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A review by adamz24
The Rainbow Stories by William T. Vollmann
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.