From 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, Inc.


From 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 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
*Starred Review* Adventurous in life and on the page, Vollmann is a phenomenally prolific, fearless writer, possessed of great stores of knowledge, a bristly humor, and a passionate curiosity about humanity. Here, after several intervening books, he returns to his ascendant series, Seven Dreams, supremely inventive novels about the European conquest of North America. Vollmann, whose many corrective measures in writing about the past include portraying compelling women characters in heretofore blatantly male-oriented histories, turns to the two most romanticized figures in colonial American lore, Pocahontas and Captain John Smith. In playful but lancing prose mannered in the Elizabethan mode and redolent of Barth and Pynchon, he renders highly dramatic and provocative the entire story of hapless Smith's disenfranchisement, horrific trials as a mercenary fighting the Turks, and dicey exploits in the colony of Virginia, where an Indian girl not only saves him from a brutal execution, but, enamored of her new "father," also saves the ungrateful citizens of Jamestown from starvation. Vollman's interpretations of the machinations and violence between the invading Europeans and the native people are richly imagined, and his portraits of the bumbling captain, betrayed and tragic Pocahontas, and her real father, the powerful and ruthless leader Powhatan, are intimate, fresh, ribald, and sympathetic. As for Argall, the man who kidnapped Pocahontas and committed atrocities of the worst magnitude, he is an embodiment of pure evil. Vollmann's commanding yet nimble, ironic yet deeply felt approach to the continent's complex history is the work of genius. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, November 18, 2001
...worth reading long into the night...


Book Description
Praise for the Seven Dreams series:

"There is every indication that the Seven Dreams septology will be the most important literary project of the '90s." (The Washington Post)

"The Seven Dreams sequence promises to return us to the history of the North American continent in a form we've never seen before. . . it is likely to become one of the masterpieces of the century." (The Chicago Tribune)

For the past ten years William T. Vollmann has been working on one of the most ambitious novelistic projects of his generation: a seven-volume series of novels (Seven Dreams) that examines the repeated collisions between Native Americans and European colonizers and oppressors. Thus far, three novels have been published: The Ice-Shirt, Fathers and Crows, and The Rifles.

In Argall, the third book in the series and the fourth to be published, Vollmann alternates between extravagant Elizabethan language and gritty realism in an attempt to imagine what the lives of John Smith, Pocahontas, and their contemporaries might really have been like. Behind all of these characters stands the terrifying figure of Captain Samuel Argall, who will abduct Pocahontas, burn Indian towns, and bring black slavery to North America. This magnificent novel digs beneath the romantic legend of Pocahontas and the betrayals, disappointments, and atrocities behind it, offering a moving tale of dispossession that will appeal to fans of history and contemporary fiction alike.


About the Author
William T. Vollmann is the author of seven novels, most recently The Royal Family, three collections of stories, and one work of nonfiction. His literary awards and accolades include a PEN Center USA West Award for Fiction (for his collection, The Atlas), a 1988 Whiting Writers Award, and, in 1999, mention by The New Yorker as "one of the twenty best writers in America under forty." His journalism and fiction have been published in The New Yorker, Esquire, Spin, Gear, Granta, Grand Street, and Outside Magazine.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In Argall, volume three of his Seven Dreams series of novels, 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 -- and the betrayals, disappointments, and atrocities behind it. With the same panoramic vision, mythic sensibility, and stylistic daring that he brought to his previous Seven Dreams novels, 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 as well.

FROM THE CRITICS

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