.gif)
The Atlas (novel)
Encyclopedia
The Atlas is a 1996 semi-autobiographical
work by American novelist William T. Vollmann
.
A mixture of fiction and non-fiction, this book was drawn from Vollmann's experiences traveling around the world. He relates these experiences through 53 interconnected stories that weave their way through the novel.
Vollmann has said that Yasunari Kawabata
's Palm-of-the-Hand Stories
were an important influence on the structure of the collection. Several of the short stories share the same titles as some of Vollmann's earlier novels, such as Fathers and Crows
, Butterfly Stories and The Rifles
; he describes these as miniature versions of the larger works.
The stories in the first half of the book are numbered from one to 26 until the central story, also called "The Atlas". In the second half, the stories are numbered in reverse from 26 to one. The pairs of stories created by this system often comment on each other in a variety of ways. In addition to the table of contents, the stories are also listed according to the longitude and latitude of their setting.
When Vollmann went on a literary reading tour following the publication of The Atlas, he gained some notoriety for firing a gun loaded with blanks during his reading of the first story in the collection "The Back of My Head", which is based on an experience Vollmann had in the former Yugoslavia
during wartime.
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
work by American novelist William T. Vollmann
William T. Vollmann
William Tanner Vollmann is an American novelist, journalist, short story writer, essayist and winner of the National Book Award...
.
A mixture of fiction and non-fiction, this book was drawn from Vollmann's experiences traveling around the world. He relates these experiences through 53 interconnected stories that weave their way through the novel.
Vollmann has said that Yasunari Kawabata
Yasunari Kawabata
was a Japanese short story writer and novelist whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award...
's Palm-of-the-Hand Stories
Palm-of-the-Hand Stories
is the name Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata gave to more than 140 short stories he wrote over his long career, the earliest published in the 1920 and the last appearing posthumously in 1972...
were an important influence on the structure of the collection. Several of the short stories share the same titles as some of Vollmann's earlier novels, such as Fathers and Crows
Fathers and Crows
Fathers and Crows is a 1992 historical novel by American author William T. Vollmann. It is the second book in a seven-book series called Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes....
, Butterfly Stories and The Rifles
The Rifles
The Rifles is the largest regiment of the British Army. Formed in 2007, it consists of five regular and two territorial battalions, plus a number of companies in other TA battalions, Each battalion of the Rifles was formerly an individual battalion of one of the two large regiments of the Light...
; he describes these as miniature versions of the larger works.
The stories in the first half of the book are numbered from one to 26 until the central story, also called "The Atlas". In the second half, the stories are numbered in reverse from 26 to one. The pairs of stories created by this system often comment on each other in a variety of ways. In addition to the table of contents, the stories are also listed according to the longitude and latitude of their setting.
When Vollmann went on a literary reading tour following the publication of The Atlas, he gained some notoriety for firing a gun loaded with blanks during his reading of the first story in the collection "The Back of My Head", which is based on an experience Vollmann had in the former Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
during wartime.