| Title | : | The Rainbow Stories |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0140171541 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780140171549 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 542 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1989 |
The Rainbow Stories Reviews
-
This was the most stupefyingly brilliant kick in the head. The kind of volt and jolt which leaves a concrete and metallic aftertaste. Lazy psuedo-book-jacket-writer-mathematician-me says 'Bukowski + Foster Wallace ÷ Garcia Marquez x Pynchon = William T. Vollmann'. I've discovered my new favourite place to hang out. It's the world as scribed by this compulsive, obsessive and distinctive writer. Headbendingly good - I was seeing colours.
The Rainbow Stories are so much more than a collection of short stories. There's pulse and heart to these pieces which connects them more than just thematically. They're like alternate realities of each other.
There's urban folklore, interviews with LA prostitutes, skinheads and street urchins; there are inner monologues and fantastical, tripped out moments; there is mythical imagery and dusty dessert stories of vagabonds and thugs. So many voices; so much chatter and noise blended together.
I perceive WTV's writing to be as brutally real, as psychologically intoxicating and as compelling as my beloved David Foster Wallace's stuff. Each individual story is written in it's own unique style, but there are controlled, episodic and almost cinematic structures here. Must have a great editor too. The use of brief footnotes —did DFW find inspiration here?— asides and succinct moments to punctuate the longer passages is flat-out genius. I want to write like WTV. -
Breakfast with Dolores
There were half a dozen benches on the rise overlooking the pond near where some of the Wrecking Crew were still sleeping after a party last night. The police hadn't done their rounds yet.
On one seat was an elegantly-dressed man somewhere in his mid to late 40's. He was reading the morning paper intently. I didn't sit there. Two seats away was an attractive girl, early to mid-20's, I'd say. She, too, was dressed well. I sat a few spaces away from her on the same bench.
After a couple of minutes, she reached into her handbag and pulled out a cigarette. Before she put it to her lips, she asked me if I had a light. I knew straight away she was a whore, a high class one, definitely, maybe an escort who had just finished a night's work in one of the nearby hotels or apartment buildings. I'd heard there was some big society ball last night.
I lit her cigarette, and returned my lighter to my coat pocket.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"It's actually Dolores," she responded, "but most people call me Lolita."
"If they've read the book," I volunteered.
She laughed, "Hardly anyone knows my real name any more."
"My name's Bill."
"Hi, Bill," she said, still friendly.
"Have you eaten breakfast yet?"
"No."
"Would you like to join me? I'd like to talk to you."
"I'm sorry, Bill, it will cost you, you know."
"That's OK. I've budgeted for it."
"Budgeted?" She didn't get my drift.
"I'm a writer. I'm working on a book."
"I thought you might be that guy. Marisa told me about you."
"Ah, Marisa. She's sweet. I like her."
"She likes you, too."
"Is your pimp around?" I didn't even know whether she had a pimp, but I thought I would ask anyway.
She nodded. "He's over there," nodding at the other bench.
Just then, he looked over at us.
"Humbert," she said, "Bill here would like to give you $200. We're going to have breakfast."
I opened my wallet and gave Humbert everything I had but $20. "We might have to make that coffee. It's a while since I've done this."
Dolores grinned at Humbert, "Can you spot me a hundred? It's my shout. Bill's famous now!"
http://www.salon.com/2000/08/28/vollm...
Absolutely Sweet Marisa
This was my third Vollmann, and the best so far, even though it was only his second book (published in 1989).
If there's one thing about Vollmann, it's that he knows how to write. Or, to paraphrase, he writes what he wants to write and he writes it well.
I suspect that much criticism of his style is motivated by sensitivities about his subject matter, in the same way that many readers object to "Lolita" on the basis of their moral objection to Humbert Humbert.
Vollmann's characters (although almost all of them were real life people at the time, only with their names changed) live on the fringe of "normal" society, where conventional rules don't apply.
In "Absolutely Sweet Marie", Dylan sings, "To live outside the law you must be honest". However, you quickly realise that not even that rule applies here. The book abounds with theft, dishonesty, abuse, violence and murder (by the ingestion of blue Drano crystals), much of it sexually based.
Why Write?
Some readers might ask, why write about this? To them, I would respond only, why not?
Others complain that he should write less or be better edited. To them, I would respond, why not write more? How much is enough? How much is too much? And why?
I say this only to warn some readers that the book might not suit their taste.
The rest of us will still need to suspend moral judgment, if we are to enjoy its literary and other merits.
For me, neither style nor subject matter is a concern. I'm more interested in what the book reveals about Vollmann's authorial stance and worldview.
What is a Life Worth?
To start with, what Vollmann seems to value most is the diversity of human life on earth, in terms of both individuals' nature and their life style. His characters are "Skinheads, X-ray patients, whores, lovers, fetishists and other lost souls."
In his eyes, but not his words, they are "all God's chillun". They all have a worth, simply by virtue of their existence. Their value doesn't depend on whether they pass some arbitrary or subjective test. He argues that "perhaps a kind word would not be out of order."
By and large, his characters live in abject poverty. Their only hope is to survive until the next day, in which quest not all of them succeed. Very little separates life and death, literally or materially. To quote Dylan again:
"If you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose."
When they die, they leave little behind but an autopsy report.
Life Mosaics
Still, no matter what conditions people live in, they construct their own material and social world around them as best they can. It's not for us to judge them.
Vollmann writes about these people, because he seeks the truth. Late in the book, he interposes:
"I myself wish that I could go through every trash can in the world, for the life mosaics which can be puzzled together from them are TRUE, even if irrelevant to my life; what could be truer? How many people deceive their trash cans?"
He doesn't go as far as to say that these characters are trash, but he does continue, "They live in my trash; they are my Zombies, my Wrecking Crew."
I'm not sure whether we're supposed to infer any sense of ownership from these words.
However, it does raise the issue of Vollmann's relationship with his characters and/or the people upon whom they were based.
His Master's Voice
Vollmann tells stories, their stories. There would be no stories to tell without them. At times, particularly with the whores, he even tells us what the opportunity to learn about them cost him financially.
Over the course of the book, Vollmann refers to himself variously as a "Recording Angel" and the "Holy Ghost". The narrator is tantamount to divine (even if he might be just a little tongue-in-cheek). He observes and describes, but does not judge (his) creation. He is tolerant and forgiving.
However, to the extent that the omniscient narrator is a God, he is a non-interventionist God. He does not intervene to improve anybody's circumstances. He simply houses them under the curve of a giant rainbow and leaves them to their own devices.
Conversely, these people reflect the colours of the rainbow. The cover of the book I read hints that some seven-clawed beast (whether God or Beelzebub or something else) has gouged the earth, and from the incisions or wounds has grown the rainbow-coloured beauty of humanity.
That said, just about every character suffers, far more than an average white middle class person might in a contemporary western economy.
Tenderloin Rainbow 2010-style
Just Because
Just as Vollmann doesn't set out to judge, he doesn't set out to explain or to blame.
He doesn't purport to be interested in causation, why people and their circumstances are as they are. He describes the present, not the past or the future.
He doesn't seem to be motivated by middle class guilt or embarrassment.
Vollmann paints a picture of the world as it is. He observes and reports like a journalist, at least one who doesn't frequent the opinion pages.
There is no endeavour to complain about or remedy or minimise immorality or evil or oppression or abuse or violence. What is, is right, for the very reason that it is. It is implied that there is no moral or political purpose in trying to change things, people, life, reality.
Unlike Jonathan Franzen, there is no moralistic desire to "correct" the world as he sees it, perhaps because that would derive him of subject matter as an author? The world is as it is, so Vollmann can/will continue to write about it.
As a result, there doesn't seem to be any sense of, or sense in, collective political action.
Moral Calculus
My concern is that, if your greatest aspiration is survival, you rely on and facilitate the continuation of the current order, with all the violence that implies.
Whatever forces of structuralism and determinism might be at play will continue to work their way, generation after generation.
The Skinz live out the conservative belief that "Politics is the exercise of power. Power is the ability to inflct pain."
Vollmann says of two I.R.A. activists, Seamus and Oliver, "...they both have red hands and they both acted for what one might as well call structural reasons."
In words that paraphrase Lenin, Vollmann sloganises that "Left-Wing Utopianism [is] an Infantile Disorder."
For somebody who is as interested in the condition of these people and who writes so authoritatively about it, it confounds me why Vollmann maintains a position of neutrality, why he refrains from developing a moral calculus as he would later attempt in relation to violence per se (in "Rising Up and Rising Down").
In the Preface, he mentions that "my attempts to do good [have] been disasters thus far." Hence, he resolves to be a mere Recording Angel instead.
As a blonde in "The Visible Spectrum" laughingly exclaims, "Oh, shit! How passive!"
I don't expect Vollmann to feel middle class guilt. However, I would like to get a better understanding of the reasons for his silence.
Is he prepared to sit back and let Ayn Randian Social Darwinism work its way through society ad infinitum?
After all, he does so much more than other authors to make sure that what happens on the street is made known through fiction. Why does he stop at mere reportage?
Inside the Nihilist Cocoon
Vollmann writes for, or is read by, primarily an audience of (mainly male) white college graduates who are well versed in literary theory and continental philosophy.
He ventures onto the street on our behalf, so we can remain seated in front of and behind our computer screens. He perpetuates our belief that we are street-wise and hip. However, equally, he allows us to sit back and belittle the liberal left who, for good or bad reasons, think of these issues as problems and try to do something constructive about them.
Vollmann's fiction runs perilously close to being easily-digested fodder for solipsism that ironically denies the reality outside the digital cocoon of the 21st century middle class.
Inside the cocoon, solipsism becomes nihilism, and nihilism becomes nothingness.
Stations of Whose Cross?
Fellow novelist Madison Smartt Bell argues that, "If [Vollmann] is the god of his own texts, he offers himself up for crucifixion every time.”
I'm not sure whether that's the case, or if it is, whether it is deliberate.
Vollmann portrays himself as an Angel or the Holy Ghost, not Jesus Christ (who after all was the one who was crucified).
Besides, the wounds that he shows us are those of his characters, not his own. His rationale, the motto for this collection:
"The prettiest thing is the darkest darkness."
It's possible that Vollmann has more adequately addressed his neutral stance in later works and interviews. If so, I haven't seen what he has to say. However, on the strength of this book alone, he leaves himself open to charges of literary voyeurism. The result of his effort is often more profane than divine.
If Vollmann just wants to observe and report, there is a risk his work might never transcend journalism and, like yesterday's news, it might end up being ephemeral.
If he addresses these concerns, I hope that future readers might regard his body of work as truly visionary. He has all the chops. I just don't know (yet, on the basis of my limited reading) whether he has the will.
Peter De Smidt - "Recording Angel"
http://www.peterdesmidt.com/index.htm
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Record...
VERSE:
Ode to Drano
Course heavy crystals.
Being and Dranothingness.
Blue sky, blue heaven.
SOUNDTRACK:
"George Harrison & Friends - "Absolutely Sweet Marie"
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I_-SewBG8dw
I would have included Dylan's version as well, but his record company has limited what is available on YouTube.
Nick Cave - "Into My Arms"
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FG0-cncMpt8
REPRISE:
The Mystery of Sixes
I was sitting in a corner writing down notes on my last client, when I sensed a shadow move over me. I looked up at a guy, lean, muscular, taller than me, clothed in jeans, t-shirt and tats.
"Are you the lawyer?" he shot at me.
"Well, sort of."
"Can you get me out of jail?"
"It depends. What's the charge?"
"Drink driving."
"I can get you out today...but I can't guarantee you won't get back in."
He laughed. "You mightn't be able to, but I can!"
That was how I met Bez. I got him out on remand, and I was his new best friend. I didn't think I'd ever see him again. He was working on the gas fields.
A month later I was glad to feel his shadow over me again. I'd bumped into a punk at the bar at a gig, and straight away he had me on my back on the floor. He was about to kick me in the head with his Docs.
"Hey suit, is that you?"
Bez pulled his mate, Banger, away and dragged me off the ground.
"This is my attorney," he announced to all and sundry. As far as he was concerned, I had worked some kind of miracle to get him out of prison.
We kept running into each other at gigs. I was actually on the door for the Iggy Pop concert and they were all there. When I got time off to watch the band, I found myself up the front, where Bez had broken a glass on a table and then dived, shirtless, onto the broken glass. There was blood everywhere. Even Iggy stopped to watch.
Bez and Banger decided that they were going to start up a punk band. Bez was singer and Banger, needless to say, was the drummer.
I saw them half a dozen times over three or four months. They were actually pretty good. A triumph of energy over skill. The Mystery of Sixes.
One night after a gig, Banger came up to me and said that the police had been hassling him outside the club. Would I come out and help him?
I stupidly agreed. As we walked through the door, he told me that one of them had stolen his pen. I shrugged my head in disbelief. "I don't give a shit about your pen."
We went down the steps. I was going to introduce myself respectfully to the two cops, neither of whom looked familiar, sort something out, and go our separate ways.
As we approached the road where they were standing, I asked Banger, "Which one was it?"
He pointed ostentatiously at one of them, "That one, the fat cunt with the mo." It was a bit too loud for my comfort.
That was the end of my suave act. They soon had me held down on the bonnet of their car, until I told them I was a lawyer.
They let go of me, took my details, asked me where my car was (it was in the car park across the road, though I was going to leave it there overnight, because my girlfriend, Drea, and I had had a few drinks too many).
Eventually they told both of us to fuck off. Banger asked about his pen. "Didn't you hear what I just said?" It was the fat cunt.
The following morning, Drea and I caught a bus into the city to pick up my car. I'd had a few more drinks with Bez and Banger after the police incident, and I was still a bit nervous about whether I might be over the limit. About 100 meters down the road, we passed a stationary police car and stopped at the lights. Suddenly, the car pulled out from the curb, and its siren started. I was hoping they weren't after me, but they pulled up next to us, and waved me over.
I got out of the car, suspecting they were going to breath test me or else it had something to do with the night before.
"What have I done?"
"It's not you, mate. It's your girlfriend. She poked her tongue at us when you drove past."
I laughed, and they took me through the whole note taking routine again. They were both fat cunts, only different.
The Mystery of Sixes put out a single and it got a lot of airplay for a couple of months on Triple Z.
Then the word got around that they had stolen their equipment from another band. The station called a staff meeting to impose a ban on playing their music and letting them play at Triple Z gigs.
I stuck up for them, Bez would have been proud. I said that until the police took some action, there was no proof, that it was up to the court to punish them, not us, and that it would be censorship if we banned them. The vote for the ban was carried 16-1.
Within a year, three of the band were in jail, and the Mystery of Sixes were no more. Their first single sells for over $400 now. -
The Rainbow Stories is a Rainbow Coalition of our societal remains, our tramps, homeless, drunks, prostitutes, skinheads, residents of morgues, terrorists and lab technicians, immigrants, Hebrews in fiery furnaces, and industrial artists. I am tempted to read Rainbow Stories as a novel because it looks like a novel, and I want it to be a novel. Perhaps it could be done. It is no mere collection, but an assemblage of related thematic and experiential material. We should not be misled into thinking that these Rainbows are short stories written in the tradition of the Poe short story, but are instead simply Stories and portraits.
Vollmann is writing in the tone of his major influences, the surrealists, such as Comte de Lautrèamont, and the saga literature of the Scandinavians. From the surrealists he takes the form for his sentences, large and imaginative, extending into metaphors such as can only present themselves to a precise, playful, attentive and expansive mind. The saga tradition is antecedent to the modern tradition of the novel with its attendant interest in psychological realism. This tradition is epic in which characters are fully themselves, with no hidden kernel which might be mined; all is surface. All that is is as seen and told. Added to this is Vollmann’s journalistic commitment to record and render characters as they show themselves, to pass on the story as heard and believed, not inventing a false interiority or overlaying an I-know-better skepticism, but respectfully allowing his panoply of characters their own skins of exteriority. Thus, although he inserts himself into his stories, for in truth, there he is, his pieces do not resemble the New Journalism school but rather more the cool objectivizing of a Robbe-Grillet. These background influences provide Vollmann with a voice which does not intrude where it is not welcomed. But for a contemporary reader who is accustomed to eavesdropping on characters’ most intimate thoughts and feelings, the effect can be alienating and cold. This is the risk that Vollmann’s respectful (in the Kantian sense) fiction takes. It becomes the reader’s responsibility to exercise his/her empathy, not relying upon the author to leap in on the reader’s behalf.
A few indicators as to the nature of these Rainbow Stories:
The White Knights -- A portrait of San Francisco skinheads.
Red Hands -- An IRA bomber meets a lab technician killing mice.
Ladies and Red Lights -- A portrait of Vollmann’s Tenderloin.
Scintillant Orange -- You have never heard the story of the three Hebrew boys who stood their ground agains Nebuchadnezzar quite like this before.
Yellow Rose -- A story about Bill’s girlfriend, who is Vietnamese, and the attendant inter-cultural difficulties. Also, Bill is high on mushrooms.
The Yellow Sugar -- Shall we say that this may have come straight out of The Thousand and One Nights?
The Green Dress -- A man steals his neighbor's green dress. A love story.
The Blue Wallet -- Bill’s girlfriend loses her blue wallet. Skinheads are involved.
The Blue Yonder -- The story of the Drano killer of Golden Gate Park. Do you hear Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?
The Indigo Engineers -- We enter the world of the Survival Research Laboratories and learn about their sinister (human) machines. Also, the story of a family escaping from Warsaw in 1944.
Violet Hair: A Heideggerian Tragedy -- The Holy Ghost tempts Saint Catherine, a student of Heidegger’s Being and Time, to become a martyr. She dates Beelzebub.
Also, a few scenes of an emergency room triage and a few descriptions of X-rays.
The exquisite Vollmann from the Preface:These stories are about skinheads, X-ray patients, whores, lovers, fetishists and other lost souls. Some of you will not like them, but I ask you to consider the wise words of that forceps philosopher, Robert Gilmore McKinnell: “While it would be inappropriate to dedicate a vade mecum to a group of cold-blooded vertebrates, perhaps a kind word would not be out of order.” This has been one of my intentions. And yet single-minded kindness might prohibit kind words, or any words, because words only show the good to our eyes; they do not bring the good to our hearts. My attempts to do good, however, having been disasters thus far, I have become a mere recording angel instead of a Michael or Gabriel (in whom I do not believe). So much for that subject.
And to proceed to the other end of The Rainbow Stories, A Note from our author On the Truth of the Tales:I have not verified any of the claims, reminiscences, yarns and anecdotes told me. But neither have I altered their content. They are as they are. Why should I care whether they are true or not? When someone tells me a story it is probably true for him; if not, why cannot I make it true for me? If I were perfect, I would believe everything I heard. -- To reverse the dictum of Hassan the Assassin, “All is true: Nothing is permissible.” -- In my scholarly edition of the Bible are footnotes explaining the Divine in terms of the merely meteorological. But it would seem no less admirable to explain the meteorological in terms of the Divine. Surely I can know more than I see. I did not see Bootwoman Marisa’s tooth get pulled out with pliers. But I will believe her anyhow. -- Neither would it matter to me if there were no Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. The issue is what I would do if my King were going to cast me in the Burning Fiery Furnace. If you object to my gullibility, I envy you; you will build great steel logic-castles, I am sure, whereas my roof has been leaking for three years.
-
Approaching The Rainbow Stories as a piece of fiction is complicated. Mr. Vollmann was living in San Francisco at the time, and in various interviews he has spoken of the considerable portion of time that he spent hanging out in the city’s infamous Tenderloin District. Subsequent pieces of fiction such as Whores for Gloria and The Royal Family were not only set in the same downtrodden part of town, but these works were more or less directly based on interviews and conversation that Vollmann had with the Tenderloin’s seedy and depraved denizens. And while referring to past life experiences as a fount of information for story writing is nothing new to the world of literary fiction, there should be established, a fine demarcation between a creative recapitulation of the events that occurred, and that of mere reportage of those same events. A majority of this collection is set in San Francisco, particularly in the Tenderloin, although Vollmann does stretch his material a bit; included in this collection is his take on the Hebrew Book of Daniel, and a riff on the famous tales of the Thugee cult in British India, a story originally written by Phillip Meadows Taylor entitled Confessions of a Thug.
Beginning with the story White Knights Vollmann digs right into his Tenderloin material chronicling the aimless adventures of a group of skinheads in the eighties that went by the gang name the Skinz. This comes subsequently after an intro describing various emergency room grotesqueries. The narrative voice that establishes itself in this first story is notable in that this was the point at which Vollmann made the artistic transition from the unwieldy storytelling perspectives of You Bright and Risen Angels to the focused objectivity that hangs around to record the phenomenon of this particular counter-culture group. It’s a telling stylistic leap, and in this sense, the two books sound as if they were written by completely different authors. While his first novel dallied in the historical fables of non-existent revolutionaries, this collection begins in an urban reality too specifically crass and racially decadent to sound like fiction. And of course Vollmann doesn’t really judge the Skinz; he’s merely a recording angel here, someone who isn’t exactly reporting on their lives in order to see what makes them tick. This distance works because he cleverly avoids judgment. What he seems more interested in is the question of what exactly it is that skinheads do all day long.
From there he takes the reader into the red, touring the streets of the Loin in search of loose women. At this point in his career, Vollmann’s preoccupation with prostitutes has been firmly established. You could say that he’s sort of cornered the market when it comes to writing about whores. Once again, Vollmann, Bill, or our mysterious narrator, is merely an observer. The structure of this collection begins to reveal itself rather heavily in this part; infinitesimally brief interviews are interrupted by even shorter punch-lines about human depravity. Vollmann builds a rhythm as he cuts up the journalistic elements with the fictional interludes to the point at which the stories themselves become literary collages of real life.
From there, he abruptly delves into the story of Mes’hach, Shad’rach, and Abednego being cast into the Burning Fiery Furnace by Nebuchadnezzar. Considering this biblical story along with the tale of Jhora Naek (the celebrated leader of the Multan Thugs, inspiration for the Thugee), it’s tempting to give Vollmann the benefit of the doubt and look upon these chronologically and geographically disparate fables as allegorical asides; a comment on the retribution that Vollmann’s Bay Area derelicts seem to be so deserving of. Unfortunately, these two tales don’t fit into this story collection as comfortable as that. Assuming that he earned readers’ trust with the accessibly open humanity of the contemporary San Francisco tales, it seems that Vollmann aims to take random liberties with the direction of the theme, with such disregard for his audience that he'd be happy if they were still following him, but if not, it doesn't matter either way.
Other stories, such as The Green Dress, and The Indigo Engineers explore disconnected themes of absurdist lust and bleak technocracy. They differ from the Tenderloin material in that there is no element of journalistic observation, nor does there seem to be any attempt at homage or revision. They’re sort of like the literary fiction equivalent of abstract paintings, or linguistic playthings created by a bored postmodernist.
The Blue Yonder – another Tenderloin story – stands out as the finest in this collection. Vollmann tells the tale of a serial killer, referred to as The Zombie, who begins rubbing out a good portion of the homeless population of Golden Gate Park. The killer’s pathological disgust for the filthiness of the homeless informs this story with a profound sort of pathos. There is also a cinematic aspect of horror to this tale; the killer's trademark is to fill the maws of his victims with Drano after getting them righteously wasted on Night Train. In the most unsettling portion of the story, Vollmann even goes into graphic detail, describing an autopsy of one of the victims. In ridiculously lofty prose, Vollmann reads her sick body – her internal organs malformed by decades of alcohol abuse – like a book.
“Evangeline’s liver was a chapter entitled: “What I Wanted.” The text was short, but not without pathos: “I wanted to feel loved and warm and happy and dizzy,” Evangeline had written. “I wanted to live in the Blue Yonder. I wanted to live in the blue sky and the sun. I wanted to be my own person. I got everything that I wanted.” - The Pathologist went on snipping and snipping.”
The loose, underlying thematic conceit of these stories is that they follow the visible color spectrum. Any attempt to draw an overall social message from The Rainbow Stories is a critical exercise in futility. While many of the stories seem ripe for that sort of thing, Vollmann's journalistic tendencies restrain him from suggesting solutions for these social ills, or even trying to understand them for that matter. The inclusion of every color-fueled vignette in this collection is driven by the earnest impulses of a writer pursuing every authorial conviction that he has. This occasionally has a seemingly deplorable affect on Vollmann’s prose. The narrator speaks in a pedantic voice; overwritten sentences, unwieldy metaphors, and embarrassing similes. And yet The Rainbow Stories seemed to solidify this uncompromising style of Vollmann’s as something admirable, while simultaneously not devoid of a hint of self-deprecating humor. It’s tempting to think that, in Vollmann’s case, critics might be overlooking the casual irony in subtitling one of the stories “A Heideggarian Tragedy”. He’s occasionally gullible, but to suggest that he gave the final tale, Violet Hair such a pretentious subtitle without an element of humor, probably says more about the gullibility of some critics than it does of Vollmann. -
Loved the street-smart reportage-cum-fiction parts—a blast of surprising grit, candour and pulsing realism all too rare in this navelgazing era. ‘The White Knights’ and ‘Ladies and Red Lights’ is rich in powerful, electrifying vignettes as Vollmann restricts his prose to a splendidly unshowy, detached and oddly empathetic voice. Unfortunately, what follows failed to provoke any reaction from me other than befuddlement and boredom—one cod-Talmudic story, written in a zanily biblical style, and one mind-numbing historical tale about a Chinese Thug gang were endured in the hope of finer things. The awkward romance stories about frolicking yuppies, especially ‘Yellow Rose,’ are precisely the sort of late-eighties all-smart-and-rich-young-people-are-fascinating efforts that Goodreads users rightly treat with contempt, although as stories they are mildly entertaining. But the onslaught of ‘The Blue Yonder,’ a nigh-unreadable stream of codswallop, close to DFW at his most Mister Squishy-like—the prose gummed to death by an overworked, self-regarding flashiness that eliminates all reader involvement, settling instead for vague templates for characters like ‘The Other’ and ‘The Zombie’—pulls the book into the realm of insufferable opaque quasi-philosophical dribbling that does not merit my attention for 180 more pp. Stopped on p360. More Vollmann? TBD . . .
-
"En realidad ¡estúpido de mí!, yo creía que llamar por teléfono a una prostituta sería menos solitario que escuchar a través de las puertas cerradas de habitaciones en las que la gente veía la televisión y reía a solas."
"Historias del Arcoíris" es el segundo libro de relatos que leo de Vollmann y aunque leerle puede resultar agotador, en el sentido de que le exige mucho al lector por su obsesión a la hora de involucrarse con ciertos temas, también es cierto que el cuento puede ser un formato ideal para acercarse a él porque aquí tenemos una colección de historias, unas menos breves que otras, sobre personas (muy reales) que viven la mayoría de ellos en los límites de una sociedad que los rehúye y no quiere saber nada de ellos, y aunque los creamos muy alejados de nuestras vidas, en el fondo de lo que se nos está hablando es de gente que tiene las mismas necesidades que el resto de nosotros: el rastro que dejan las emociones, los vínculos a la hora de establecer relaciones y sobre todo la exploración de una soledad crónica, uno de los males endémicos de nuestra sociedad, una soledad que se ve reflejada a las mil maravillas en esas vitrinas de cristal dónde ellas se muestran a sus clientes…
"Tal vez se sintiera de ese modo porque Virginia tenía que enseñarle a la gente día y noche partes de sí misma que las mujeres solo se guardan para las personas a las que aman, por lo que al novio de Virginia le quedaba menos de ella para él, y eso le dolía, así que quería guardarse lo que quedaba de ella únicamente para sí mismo, como esos hombres que rumiaban melancólicamente en las cabinas negras contiguas."
A veces me he preguntado qué tipo de persona puede ser Bill Vollmann porque es capaz de pasar de la sordidez más áspera e incluso repulsiva cuando, por ejemplo, nos está relatando quizá un episodio entre prostitutas y sus chulos en el barrio de Tenderloin usando un lenguaje que podría repelernos y hacernos huir de sus textos para siempre, y de repente y casi inesperadamente cambia de registro y puede convertir un párrafo o una idea en un poema exquisito. Es este cambio de registro y esta forma de indagar en la esencia del ser humano lo que más me puede fascinar de este autor, y haciendo memoria no se me ocurre a ningún otro escritor ahora mismo que tenga esta capacidad camaleónica de camuflarse con sus personajes, interactuar y convertirse en uno de ellos y poco después pasar a ser un observador y un escritor.
"-¿Cómo te llamas?
- Sugar.
- Te daré cinco dólares por hablar contigo.
- ¿Solo vas a hablar?
- Escribo historias sobre personas -dije-. Eso hago."
El arcoíris del título, puedo intuir, hace referencia a un caleidoscopio de luces y colores que resuenan no solo en el título de cada relato (Rosa Amarilla, Damas y luces rojas, El vestido verde, La cartera azul, Pelo Violeta…) sino a su vez en el nexo que cada color pudiera tener con la esencia de cada historia o también toda una forma de vida asociada a un color. Skinheads, prostitutas, algún asesino en serie, vagabundos, alcohólicos… todos ellos asociados a un color o no, porque algunas veces es fácil relacionarlos pero otras veces la pista que nos da el autor puede resultar tan impenetrable que es casi imposible para el lector establecer esa conexión entre el color del arcoíris y la vida o la historia que nos está mostrando. Aunque quién mejor lo explica es el mismo Edgar A. Poe en la cita elegida por Vollmann al comienzo: las miserias humanas a través de los colores del arcoíris...
“Y a veces también me gusta montarme en los autobuses por la noche, cuando puedo pagarme un ticket de última hora. Nada más dar una vuelta y volver a casa, eso es todo. Pero la única actividad que espero con ganas es mirar la oscuridad, sabes."
Lo que sí es evidente es que la mayor virtud de Vollmann es colocarse en la piel del personaje que tiene enfrente, porque él, Bill, ha vivido entre ellos, ha interactuado, se ha enamorado de ellas y esto es palpable en el texto continuamente. Como periodista se camufla entre sus personajes porque quiere conocerles mejor, los disecciona como si estuviera en un laboratorio y es muy evidente que se vuelve obsesivo a la hora de querer indagar en un entorno concreto, pero al mismo tiempo se está convirtiendo en uno de ellos y se mimetiza así que conecta con ellos, lo que convierte sus textos en un exponerse a sí mismo continuamente; como cuando habla de su relación con las mujeres, la forma en que las idealiza, desde la prostituta más olvidada, o Marisa, la skinhead, pasando por Jenny, su novia coreana, así hasta llegar a Catherine, la estudiante de Heidegger.
"-¿Idealizas a las mujeres? -me preguntó Catherine en voz baja.
- Lo intento- dije yo.
Ella era como un árbol elegante que sombreara algún estanque de aguas claras donde su propio reflejo quedara alterado."
(…)
"Y ello a pesar de que nunca había tocado la delicada red que tenía ella entre los dedos. (Tenía una concepción de ella bastante idealizada, cuando en realidad era únicamente un espíritu-llama con la misma capacidad de amar que él mismo. ¿Es posible que uno anhele un ideal de ese tipo?)"
(…)
“Hay mujeres tan asociales que parecen perfectas. No es que se oculten, ni (lo que aún es menos probable) que los hombres eviten entablar contacto con ellas con el fin de imprimir a sus rostros un un misterio espurio; pero nos agrada creer que existe un mundo femenino secreto.
El contacto continuado deforma la imagen a ojos de los hombres. Por eso nos amamos mejor cuando no nos conocemos. Las mujeres atractivas, amables unas, agresivas otras, no bien nos impresionan cuando ya han desaparecido. Las retraídas permanecen. Pienso ahora en aquella mujer que se definía casi por completo por su vestido verde."
En "Historias del arcoíris" hay una mezcla entre horror y belleza que en momentos se convierte casi en una experiencia hipnótica. Hubo un par de historias que se me hicieron muy cuesta arriba y que me parecieron como una montaña inexpugnable a la que no pude llegar, como por ejemplo "Naranja Centelleante", pero así y todo, incluso en un relato tan denso, impenetrable y difícil, hay momentos memorables de una belleza inesperada:
“Cuando ella le sonreía ligeramente desde el fuego, a él la felicidad le duraba todo el día, y su corazón irradiaba rayos de una NARANJA LLAMEANTE. Cuando (como ocurría con frecuencia) le ignoraba, él se valoraba a sí mismo por debajo del carbón doblemente quemado."
A continuación algunas reflexiones sobre algunos de los relatos que más me gustaron:
- Rosa Amarilla: un relato sobre la novia coreana de Bill Vollmann, Jenny, que le sirve de excusa para abordar la falta de comunicación, y hablar por milésima vez sobre el ideal femenino.
"Estar enamorado sin ser amado no difiere de remar en una barca con fondo de cristal, que permita ver tanto la luz verde y reluciente de la charca como su sedimento turbio; al no estar obstaculizado el amor por las virtudes y los vicios de ella (dado que le eres indiferente) avanzas por la superficie de tu amada, dejando a tu espalda olas de la menor duración imaginable. Estás solo.
La barca te pesa y expone tus intimidades a su mirada, hasta que no te queda otra que aliarte con la siguiente tormenta para hacerla zozobrar. Cuando la amas y ella te corresponde, en vuestra desesperación por estar juntos olvidaréis quien está en la barca y quién en el agua, y uno de los dos irrumpiréis en la luz verde y lo VEREIS TODO con los ojos extáticos del ahogado antes de caer lentamente hacia el fondo."
- El vestido verde, un relato pornográfico: un hombre se obsesiona con una mujer, su vecina, pero realmente de lo que se enamora es del vestido verde de ella, y llegado un punto, lo roba del armario de su vecina y lo convierte en su ideal de mujer. Aquí Vollmann describe perfectamente las fases del amor a través de ese fetichismo obsesivo.
"... y los hombros de mi vecina se convertían en verdes praderas inclinadas, y el corpiño de gasa de mi adorable vestido verde flotaba sobre el cuerpo de ella como una marea negra de un verde irisado en un charco del atardecer.”
- Damas y luces rojas: Un retrato sobre las prostitutas en el barrio de Tenderloin, otro tema que obsesiona a Vollmann por su vuelta continuada a ellas en varios de sus libros. Las adora, las idealiza y las entiende.
"...y se puso a hablar conmigo a través del cristal con sus ojos tristes expresándose con mayor intensidad pues yo no podía oír ni una palabra de lo que ella estaba diciendo; era como si estuviera atrapada en una cabina telefónica y se asfixiara lentamente...."
- La Inmensidad Azul: es la historia más larga, casi una novela en sí misma y está basada en un hecho real sobre un asesino en serie que asesinó a varios vagabundos y prostitutas pero nunca fue encontrado, y aquí Vollmann crea un asesino en serie dividido entre dos personalidades, y a medida que va elaborando estos asesinatos, al mismo tiempo crea el retrato de sus víctimas en una especie de relato coral. En este relato Vollmann no se corta un pelo a la hora de recrear la violencia, pero es a la vez un relato poético y melancólico, una mezcla explosiva. Una de sus mejores historias.
“Bajo la Inmensidad Azul, a veces es esencial parecer despierto cuando se está dormido, y parecer inconsciente cuando se está escuchando y vigilando con nerviosismo."
- Pelo Violeta, una tragedia heideggeriana: El Espiritú Santo quiere tentar a Catherine, estudiante de Heidegger, y él mismo Vollmann es un personaje más en la historia y no podía ser otra forma ya que es otro relato sobre su idealización de la mujer.
"...y su pelo sedoso parecía poseer tres tonalidades diferentes de violeta. Las hebras de pelo violeta de Catherine vivían juntas en bellas trenzas o hermosas marañas, como ella dictara, y se visitaban las unas a las otras cuando soplaba el viento."
(...)
"A la luz del sol su pelo era translúcido. Era perseverante e irrefutable."
(...)
"El pelo de Catherine le colgaba detrás como la cola violeta de un meteorito. Su pelo me tenía destrozado. ´Si yo quisiera escribir algo indescriptible´ dijo Stephanie, ´mi vida sería sentir ese algo y luego describir las sensaciones que experimente´, por lo que le rocé el pelo a Catherine y hundí la cara en él..."
Resulta casi contradictorio pensar que un escritor tan terrenal como Vollmann, que ha vivido además en propia carne los ambientes más chungos y sórdidos junto a las vidas más desesperanzadas, tenga ese concepto tan idealizado del amor. En estos relatos Vollmann vuelve una y otra vez al tema del amor anhelado, el imaginado o idealizado en su cabeza y lo mezcla con un cierto sentido del humor algo más áspero, seco y amargo, como si en este humor se escondiera la imposibilidad de que este deseo anhelado existiera realmente y solo pudiera convertirse en pura realidad a través de la ficción que es capaz de recrear. No sé hasta qué punto estas historias son reales o totalmente ficticias, pero es evidente que a Vollmann le va la vida en ellas.
"(Hay que abogar por alcanzar la meta final de las pasiones con la mayor lentitud posible, demorándose en cada estado, el primer beso, la declaración de amor, las progresivas maniobras sexuales; porque existe en la vida un ansia continua de escalada, y bien podría ser que después de conseguirla a ella y de que ella te haya conseguido a ti, ya no quede nada más que hacer.)"
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2022... -
Vollmann is so endlessly fascinating. This is probably my favorite of his books I've read because it's so raw and real and harsh and gritty, unlike the one where there's a race of bug-people in the sewers, and it's punchy and succinct, unlike the ones that traipse and meander on for hundreds and thousands of pages. This is definitely not for the faint of heart, with stories about hookers and junkies dying in hospitals and skinheads fucking shit up (just for starters), but it's this super-intense slice-of-life of old San Francisco, and it's cruel and devastating and great.
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"Las pequeñas vanidades de aquellos a quienes la raza humana ha excretado resultan tan siniestras debido a que por ellas sabemos que por fuerza ha de haber consciencia en el interior de esos cráneos".
3.5. -
-THE ADVENTURES OF BILL-
in which our hero is…
___________________________________
blown by a prostitute; eats ‘shrooms; muses about WWII; hangs out with skinheads; shows a serial killer’s duality; witnesses Beelzebub buy a stiletto and covet his CD collection (!); speaks phonetic Korean; reimagines The Book of Daniel; lives amongst the homeless; escapes the Thugs of the Tenderloin and Ancient Arabia alike; becomes the Holy Ghost; and much, much more!
___________________________________
[“Reader, do you consider yourself a Sneaky Soldier? I know that I am one, plodding, sneaking, sneaking across my concrete days, while something big and bad comes after me. I know that I must admire myself and every other Sneaky Soldier for trying, however unsuccessfully, to sneak away.
When I see an infant clutching for his shiny plastic toys, or sucking at the breast, I am sad, because I know that he will die, and the manipulations which he is learning can do no more than help him get through life.”]
A few friends and I often discuss who will replace the living writers we most venerate. Now that most are septuagenarians and octogenarians it is a sad fact that, despite their superhuman literary feats, they are actually mortal and will thusly be dispatched sooner than not. Who will fill the shoes of Pynchon and McElroy? (Amy Tan.) The pants of DeLillo and Gass? (Amy Tan.) The four-buttoned, two-pocketed cardigans of Ōe and McCarthy? (Amy Tan.) I for one hold out hope for this Billy Vollman kid ‘cause this firecracker sure knows how to dazzle. A soon as the Lifetime Network gets done making Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat (no shit, that's a real book by Amy Tan), I hope they set their sights on producing this collection for Basic Cable television.
No kidding: “Red Hands” and “The Blue Wallet” are as close as this tough guy gets to the ‘feminine’ emotions. These two, likely the most straightforward in The Rainbow Stories, just tore through to the bone for me. A lot of the others have the WTV-patented prose that make his pages SING, but that pair have altered me irrevocably. The last line in “The Blue Wallet” is one of the most perfect endings of anything I’ve ever read. Along with the very brief epilogue, it crushes you. If you own a copy, go re-read that last bitsy page and tell me that your heart doesn’t break at least a little. Go on, I’ll wait—I brought me some Amy Tan along to read.
By the way, I learned to italicize! (amytan) -
The losers win again...
…or do they? The Rainbow Stories is - from where I’m sitting - a difficult book to discuss on the whole, predominantly with respect to its taxonomy (or lack thereof). It’s an assemblage of writing that is somehow both in want of and hostile towards classification. Novel… memoire… short story collection… all of the above? Having completed it, I’m finding myself flicking through it absently, and wondering how I’m going to pitch it to a passing set of eyes in 2200 characters or less. Luckily, this community is filled with readers a lot sharper than myself to do the cognitive heavy lifting for me, and so I’ll borrow from the inimitable @Vollmannia co-host @jordanrothacker in describing it as “a journey into a psyche, in a particular time and place”. Expertly put Jordan, as always.
The time in question, is the mid- to late-80’s; the place is the overturned, moss and lichen encrusted rock that is the Tenderloin District of San Fransisco, where all manner of human detritus come to break bread. Early as I may be in my Vollmann journey, this is by and large the darkest of his books I’ve read. Despite its technicolour framing device, the text is occupied almost exclusively with a symphonic rot of human soul (not to be confused with an absence of one). White supremacists, self-immolating oncological patients, engineers of torture devices, drano-wielding serial killers; these are truly some of the most unsavoury characters I’ve had the misfortune of meeting in literature. Yet for all their villainy, Vollmann uncomfortably positions his reader into a viewpoint of empathy, and by the end that reader has been given at least a small window behind the eyes of people who we often view as empty vessels. The have-nots, the preterite, the counterculture left to dissolve. Vollmann loves them all, or at very least views them and their stories worthy of his pen.
An incredible collection and yet another foundational text in my discovery of a new favourite author. 3 down… countless to go. -
There's a tissue and pulse, a taught tendon and a sturdy construction of bone and muscle that connects the thirteen works in Vollmann's The Rainbow Stories. One immediately thinks that a collection of short stories and novellas is merely that, a collection, but what Vollmann has created here can also be considered a novel of ideas, in as much as a novel can be a collection of similar ideas and notions. Characters reemerge two hundred pages later. Locations, streets and neighborhoods and motives, become each story's lifeblood. Remarkably, Vollmann packs each story with about as many memorable lines as one three hundred page novel, and he somehow does so in a such a way it is fluid and natural and unburdening - even if the run-on sentences and footnotes tend to get in the way for a short while.*
Via firsthand accounts (Vollmann's interaction with said subjects aren't journalistic so much as they are experiences he's jotted down and misinterpreted or elaborated, sometimes on purpose to get a point across or to move a plot line forward), we go from "The White Knights" and its grimy and honest portrayal of the San Francisco Nazi movement, which isn't so much a movement as it is a last stand (They used to go into bars and pick fights, punch people in the face when they didn't like the way they looked...It is not my aim, however, to describe these old times of violent freedom, for this record was made in the decline of their movement, when most of the bars had bounced them out for good; and they sat around in their middle twenties muttering about how it used to be), then there is "Yellow Rose," Vollmann's most passive work in the collection, an unrequited love story with psychedelic mushrooms, which eventually reconnects the themes and characters previously in "The Blue Wallet," which is not only about his unrequited love, but also about his skinhead friends. There is the abstract "The Green Dress" where our narrator/author obsesses over certain articles of clothing (it's not the bodies themselves he's in love with and how the fabric falls on their lines and curves, but the flexibility of the fabric itself that entices), and then "Ladies and Red Lights," where Vollmann pays prostitutes for life stories, not sex; he remarks on the spectrum of faces he meets: Jamaika was beautiful. A beautiful face can never be described. The colors of its self lie so far beyond this wretched visible spectrum in which I am usually confined that I can only write captions for missing paintings of whores' faces: pertness, anxiety, desperation, loneliness, hideousness - there they were, those faces, glowing in the red lights. One of my favorite stories, "The Blue Yonder," the longest at one hundred pages, embarks on a journey between a protagonist (The Other) and an antagonist (The Zombie) (both occupy one and the same body, mind you), in the destitution of modern homelessness. Nowhere else does The Rainbow Stories make you an unbeliever in beauty than in this novella, where The Zombie - an old white-haired man who has the face of "moldy meat" - kills his victims with Drano in a grotesquely detailed manner. Then there is "The Indigo Engineers," about a monster truck rally-like show that's put on for the curious and ultra-violent. What do the indigo engineers engineer but intricate killing machines built for the sole purpose of tearing each other apart in greasy blood; they're tortured, these non-living constructs, just for the sake of entertainment. And why does this kind of depravity even have an audience? Vollmann even turns the question on the lowly reader who isn't raising his fists and screaming and cheering as he reads all the freakish detail. But by then we've come to the end of the book, and all these questions have already been answered.
These stories don't capture the seedy underbelly; they capture the month-old lint trapped in it. Hookers, drug addicts, serial killers, racists, martyred ex-lovers, and everything these "lowlifes" can't ever be from then on is neon. Vollmann's purpose with this book is to make us startlingly aware that the lowest scum and swine of the richest nation on Earth is a reflection of that clean and civilized upper class. The Zombie kills his victims, and in the background are San Francisco's skyscrapers of success and the Golden Gate Bridge. And Those things happened, because the innocent always fall short of the advantaged, and those who live in the Wild Blue Yonder were doomed to be devoured by the monsters of the place. But when the single color realizes that together they are beautiful and worthy of living a happy life, a rainbow will be born. Vollmann, in this case, is just the guy pulling the strings to make us believe so. On the other hand, The White Knights have rationalized this in their own way: What more, after all, could anyone yearn for in in his guts than the chance to hurt somebody else, jawkicking a soul to screaming subhumanness in order to reiterate that I live? - "Politics," I once heard a conservative say, "is the exercise of power. Power is the ability to inflict pain." And then four hundred pages later, as Dr. Adelson assesses the homeless victims from "The Blue Yonder": One cannot categorize the huge number of ways in which people attempt to or succeed in killing one another.
A phenomenal work. Not all of the pieces are as unforgettable and ridiculously easy to read as the best, but The Rainbow Stories just further marks William T. Vollmann as one, if not, the greatest author alive.
It was said, anyway, as a girl looked upon the contraptions and mummified rodent skulls set outside the coliseum of destruction and violence known in "The Indigo Engineers," and as Vollmann so eloquently and matter-of-factly states as an engineer himself, "Ohhh," she said. "I really like it." I wondered whether Mark Pauline would have to cram it [the rodent skull] into her mouth before she understood that she was not supposed to like it.
* The funny inside joke takes place at the end of the first story, "The White Knights," in the chapter entitled, What the Skinheads Thought, where they confront Vollmann on his unfinished story. "Dude, I want to talk to you about your story," screamed Bootwoman Marisa very rapidly, "because it fucking sucks!" - "Well," said Bootwoman Dan-L, "my first reaction wasn't too positive. You need a lot of work with your grammar. You have a lot of run-on sentences." - "She knows," said Dickie, lighting up his bong. "She went to college." Effective run-on sentences shouldn't be jolting but bizarre and enlightening, which they are here, and sometimes up to a few pages or so. Vollmann's style echoes David Foster Wallace's (or is it the other way around?), including the use of footnotes, which are no more than a paragraph long (never mind entire chapters of footnotes Wallace incorporated into Infinite Jest). Both writers still share a neurotic will to let you in on almost everything, but Vollmann never forgets his reader. Vollmann trumps Wallace in sheer quantitative consummation of his subjects without all the cold mechanical sterility that is known by his peer, which is just a smarmy way of saying that Wallace could have been any number of things, but Vollmann had no other choice than to be a writer or archival representative of the numerous topics that fascinated him. It's all really simple when you think about it; if you have a tangent that needs addressing, put down one asterisk per page, and if it's really that important for one you'll never need more than a paragrpah to get your digression across.**
** See? -
Kalifornia is druggy druggy druggy druggy,
Kalifornia is druggy druggy druggy druggy,
Kalifornia is druggy druggy druggy druggy,
Kalifornia is druggy druggy druggy druggy,
Kalifornia is druggy druggy druggy druggy,
Kalifornia is druggy druggy druggy druggy,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AvAY... -
"The little vanities of those whom the human race has excreted are so sinister because we know by them that there must be consciousness in those skulls." - from the Blue Yonder
Indeed.
Rainbow Stories is the best portrait I've yet encountered of my adopted city. It makes me want to get to know my neighbors better. Mr. Vollmann is a great writer, a ferocious humanist. -
It's clear that Vollman is extremely intellectual. His mind seems capable of capturing, coming to terms with, and recombining a staggeringly encyclopedic amount of information in whatever way suits the thrust of his writing, moment-to-moment. In this book he follows the daily lives (quite often the more tedious and mundane moments, which are peppered with the disturbingly violent or shocking or grotesque) of people who inhabit the seedy underbelly of San Francisco. We read about the homeless population, skinheads, prostitutes, nihilists of all stripes, the author's failed attempt to marry a woman he was in love with, and in seeming randomness, the exploits of (17th century?, I forget...) Multan thugs. There's more that I'm not interested in mentioning.
Throughout all of these stories there is an unflinching look at the ugliness, the evil, and the crulety of the world, without redemption. I do not look at the world this way. And even if I did, I believe I would do much to change that, rather than wallow in it, or intellectualize at great length why I believe this to be the true nature of things.
My issues with this book are my own, and I understand that there is perhaps something much larger and more sophisticated than I fathom. I know that there must be a reason for the endless detail, the minutiae of the grotesque (including, at one point, a character emptying the contents of a garbage can over the course of three pages), and the themes that weave through each of these seemingly unrelated glimpses, pictures, and stories of these lives.
I imagine that for great minds there is an order, or a pattern that begins to emerge from the influx of a vast array of information over time--I think that this is what the human mind does: recognizes patterns and rationalizes the reason for these patterns existing. This is how we understand the world. Vollman's mind finds patterns in the world that I do not. And in the endless and, for me, exhausting presentation of facts, historical anecdotes, and obscure textual references to all manner of writings (like tunneling through wikipedia for hours at a time, while somehow maintaining a narrative momentum), I imagine Vollman sees a great and complex pattern that gets to the heart of the matter. I don't see the pattern emerge, though. I just see all the little dots, pops, clicks, and errant bits of line--little details, to me almost entirely meaningless in and of themselves. I imagine him presenting it all to me, silently and cynically, but resoundingly, and waiting for the great pattern, the great truth to dawn on me, as well. And I feel bad, but I just don't see it. Perhaps I just need to step farther back...Give it some time...Or though my mom tells me life is too short for this sort of thing, read another one of his books. I just hate feeling like I'm missing out on something profound because of my inability to perceive it. But I guess that's alright.
Also, his language lacks something poetic that I crave when I read. I love the beauty of language for it's own worth, and for the sublimity that it can bring to the real ideas being discussed or treated in a book. Vollman's writing is clever, and skilled, but lacking in the poetic.
I wouldn't recommend this to anyone that I know.
And that's okay. -
It's not just me. And it's not just me plagiarizing Moore. But listen to the world and it will tell you something interesting has been going on in American Letters these past few decades. I know the Germans have only recently been catching up with a menge of brick=translations. Just that we American readers prefer not to recognize it.
Spanish small press publisher I met recently is doing it all right! Pálido Fuego (yes, from Nabokov!) ::
http://www.palidofuego.com/ -
Find this boring... not particularly gritty or shocking or even authentic... The artifice kinda dulls the authenticity, anyway...
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A masterpiece, review to come.
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Che mondi sa animare Vollmann!
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3.5/5
This was a wild ride. Some stories were boring or confusing. But others were pretty great. Some even quite excellent.
Visible Spectrum 4/5 - Beautiful prose. Death and sickness :(
White Knights 3/5, but still worthwhile journalism, even if it seems like nothing is happening. A "day in the life" piece is always worthwhile, for my curious brain.
Red Hands 3.5/5 - This piece seemed to really resonate with others on GR. I found it a little lazy... A possible connection between an IRA activist/terrorist and a scientist doing animal research... that's a stretch.
Ladies and Red Lights 3/5 - Nothing much here...
Scintillating Orange 4/5 - A retelling of the Fiery Furnace and King Nebuchadnezzar. This one grows on you...be patient.
Yellow Rose 4/5 - This is some of my favourite kind of Vollmann writing: pure, open, unabashed, autobiographical, phenomenological, sweetness.
Yellow Suger: 3.5/5 - The lives of arabian thieves
Green Dress is CREEPY
Blue Wallet: 4/5 - Back to the Skinheadz. But Jenny is here too, and I love Jenny. I love love loved this story: "and you never will" *burst into tears"
Blue Yonder: 3/5 - Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde and the Drano Killer. It picked up a bit at the end with the autopsy: "How like a book the body is! We each write our life story in it, describing to perfection what was done to us, what was done by us. Evangeline's liver was a chapter entitled: "I wanted to feel loved and warm and happy and dizzy," Evangeline had written. "I wanted to live in the Blue Yonder. I wanted to live in the blue sky and the sun...""
The Indigo Engineers: 3.75/5 - Pretty great intercutting of a story of a boy who grew up in the Warsaw Ghetto being persecuted by the Nazis; and the Survival Research Laboratory's machines of destruction
Violet Hair: 2.5/5 Worst story in my opinion. Gets better by the end.
X-Ray: 4.5/5 WOW! Great way to bookend Visible Spectrum... beautiful stuff here.
Authors Note: 5/5 - I'm not kidding. -
So I didn't realize Vollmann was so, um, committed to his research:
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/06/mag... -
"If you object to my gullibility, I envy you; you will build great steel logic-castles, I am sure, whereas my roof has been leaking for three years. "
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I guess this is where I begin my DNF shelf. It's not the first book I've given up on, but it hasn't happened in quite some time. 180 pages in and I just can't do it anymore. The Ladies and Red Lights story was good. It was an on-the-ground view of the reality of sex work. Everything before that felt like it had some point but wasn't enjoyable. And the one after it which made me give up was uninteresting, seemingly meaningless, boring, and served no purpose in my eyes. Given I've heard that the collection stays with that tendency, there is no way I am going to force myself to complete this. Bleh.
So this is my second Vollmann that I don't like. 2/2. I may give him another chance as I have a copy of The Ice-Shirt and Whores for Gloria. But we'll see. -
What a ride, thankful I paid full price for the ticket.
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<3
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One day in Berkeley when I sat waiting for [Jenny] to come home from Korea, I got ribs at Flint's Bar-B-Q. One might as well do something while waiting. (I eat.) We are always waiting for something new to happen. So time passes, and so do our opportunities. - I sat under a tree in Ho Chih Minh Park, eating. Two dogs came up to me. I told them to go away, but one stayed, and I kicked him. He looked at me very patiently. Finally I decided to give him the bone that I had just finished, because he was being very patient and dignified; and anyhow it seemed a waste to drop the bone in the trash can, from where it would only be conveyed to some contaminated landfill. I threw the bone to him. He picked it up very quietly, hunkered down, and began to grind it in his mouth. every now and then he snarled, and I hypothesized that he was either (a) pretending to kill it, or (b) engaged in an irregular war with the barbeque sauce. I had ordered the hottest kind they had. It occurred to me that even if Jenny kicked me and yelled at me, I would be satisfied with whatever bone she threw me, even if it hurt to eat. So I made my peace with myself.
~~Vollmann's Rainbow Stories center around San Francisco in general, and the Tenderloin in particular. The above photograph shows a rainbow over Manila, Philippines. It arches over the city, in almost a benevolent fashion. Or maybe it's giving a grim contrast of beauty compared with urban grit and grim. "For X-rays see through the RED of our blood, the ORANGE and the YELLOW of our fatty tissues, the GREEN and BLUE of our intestines, the INDIGO of our dreams, the VIOLET of our preoccupations--and only the black and the white remain."
First two sentences: Bending and leaning on his crutches, a patient dwindled down the white glassy corridor, trying so hard to follow the red line that he was a joy to watch. -"You came at the wrong time, guy!" laughed the fellow at Radiology Reception.
Vollman has given us readers a rambling monster of a book which may or may not be founded in true stories. To quote the author in the afterward: "I have not verified any of the claims, reminiscences, yarns and anecdotes told me. But neither have I altered their content. [...] If you object to my gullibility, I envy you; you will build great steel logic-castles, I am sure, whereas my roof has been leaking for three years."
He organizes his reminiscences, yarns, and anecdotes by the colors of the rainbow.
1) "For X-rays see through the RED of our blood"--From the article at the bottom, "Red is a powerful color with strong emotion. It is a heavily pigmented color which naturally links it to strong feelings and emotions. Red is never used to illustrate weakness or subtlety. Instead, it is used in nearly every country and culture to designate danger or to issue a warning." We get two chapters here. One briefly follows a terrorist, and the other dives into the world of prostitution.
2) "The ORANGE and the YELLOW of our fatty tissues"--From the article, "Orange is a warm, vibrant color. It is typically a happy color that makes people feel friendly and comfortable." Here we get a jarringly odd story lifted from the Biblical tale of Mes'hach, Shad'rach, and Abed'nego and the fiery furnace. Modern day technology is occasionally woven into the ancient tale--see one of the quotes at the bottom. There's also a love affair with a flame nymph. This particular story dragged. Then yellow--"The most luminous color in the rainbow, yellow is known to capture our attention more easily than any other color. (Perhaps this is why the most common highlighter color is yellow!)" Vollmann's yellow chapter chronicles the narrator's mostly one-sided love affair with a young Asian woman.
3) "The GREEN and BLUE of our intestines"-- "Green is also a bit of a dichotomy. On one hand, green represents life and growth; on the other hand, it represents envy." The green chapter captured my attention, and is ironic given the definition here. The narrator envies his neighbor her dress, because he is in love with the inanimate object. Then, "The color of the sky and the ocean, blue represents peace, relaxation, and stability." Quite the opposite in the novel, we have 2 blue chapters. One quick one where a Neo-nazi bootwoman goes slightly insane when she misplaces her blue wallet. That chapter is followed "The Blue Yonder", a painfully long decent into the schizophrenic mind of The Zombie.
4) "The INDIGO of our dreams"--"A mix of purple and blue, indigo is the color of the midnight sky. Because of this, indigo encourages individuals to think more deeply about life and has strong connections to spiritualism and inward thinking." Vollman gives us a strange futuristic chapter, "The Indigo Engineers" where scientists create machines who fight to the "death" for the entertainment of crowds.
5) "The VIOLET of our preoccupations"--"People who are around the color violet report feeling more empathetic and kind, for example. Violet is also associated with individuality and selflessness." Another odd chapter, this one features the Holy Spirit, come to earth and in love with a mortal woman with violet hair.
--"And only the black and the white remain."
My two cents: This is a tough book to rate. I feel about it much like I did about
Infinite Jest. I think I may have missed the forest for the trees. Meaning, this is dense writing. It's easy to go a bit glassy eyed and begin skimming the paragraphs. Especially in some of the chapters like "The Yellow Sugar." There are good nuggets of prose to be found here. But the reader must have the patience and fortitude to find them. Some of the content is quite graphic as well, so be warned of that going in. Overall given a rating of 3 stars or "Good." Recommended as a library checkout if you want a vacation read that is guaranteed to take more than a few days to read, and doubles as a good bludgeoning weapon. :)
Further Reading: An article of one interpretation of what the various colors of the rainbow mean. It's an interesting contrast to the chapters in the novel.
https://www.color-meanings.com/colors...
~~And the Wikipedia page on the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. It's just as gritty as Vollman portrays it to be. Fun fact, PETA tried to get the name changed to something less meat-like. The idea didn't go over well with residents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenderl...
Other favorite quotes: "Here is a definition of an unfortunate profession: one whose practitioners become unfit for it in proportion to their practice of it." --in reference to prostitutes in the 'Ladies and Red Lights' chapter.
~~"Alms for the poor!" intoned a tramp, stretching out his dirty palm, but nobody put a penny in it, so he called out, "Cadillacs for the poor!" Nobody gave him a Cadillac, either.
~~Shadrach, like Koestler's old revolutionary, prepared himself by holding his fingers in a flame. But at night when his brothers could not see, he took a tiny transistor radio from under his clay-baked pillow and tuned in to Radio Free Judah (which was a capital offense), and he held the radio against his ear and listened to a crackly ghostly whisper:
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
~~[Ruby] tried to be happy and smile at everybody, because (I presume) she had heard the commandment to smile issuing from the blue mists that boiled from her anterior cranial fossa all the way to her parietal foramen, and, secondly, she was also not sure whether she had met anyone before or not, so she walked up and down Haight Street with the see-nothing goodwill most often met with in intergalactic ambassadors.
~~J. J. had two problems. The first one was that he had to drink as soon as he woke up in the morning. The second one was that after he drank his problems didn't go away. -
As my first foray into a book that largely plays with creative nonfiction, I'm still uncertain of how I really feel about The Rainbow Stories. As a genre I find it interesting because it approaches the line between objectivity and subjectivity, allowing the writer to really explore the more intimate emotional state tethered to experiences. That said, I like the ideas at work but not so much the execution.
I feel as though Vollmann writes with the fervor of a friend telling you about a vivid dream where their words tie into ever growing sentences and paragraphs while trying to get in every detail, no matter how tangential. At times I want to tell him to take a breath but I can't ding him for when his prose go a bit purple. He writes well and I'd chalk up any self-indulgences to a love of language.
This text is humane in the sense that Vollmann shows us a range of social positions throughout the stories (and I might say he revels in showing the grittier sides) and kindly asks we reserve judgement. He goes to great lengths to maintain this and often removes his personal involvement within the narratives. For me it created a gaping hole in the stories where I feel as though Vollmann should have been. I can't put my finger on it but something between his lack of physical involvement and emotional investment makes the text feel indecisive and rubs me the wrong way like a soup missing a key ingredient that I've taken for granted.
I'm probably missing the point of the text (and am sure some friendly netizen will happily rectify my opinion with their own), making this a fairly useless review but it's an interesting read. It's as though I've seen a bizarre televised magic show and came away feeling robbed by a cheap illusion yet retained some lingering sense of wonder. -
What a great and unusual collection of stories. The writing here is generally not as hard to follow as it was in You Bright and Risen Angels, and much of the style and ideas that come to more of a polished shine in later works are evident here, and it's fun to witness after having read some of Vollmann's later work. My favorite stories here were The Blue Yonder, Scintillant Orange, and The White Knights. Most of the rest were engaging and never failed to be completely original for me as far as execution. The two stories that I couldn't connect with were The Green Dress and Violet Hair. I enjoy how Vollmann takes influences from seemingly every corner of human thinking and experience and throws them next to each other, often teasing the reader and twisting the borders of the story's world when you think you're figuring out The Rules of each one.
I want to keep going--I've now read five of WtV's books and consider him one of my favorite authors, yet by my count there are about thirteen more major works of his to go--but reading Vollmann is exhausting. I'll be coming back to him soon, though. -
I do not often read short stories, something I need to work on in the future, but this set of stories was terrific. There was so much feeling put into each one of the stories, I suppose because so much was learned by Vollmann to write them. I enjoyed some more than others, as I'm sure some of my favorites would not be others. I loved "The Blue Yonder", it was such a descent into madness, and it had some beautiful writing in it, especially the autopsy that was conducted. I would probably recommend this to someone that has never read Vollmann l because it has a lot of what he writes about in many different way. I think this would be a very good start to introduce him to others. This is a must read. "For X-rays see through the RED of our blood, the ORANGE and the YELLOW of or fatty tissues, the GREEN and BLUE of our intestines, the INDIGO of our dreams, the VIOLET of our preoccupations- and only the black and the white remain."
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Vollmann is a genius. His books are getting expensive. Buy as many as you can before it's too late...Hookers, skinheads, hospitals, all are given sympathetic realism here. "An understudy of the underbelly," that's what I say about Mr. Vollmann. You can quote me on that. If you use it, you better quote me or I'll sue your ass and buy more Vollmann books.
