Just as the world appears to be losing its appetite for books, William T. Vollmann pens a 3,000-page novel

William T. Vollmann has spent his career refusing to distill the world into dichotomies. Maria Moratti/Getty Images With forecasters of doom debating the end of reading, of publishing and of literacy in general, what should we make of William T. Vollmann’s forthcoming novel, “A Table for Fortune”? Spanning four volumes at 3,000 pages, is it madness? A determined attempt to silence print’s naysayers? I have been writing about Vollmann’s works since I penned the introduction to “William T.…