A review by jonfaith
The Rifles: Volume Six of Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes by William T. Vollmann

4.0

Much like Vollmann's earliest works, there is a hefty ick factor in The Rifles surrounding his advances on an Eskimo woman. That plot recedes and is supplanted by an account of his time camping above the Arctic Circle and a historical recreation of the doomed Franklin expedition, the latter is deftly paced situated: an absurdist comedy of manners. There is a curious essay iwthin about the advances of firearms, which I found intriguing but ultimately disparate.