William T. Vollmann, The Ice Shirt (Seven Dreams Vol.1)

Carl Bloom (Independent Scholar - North America)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication Oct 1990

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Historical
Novel

Resources

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In 1990, when

The Ice-Shirt

was published, it carried with it the bold pronouncement that it would be the first of a series of seven novels, covering the history of the people of the North American continent and the European explorers, settlers, and settler organizations (such as the Canadian or United States government). With the publication of

The Dying Grass

(2018), William T. Vollmann has now completed five of the seven promised novels. As the first novel in this series,

The Ice-Shirt

established many of the tropes and techniques that have been developed throughout the series so far. These include the use of a narrator dubbed “William the Blind”, the use of maps and drawings, and the blending of historical narrative alongside the first person, journalistic observations of places,…

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1770 words

Citation: Bloom, Carl. "The Ice Shirt (Seven Dreams Vol.1)". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 July 2021 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=32132, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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