us a sense of the intricacy of this immense societal corruption and criminality.

The long section about Stalingrad from the German general Paulus' perspective is particularly revealing. It shows how much the fault of the loss of that battle, and indeed the war, lies directly with Hitler. Hitler, who fancied himself as the next Napoleon, knew nothing about tactics except to view battle as an embodiment of his belief in German invincibility based on race. He refused to allow any troops to go on the defensive, instead sending them all charging into their racially pure deaths. If ever there was a case for mass mutiny, it was here. And so, we also see the “good” soldier's true and perpetual weakness: physically brave to the point of stupidity but ethically and intellectually deficient and cowardly when the question of obedience reaches its philosophical limit.

I initially tried 'Butterfly Stories' when it came out and didn't like it, so I put Vollman off until I joined GR and read some reviews. I suspect that he needs a grand structure of facts and history to riff on in order to be at his best. Something where the moral and amoral questions are inherent to the story and events and don't have to be invented, only imagined regarding the character's reactions to them. His stylistic lyricism stems from his interpretations and responses to the monumental research that he does, and the unique discoveries from that research that he weaves into almost every paragraph, which is in itself an act of prodigious recall, organization, and imagination.

From page 503, we have the interesting passage: “Have a bowl of soup she said, but I refused. Never eat anything in the other world! Persephone nibbles six pomegranate seeds and finds herself compelled to live in Hades for half the year. That was why for security reasons the Fuhrer caused to be destroyed all the candy and caviar which Marshal Antonescu sent him.” I wonder if he wrote the first half of that paragraph after reading the story about Antonescu's destroyed gift? It's really an amazing use of research.

Vollman doesn't provide any perspective or background into the causes of the war. In a work based on the history of such an immense and complicated war, it reads as if all this evil simply manifested out of nowhere and was something alien - good guys and bad guys. He does mention that the English refused to bomb the death camps even with prior knowledge. More details like that would add much more depth to his story about ignorance and hatred, which is what this great novel is primarily focused on.

A novel of this scope about WWII and Europe should include something about WWI since the two wars are intricately connected. I mention this in relation to the scope of Vollman's ambition and intention. The novel is very dense with historical details, so why not some that would give a wider view into the causes of the war? Nor do I think you can accurately write about communism and fascism without discussing capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism and the great pressures those things put on societies prior to WWI and the Bolshevik revolution. There isn't a word about that, which gives the sense that Nazism and Stalinist terror came mystically out of nowhere. What you end up with, no matter how lyrical and brilliant, is a sort of historical fairy tale about monsters from the dark and from hell. Still, this novel deserves to be among the greatest novels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5oh...

Europe Central is an epic and kaleidoscopic novel that rewrites the classic narrative of World War II in a musical way, beyond the purely Western perspective, and tells it through the eyes of key characters from Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. At the center of this whirling carousel is the life, love, and work of Dmitrij Šostakovič, which serves as a counterpoint to Stalin's totalitarian machine and the Wagnerian frenzy of the Third Reich, culminating in a grotesque polyphony that continuously confounds and remixes the tones of war and music, the only survivor of the downward parabola of the dictatorships of the 20th century.

In this chaotic vortex of war and peace, there are no judgments, nor are there winners or losers. From the German artist Käthe Kollwitz, to the revolutionary assassin Fanja Kaplan, to figures like Kurt Gerstein, Anna Achmatova, and Andrej Vlasov, all the way to Lenin and Hitler himself, only mentioned as The Sleepwalker (from a quote in Mein Kampf), the reader participates in the moral turmoil of the individuals and their entire people, experiences their stories firsthand under the incessant roar of music and bombs.
Vollmann's prose is dense, pressing, and fragmented; it belongs to the tradition of the new, tentacular American novel consecrated by Philip Roth and David Foster Wallace. In this fluid and seething confusion of demons, it becomes difficult to separate the grotesque from the solemn, the brutal from the ridiculous. However, Vollmann manages to sketch a multifaceted fresco that is capable of restoring to us the hope, resignation, and absurdity of the events: just like Šostakovič, the author composes his symphony by juxtaposing in rapid, vice-like movements the screams, the gunshots, the pain and the music, the snow and the explosions, the grandeur of history and the human stories. Vollmann erects a literary monument equal to Vita e destino in its cyclopean proportions, a monument that a luminary of our time would rightfully have defined as Music (and the rest disappears).

Recensione e altri consigli di lettura cliccando qui


Europe Central è un romanzo titanico, caleidoscopico, che riscrive in musica la narrativa classica della Seconda Guerra Mondiale al di fuori dell’ottica prettamente occidentale, e la racconta attraverso gli sguardi di personaggi chiave della Germania nazista e della Russia sovietica. Al centro di questa giostra vorticante troviamo la vita, l’amore e l’opera di Dmitrij Šostakovič, che fa da contrappunto alla macchina totalitaria di Stalin e alla frenesia wagneriana del Terzo Reich, culminando in una grottesca polifonia che confonde e rimescola continuamente i toni della guerra e della musica, unica sopravvissuta alla parabola discendente delle dittature del Novecento.


In questo vortice caotico di guerra e pace non esistono giudizi, né vincitori o vinti. Dall’artista tedesca Käthe Kollwitz, all’attentatrice rivoluzionaria Fanja Kaplan, a figure come Kurt Gerstein, Anna Achmatova e Andrej Vlasov, fino a Lenin e allo stesso Hitler, menzionato unicamente come Il sonnambulo (da una citazione del Mein Kampf), il lettore è partecipe dei turbamenti morali dei singoli e del loro popolo intero, ne vive sulla propria pelle le vicende sotto il fragore incessante della musica e delle bombe.


La prosa di Vollmann è densa, incalzante, frammentata; appartiene alla tradizione del nuovo, tentacolare romanzo americano consacrato da Philip Roth e David Foster Wallace. In questa confusione fluida e brulicante di demoni, diventa difficile separare il grottesco dal solenne, il brutale dal ridicolo. Tuttavia, Vollmann riesce a tratteggiare un affresco sfaccettato e capace di restituirci la speranza, la rassegnazione e l’assurdità degli eventi: proprio come Šostakovič, l’autore compone la sua sinfonia giustapponendo in rapidi movimenti a tenaglia le grida, gli spari, il dolore e la musica, la neve e le esplosioni, la grandiosità della storia e le vicende umane. Vollmann erige un monumento letterario pari a Vita e destino per le proporzioni ciclopiche, un monumento che una luminare del nostro tempo avrebbe a buon diritto definito musica (e il resto scompare).

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