Must the 'Poor People' be always with us?

Vollmann travels the globe to study poverty, but finds more questions than answers.

from the March 13, 2007 edition

Page 2 of 2

Page 1 | 2

Throughout the book, Vollmann ruminates deeply on the manifold causes and consequences of poverty, and on what obligation individuals and nations have toward the poor. He considers the role of the United Nations, and the widely lauded idea of "more aid, better directed," but remains skeptical about slogans.

Still, he recommends hope, even if it's baseless: "I propose that false hopes are as good as true, provided that they cause no harm[.]"

The poor themselves, notes Vollmann, sometimes adapt by "diminishing consciousness" through alcohol, drugs, or false beliefs. Such is the case with some of the impoverished that Vollmann meets in the former Soviet Union, who tell him how much better their lives had been under the Stalinist system.

Vollmann also investigates the exploitation of the poor. In Japan, he fruitlessly seeks out "snakeheads," criminals who smuggle impoverished Chinese women into Japan and force them into prostitution. In Kazakhstan, he more successfully discovers how a large oil company ruins the environment and the health of a small town.

One impoverished Kazakh man asks Vollmann to tell the American people about the rampant exploitation of the Kazakh poor and the environment. "I know the Americans will do something," he tells Vollmann. (Vollmann, however, silently considers this man's faith in oil-hungry America "ludicrous.")

"Poor People" is deeply philosophical – Vollmann freely quotes Marx, Adam Smith, Aristotle, Thoreau, and more – yet it is also highly personal. The book concludes with a description of Vollmann''s own complex relationship with the poor. He lives in Sacramento near a shelter for the homeless, who often use his parking lot as a place to sleep or congregate. The author gives them food and offers them friendship, but at the end of the day he returns home and closes his door on them. Vollmann even admits to being afraid of tall, young black men, describing how a group of them once robbed him.

"Poor People" enlightens, posing important questions and putting a human face on the socioeconomic statistics. "This book is not 'practical,'" Vollmann admits. "It cannot tell anyone what to do, much less how to do it." Such humility seems like the first step toward wisdom.

• Chuck Leddy is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

1 | Page 2