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adamz24's review against another edition
3.0
"The White Knights" and "Ladies and Red Lights" are excellent pieces of work. The former might be one of my favourite things that can be categorized as a 'short story.' This book is best when it's about the 80s Tenderloin and Haight Street and, well, San Francisco and the people who populate its less sanitized areas. It's less effective when the subject is more distant from Vollmann. To try to do what he's trying to do in these stories across centuries of lost time, with characters that feel like characters, is tough. These stories are not exactly bad, but clearly come off as distinctly weaker than the SF-set ones, which are tremendous pieces of urban writing.
Anyways. Is this journalism or fiction or...? I don't really think it matters. Another reviewer mentions that this work is respectful in the Kantian sense. It truly is.
Vollmann, even when he betrays a personal perspective, is tremendously respectful of the persons who populate his fiction. Regardless of how lost they are, as souls. This displays empathy and creates empathy. In a world in which many people, it seems to me, dehumanize anybody they wouldn't want to be friends with, Vollmann's written a book that absolutely refuses to do that. Plus, it's a book that will keep many readers from doing so. Readers may indeed judge. Vollmann does not write to tug at one's heartstrings and thus induce a false empathy or emotional response. But I get the feeling few people will come away from reading this with the same mental distance they might have earlier had toward whores and addicts and skinheads and bums and others depicted in The Rainbow Stories. It, at the absolute minimum, succeeds in compelling the reader to practice something approaching empathy, a respectful consideration of humans many people actively pretend are subhuman.
So why the three stars? Maybe I'm kind of pissed at myself for reading this again instead of reading Europe Central or The Royal Family or something. It's an uneven collection. The overall project is admirable. But many pieces do little more than foreshadow the emergence of a great literary talent. If I'd read this when published, it would have been exciting. Now, most of the pieces here feel like the minor works of a major talent. Aside from the aforementioned stories, I thought "The Blue Wallet" and the closing piece were the strongest. Many of the others come off as moderately effective experiments, weaker on second reading than on first.
Anyways. Is this journalism or fiction or...? I don't really think it matters. Another reviewer mentions that this work is respectful in the Kantian sense. It truly is.
Vollmann, even when he betrays a personal perspective, is tremendously respectful of the persons who populate his fiction. Regardless of how lost they are, as souls. This displays empathy and creates empathy. In a world in which many people, it seems to me, dehumanize anybody they wouldn't want to be friends with, Vollmann's written a book that absolutely refuses to do that. Plus, it's a book that will keep many readers from doing so. Readers may indeed judge. Vollmann does not write to tug at one's heartstrings and thus induce a false empathy or emotional response. But I get the feeling few people will come away from reading this with the same mental distance they might have earlier had toward whores and addicts and skinheads and bums and others depicted in The Rainbow Stories. It, at the absolute minimum, succeeds in compelling the reader to practice something approaching empathy, a respectful consideration of humans many people actively pretend are subhuman.
So why the three stars? Maybe I'm kind of pissed at myself for reading this again instead of reading Europe Central or The Royal Family or something. It's an uneven collection. The overall project is admirable. But many pieces do little more than foreshadow the emergence of a great literary talent. If I'd read this when published, it would have been exciting. Now, most of the pieces here feel like the minor works of a major talent. Aside from the aforementioned stories, I thought "The Blue Wallet" and the closing piece were the strongest. Many of the others come off as moderately effective experiments, weaker on second reading than on first.
freewaygods's review against another edition
dark
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
The stories vary in style and merit. Overall, Vollmann presents a stylish and almost sui generis collection of the Bay. I have to say it might be hard for someone who doesn’t have a connection to that part of California to get much out of this, but the prose can at times be worth it on its own.
b_caligari's review
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Sexual content
Moderate: Drug use, Dysphoria, Excrement, Blood, Racial slurs, and Vomit
Minor: Abortion and Rape
infinitejoe's review against another edition
3.0
A book certainly enticing enough to have me try a full length novel by the author. I enjoyed the glimpses into the various degenerates, oddballs, prostitutes, homeless, and psychopaths that one might encounter in San Francisco, or really in any city area, although I'm not sure if other cities have similar groups of introverted, familyless, barely-scraping-by engineers intent on building large contraptions designed to ensure mutual destruction and the destruction of dead animals in staged battles, although hey, you never know.
The stories were well written, and offered various perspectives on and insights into those people that the rest of us probably never much give thought to.
The stories were well written, and offered various perspectives on and insights into those people that the rest of us probably never much give thought to.
delore's review against another edition
4.0
8/10
Can’t be bothered to write an in depth review here, but on the whole, great novel - very keen to read more of Vollmann.
Can’t be bothered to write an in depth review here, but on the whole, great novel - very keen to read more of Vollmann.
dreadtoaster's review against another edition
3.0
As with any short story collection, the quality of the stories varies pretty wildly. I first read this in high school and it was way over my head then but now it’s a bit more approachable- or at least, as approachable as Vollmann can be. I really like the Green Dress and Scintillant Orange, both of them are phenomenal stories. Most of the semi autobiographical stories about skinheads, sex workers, and Vollmann’s terrible sounding relationship are pretty good too if explicitly off-putting. The ones that are explicitly medical in nature are cold & clinical in a way that I appreciate, excellent prose - skin-crawling even. The Blue Yonder - indulgent though it may be - stuck with me pretty forcefully on this read but if the swampy prose turns you off, I really cannot blame you. If I ever have to read Violet Hair again, it will be too soon. That one was practically unreadable. It’s the second to last story, although the final story is only about three pages so it is frankly a terrible note to end on.
I’ve read interviews with Vollmann where he’s said that his goal with this book was misguided and ultimately a failure and that he probably wouldn’t write it now. I think that’s a disappointment but at the same time, I agree. His thesis statement, that all peoples contain vibrancy and depth even if their exterior is X or Y, is hopeful despite the crude, dark subject matter but it just doesn’t hold water. The skinhead chapters alone in this book are proof of that, let alone the resurgence of Nazi culture in America that this book unfortunately presaged.
I’ve read interviews with Vollmann where he’s said that his goal with this book was misguided and ultimately a failure and that he probably wouldn’t write it now. I think that’s a disappointment but at the same time, I agree. His thesis statement, that all peoples contain vibrancy and depth even if their exterior is X or Y, is hopeful despite the crude, dark subject matter but it just doesn’t hold water. The skinhead chapters alone in this book are proof of that, let alone the resurgence of Nazi culture in America that this book unfortunately presaged.
yopo's review against another edition
3.0
So so so so uneven but when the stories are good they’re unbelievably good. The prose is searing when it’s focused and absolutely punishing when it rambles, which is often.
There are three kinds of stories in this collection:
1. Esoteric history lesson that is mostly made-up
2. I Want to Fuck This Girl So Bad Hnnngg
3. Let’s fetishize the poor and/or the uneducated
There are one or two great stories in each category, but the rest are skippable. Especially good stories included “Ladies and Red Lights” “Yellow Rose” and “The Blue Yonder.”
There are three kinds of stories in this collection:
1. Esoteric history lesson that is mostly made-up
2. I Want to Fuck This Girl So Bad Hnnngg
3. Let’s fetishize the poor and/or the uneducated
There are one or two great stories in each category, but the rest are skippable. Especially good stories included “Ladies and Red Lights” “Yellow Rose” and “The Blue Yonder.”
lnprad's review
4.0
Using skinheads and whores, drunks and tramps, and plenty of off-kilter faces from the Old testament and San Francisco as fodder, The Rainbow Stories spins all sorts of wonderful in the light and the shadows of American dark mythology. Vollmann, the journalist in many of these stories, proves to never let his narrative decay into judgement when dealing with the dirt of his characters (even if it becomes as intimate as receiving an limpid expert blow job from a prostitute.) This distance allows these shaved heads of hatred and prostitutes and tramps and killers to evolve independent from an obtrusive meddling focalization from Vollmann, granting them a freedom to be read as they usually are: broken, beautiful and fallen. Not everything floats, crashes, burns up so elegantly though. Some stories do whiff, a shrug of, "not sure what you're doing here, Bill." Yet Vollmann shines often than not, offering accounts true and messy in ultra-stylized stories of his love & vulnerability as the stories delve into his personal life. These points of intimacy give the collection an emotive centering point, a nice cleanser from the harsh and brave authentics of Vollmann's San Francisco streets.
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