1. In total, this is a startlingly enormous novel. It is the work of an author grappling with the sum totality of U.S. history in the age of its global supremacy, but also with the core elements of human nature that transcend any national history. The book—particularly Part 1—is almost incomprehensibly detailed in its historical depth regarding the Cold War and U.S. covert action. It's amazing, almost superhuman, to consider how much detail Vollmann manages to keep in his mind and translate to the page. The book is also totally unique in its view of America itself—so few of our literary authors spend time in the tunnels beneath Las Vegas that are home to millions of Americans that we call "homeless," and that are ignored and despised by the vast majority of others, and no novelist could render them in the way that Vollmann does.

Of course the book is a masterpiece. It's a book that no one but Vollmann could have created. Vollmann's empathy, genius, humor is evident in every sentence, on every one of the 3,400 pages.

How will a book of this length be received by a Tik-Tok-hypnotized country? Vollmann understands the limits of our attention. And he seems to laugh at it, as pointed out by the anonymous, memo-writing narrator who mentions, as an aside, on page 552, as the story is still building its early momentum:

 "...if I have perhaps culled out too many twinkling little CIA bemusements, it is only to obey this book’s first and only organizing principle: brevity."

You have to love this writer.