Mammoth Hall Common - Vollmann Interview Page 2

PH - I know, you've mentioned in the past the Comte de Lautréamont's Maldoror and I remember being so blown away by that book when I read it.

WTV - Yeah, what a beautiful book.

PH - Which version did you read? The Penguin?

WTV - Yes I did.

PH - That's the Paul Knight [translator] version.

WTV - Yes.

PH - You should try finding the Exact Change version by Alexis Lykiard

WTV - Oh really, why's that?

PH - his translation's considered the best. [ed. - I wish to correct myself here. I sent a letter to Bill after the interview explaining that once I went back and read Lykiard's forward in the Exact Change version it was Lykiard himself that claimed that his version was the best I haven't found anyone to agree with this so read either translation. -P]

WTV - Oh is that right?

PH - The translation is from 1970. It's just as beautiful, I read the Penguin version first as well and just loved it and when I found the Exact Change version, the translator's note said that Knight's version was just the worst. But, I didn't agree.

WTV - I'll have to check that out. I recently read it in French and thoroughly enjoyed it.

PH - If I could I would love to read the original version but I don't have the handle of French.

WTV - You know I have my own little publishing company, it's called CoTangent Press. I always wanted to do a new translation of Maldoror and I thought it would be nice to have it on titanium pages which were rainbow anodized. In other words, you often see woman's earrings and they have that pretty colour. And I would like the edges of the pages to be razor sharp and dipped in some kind of poison.

PH - the "poison-filled pages." [Maldoror, First Canto]

WTV - Yeah, exactly! So, you'd have to have a special pair of steel gauntlets or something…

PH - like butcher's gloves. A lot of the stuff you've done through CoTangent is just brilliant.

WTV - As a matter of fact I was working a little bit on one of my CoTangent bindings when you called. They're four platinum prints. They are fairly expensive.

PH - What are the platinum prints of?

WTV - They're nudes. The women involved are in an overgrown backyard in Oregon, and they're holding a papier-mâché mask that I made. It's got bones for teeth, a bunch of crow feathers, and the hair of a woman who is a good friend of mine. As well as the platinum prints there are some watercolour drawings of that mask and of some of the women. It's an attempt to mix photography and fairly representational drawings.

PH - This will be in an edition of ten you'll be doing?

WTV - Yes, this is the second one. I'm hoping to finish it up by Friday; I probably can because the weather is nice and warm. Probably close to 40º c. today so the glue dries very quickly. What sort of books do you bind?

PH - Right now it's all my own writing.

WTV - And how do you bind it?

PH - I've done a few different styles, it's more traditional than yours. Basically sewn signatures bound into davey board covers. Usually done letterpress, we write illustrate and bind the books ourselves. Me and my wife who's the co-proprietor. We do block prints, wood engraving, or linocut. It's usually printed in intertype, and we handset monotype title pages.

WTV - How long do the books tend to be?

PH - Around thirteen pages.

WTV - Uh huh, well that's doable then. That's still a lot of work.

PH - It is. It's usually about six months beginning to end.

WTV - I've been working on one, which I started in '95 it's called The Book of Candles, and it's a folio edition. It's seven poems with a lot of block prints and magnesium cut text. There are probably about seventy to seventy-five illustrations in all. It's a tremendous amount of work but I really enjoy working on that, I'm hoping to print another group of ten copies of one page maybe Saturday or Sunday.

PH - I think it shows you do this sort of work in your books themselves. I always thought about that before I found out about CoTangent. The different type use, you can see your hand through the whole thing, even with Royal Family, one of your photographs is on the cover and the font changes, where you'll see a bold text or an outline text and it always seemed to me that this is a writer who is used to doing his own text, doing hands on of the product.

WTV - That's right and we are so fortunate nowadays that it's very easy to do that.

PH - Yeah, it helps to have a printing press in my basement.
WTV - Yeah, but even just for commercial work, I can specify the type on the Macintosh. A hundred years ago it would have been quite a chore to do it.

PH - But people like Benjamin Franklin and others were able to do it. I remember an older printmaker who said to have a printing press in your basement is the ultimate power.

WTV - That's really true.

PH - How are you hands holding up, I know you have had problems with carpel tunnel syndrome?

WTV - They're a little bit better. I have a little daughter, she's going to be three tomorrow, I play with her a lot, put in several hours a day with her, I carry her around on my shoulders too, so I'm less productive, which is probably good. How about you, do you have any kids?

PH - No, no kids, no plans, we're too busy.

WTV - I understand.

PH - The Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes, I've got to get onto that. I haven't had a chance to read Argall yet, I just got it yesterday. Is it going to be released in Canada?

WTV - I hope so.

PH - One of my favourite books of yours that I've never been able to get or read is You Bright and Risen Angels. It looks absolutely brilliant but I can't seem to get my hands on it in Canada yet. Give me some time and I'll get it.

WTV - I think Deutsche the English Publisher did release a Canadian edition but there was only a few hundred copies. I'm very frustrated that the other Canadian Dreams are not available. It makes me very depressed because Canada is one of my two or three favourite countries and I just love it up there so much and I really loved writing the Seven Dreams that were set in your country.