Most of this collection is astonishing in one way or another. It is a diverse mix of stories that range from the funny to the horrifying, the grotesque to the ethically difficult. The writing style is often reportorial, yet there is an elusive autofictional mode that adds an extra layer of complexity.

This is early work by Vollmann, but his unique voice is unmistakable throughout. "White Knights" is a particularly striking piece, being both vile and elegiac. It has also proven to be prophetic, as while the SF Skinz of the Tenderloin may be gone (one can only hope), other white supremacist organizations continue to thrive like rats.

Other stories in the collection deal with similar themes of prescience, such as health care, machine violence as entertainment, and human violence more generally. There is also an exploration of the odd co-presence of past and present in the cultural self-understanding of decaying empires.

One of the most unnerving stories is "The Blue Yonder," which offers an unforgettable portrait of a serial killer. "Yellow Sugar" is another standout, being both horrific and hilarious. It also provides an interesting origin story for the term "thug."

It is truly astonishing that Vollmann wrote "Scintillating Orange" at nearly the same time that António Lobo Antunes was writing As Naus. The two works play remarkably similar seriocomic games with temporality, superimposing the present on the past and vice versa. This drives home the idea that, for entire civilizations, "my end is in my beginning."

Is *The Rainbow Stories* the best place to start with Vollmann? Probably not. However, it is highly recommended, despite the legion of content warnings.

This was one of the first Vollman books I'd ever read, and it remains one of my favorites to this day.

Vollman has an incredible ability to truly get inside the characters. He delves deep into their thoughts, emotions, and motives, making them come alive on the page.

What's even more remarkable is that throughout the entire story, he maintains that steely, even narration. It's a style that is uniquely his own and one that only Vollman is capable of pulling off with such finesse.

The result is a book that not only captivates the reader but also leaves a lasting impression. It makes you think, feel, and truly engage with the story and its characters.

Whether you're a fan of Vollman's work or new to his writing, this book is definitely worth a read. It's a masterclass in character development and narration, and a testament to Vollman's talent as a writer.

I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a thought-provoking and engaging read.

Some stories, such as "The Green Dress", are not as strong as others.

For example, "Yellow Rose", "The Blue Yonder", and "The Indigo Engineers" are among the greatest pieces of writing I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

Their vivid descriptions, engaging plots, and well-developed characters truly captivate the reader.

However, even though "The Green Dress" may not reach the same level of excellence, when considering all the stories together, the overall effect is nothing short of extraordinary.

The aggregate impact is the hardest and fastest 5-star rating one could possibly conceive.

Each story contributes in its own way to create a rich and diverse collection that leaves a lasting impression on the reader.

I had read somewhere that the author Blake Butler was widely known as "the David Lynch of letters" or something to that effect.

As I was reading the Rainbow Stories at the time, I couldn't help but ask myself what famous film director WTV most easily compares to.

After much thought, I came up with Ken Burns meets Werner Herzog.

Anyways, I'm now starting the Seven Dreams cycle and just picked up Carbon Ideologies.

So I think it's safe to say that like many before me, I am borderline obsessive about this man's work after reading only one example of it.

WTV has the mind of a genius and should be considered a national treasure. His writing is so unique and captivating that it draws you in and doesn't let go.

Each word seems to be carefully chosen and placed to create a vivid and unforgettable world.

I can't wait to see what else he has in store for us in the Seven Dreams cycle and beyond.

Too much of a good thing can indeed become a burden. Vollmann is an undeniably captivating writer, and for the first few hundred pages of this book, I found myself completely enthralled by his stories. However, as the book drew to a close, I couldn't help but wish it was about half the size it actually was. The street-centric, semi-fictional content is truly incredible, painting a vivid and engaging picture. But the weirder material, such as the part narrated by The Holy Spirit or the retelling of the Nebuchadnezzar story, seems out of place and lacks the heart and soul that the rest of the selections possess. There is undoubtedly a great deal to love about this book, but I'm starting to see why critics often consider overwriting to be Vollmann's most significant flaw. It's as if he has so many ideas and wants to cram them all in, sometimes at the expense of a more streamlined and focused narrative.

Una spirale eterna di talento

Talent is like an eternal spiral, constantly evolving and expanding. It is a force that drives individuals to reach for greater heights and achieve remarkable things.

Each person is born with unique talents and abilities, waiting to be discovered and nurtured. Some may have a natural inclination for art, while others excel in science or mathematics.

The key is to identify these talents and provide the necessary support and opportunities for them to flourish.

As we explore and develop our talents, we embark on a journey of self-discovery and growth.

We learn new skills, overcome challenges, and push the boundaries of what we thought was possible.

Talent is not static; it can be refined and enhanced through practice and dedication.

With each new achievement, our confidence grows, and we are inspired to reach for even greater goals.

Una spirale eterna di talento leads us to a world of endless possibilities and a life filled with purpose and fulfillment.

Let us embrace our talents and let them shine brightly, for they are the keys to unlocking our true potential.

Do you know me?

This question lingers in my mind as I search for my missing book.

Did I lend this book to you? I truly can't recall.

I've been looking everywhere for my copy, but it seems to have vanished into thin air.

The fact that I can't find it makes me sad.

That book holds so many memories and valuable information for me.

I used to spend hours reading it, getting lost in its pages.

Now, without it, I feel a sense of emptiness.

If by any chance you have my book, please return it to me.

I would be extremely grateful.

Let's hope that my beloved book will soon be back in my hands, bringing back the joy and knowledge it once gave me.

"Stories of the Rainbow" is the second short story collection I've read by Vollmann. Reading him can be exhausting as he demands a lot from the reader due to his obsession with certain themes. However, the short story format is ideal for approaching his work. Here, we have a collection of stories, some shorter than others, about very real people living on the fringes of society, shunned and ignored. Although we may think they are far from our lives, at the core, they have the same needs as the rest of us: the traces of emotions, the bonds formed in relationships, and above all, the exploration of chronic loneliness, an endemic evil of our society. This loneliness is beautifully reflected in the glass showcases where prostitutes display themselves to their clients.

Vollmann's ability to switch from the roughest and even repulsive sordidness, as when he describes an episode between prostitutes and their pimps in the Tenderloin district using language that might repel us, to suddenly and unexpectedly changing the register and turning a paragraph or an idea into an exquisite poem is what fascinates me most about this author. His chameleon-like capacity to blend in with his characters, interact with them, become one of them, and then become an observer and a writer is truly unique.
The rainbow in the title, I can intuit, refers to a kaleidoscope of lights and colors that resonate not only in the title of each story but also in the connection each color might have with the essence of each story or a whole way of life associated with a color. Skinheads, prostitutes, serial killers, vagabonds, alcoholics... all of them are associated with a color or not, as sometimes it's easy to relate them, but other times the clue given by the author can be so impenetrable that it's almost impossible for the reader to establish that connection.
In "Stories of the Rainbow," there is a mixture of horror and beauty that at times becomes almost a hypnotic experience. Some stories were very difficult for me to get through, like "Glistening Orange," but even in such a dense and impenetrable story, there are memorable moments of unexpected beauty. For example, "When she smiled slightly at him from the fire, his happiness lasted all day, and his heart radiated rays of a GLISTENING ORANGE."
Here are some reflections on some of the stories I liked the most:
- "Yellow Rose": A story about Bill Vollmann's Korean girlfriend, Jenny, which serves as an excuse to address the lack of communication and talk once again about the female ideal.
- "The Green Dress, a Pornographic Story": A man becomes obsessed with a woman, his neighbor, but what he really falls in love with is her green dress. He steals it from her closet and turns it into his ideal of a woman. Here, Vollmann perfectly describes the stages of love through that obsessive fetishism.
- "Ladies and Red Lights": A portrait of prostitutes in the Tenderloin district, another theme that obsesses Vollmann as he returns to it in several of his books. He adores, idealizes, and understands them.
- "The Blue Immensity": The longest story, almost a novel in itself, based on a real event about a serial killer who murdered several vagabonds and prostitutes but was never found. Here, Vollmann creates a serial killer divided between two personalities and, as he elaborates on these murders, he also creates the portrait of his victims in a kind of coral story. In this story, Vollmann doesn't hold back when it comes to recreating violence, but it's also a poetic and melancholic story, an explosive mixture. One of his best stories.
- "Violet Hair, a Heideggerian Tragedy": The Holy Spirit wants to tempt Catherine, a Heidegger student, and Vollmann himself is a character in the story. It couldn't be otherwise as it's another story about his idealization of women.
It seems almost contradictory to think that a writer as earthly as Vollmann, who has also lived through the dirtiest and most sordid environments with the most desperate lives, has such an idealized concept of love. In these stories, Vollmann returns again and again to the theme of desired love, the imagined or idealized love in his head, and mixes it with a certain sense of a rougher, drier, and bitterer humor, as if in this humor lies the impossibility of this desired desire actually existing and only being able to become pure reality through the fiction he is able to recreate. I don't know to what extent these stories are real or completely fictional, but it's evident that Vollmann puts his life into them.

This was a truly lovely visit to Vollmann's earlier approach to writing.

His take on this interesting and complex issue of Race is like a shotgun blast, covering not only race but also social class. And yet, he manages to pull it all together with his brilliant organization.

What might initially seem puzzling and complex gradually begins to reveal itself as a beautifully well-woven tapestry of thought.

As is always the case with Vollmann's work, there's an element of meta that is intricately woven in with his fiction.

I have a hunch that the majority of what occurs in this book actually happened to Vollmann himself, but has been highly filtered through his unique consciousness.

God bless him. I sincerely hope he creates a million more such works.

Vollman is truly a precious gem in the 20 - 21st century vault of history.

Are you interested in those seediest and least understood human beings across the globe? Then you should read William T. Vollman. He is a unique writer who is neither a sympathizer nor an antagonizer when it comes to the individuals he gets to know intimately.

Whether it's shooting heroin with junkies, joining a neofascist (and redneck) skinhead organization, or hanging out with prostitutes in Thailand, Vollman is fearless. He will go to any depth, no matter how dark or uncomfortable, in order to tell a story.

His willingness to immerse himself in these extreme and often overlooked aspects of human experience gives his work a depth and authenticity that is truly remarkable. Vollman's writing is a window into the hidden corners of society, and through his eyes, we can gain a greater understanding of the human condition.

He challenges our preconceptions and forces us to confront the uncomfortable truths about ourselves and the world we live in. In a time when so much of our media and literature is sanitized and sugarcoated, Vollman's work is a breath of fresh air.

It is a reminder that there is still beauty and meaning to be found in the darkest of places, and that by exploring these places, we can become better, more empathetic human beings.

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 might initially assume that a collection of short stories and novellas is simply that, a random assortment. However, Vollmann has crafted something truly remarkable here. It can also be regarded as a novel of ideas, in the sense that a novel can be a compilation of related thoughts and concepts.

Characters resurface two hundred pages later, and locations, streets, neighborhoods, and motives become the lifeblood of each story. Astonishingly, Vollmann manages to pack each story with as many memorable lines as a three-hundred-page novel, and he does so in a fluid, natural, and unburdening way, despite the occasional run-on sentences and footnotes that might briefly disrupt the flow.

Via firsthand accounts, which are more like personal experiences Vollmann has jotted down and sometimes misinterpreted or elaborated on purpose, we journey through the various stories. From the gritty and honest portrayal of the San Francisco Nazi movement in "The White Knights" to the unrequited love story with psychedelic mushrooms in "Yellow Rose," which reconnects with the themes and characters of "The Blue Wallet." There's also the abstract "The Green Dress" and "Ladies and Red Lights," where Vollmann pays prostitutes for their life stories rather than sex.

One of the standout stories is "The Blue Yonder," the longest at one hundred pages, which takes us on a journey between a protagonist and an antagonist in the desolation of modern homelessness. Nowhere else in the collection does the beauty seem more elusive than in this novella. Then there's "The Indigo Engineers," about a grotesque show involving intricate killing machines.

These stories don't just scratch the surface; they delve deep into the month-old lint trapped in the seedy underbelly. Vollmann's purpose is to make us acutely aware that the lowest scum and swine in the richest nation on Earth are a reflection of the clean and civilized upper class.

Not all of the pieces are as unforgettable as the best, but The Rainbow Stories firmly establishes William T. Vollmann as one of the greatest authors alive. As a girl looks upon the contraptions and mummified rodent skulls in "The Indigo Engineers," and Vollmann, as an engineer himself, remarks, "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 at the end of the first story, "The White Knights," adds an interesting touch. Vollmann's style, with its run-on sentences and footnotes, echoes that of David Foster Wallace, but he never forgets his reader. In fact, he trumps Wallace in his sheer quantitative consumption of his subjects without the cold mechanical sterility associated with his peer. It's all quite simple when you think about it; if you have a tangent, just use one asterisk per page and keep your digression to a paragraph. See?

As with any short story collection, the quality of the stories varies quite significantly.

I first encountered this collection during my high school days, and at that time, it was completely beyond my comprehension. However, now, it has become a bit more accessible - or at least, as accessible as Vollmann's works can be.

I truly have a fondness for "The Green Dress" and "Scintillant Orange." Both of these stories are truly remarkable.

Most of the semi-autobiographical stories revolving around skinheads, sex workers, and Vollmann's rather unappealing-sounding relationship are also quite good, albeit explicitly off-putting.

The ones that are explicitly medical in nature are cold and clinical in a way that I find admirable, with excellent prose - it can even make your skin crawl.

"The Blue Yonder," although perhaps a bit indulgent, made a rather strong impression on me during this reading. However, if the swampy prose turns you away, I can completely understand.

If I ever have to read "Violet Hair" again, it will be much too soon. That particular story was practically unreadable. It's the second to last story, and the final story is only about three pages long, so it's frankly a rather poor note to end on.

I've come across interviews with Vollmann where he has stated that his goal with this book was misdirected and ultimately a failure, and that he probably wouldn't write it in the same way now. I find this somewhat disappointing, but at the same time, I concur. His thesis, that all people possess vibrancy and depth regardless of their exterior appearance, is hopeful despite the crude and dark subject matter, but it simply doesn't hold up. The skinhead chapters alone in this book serve as evidence of that, not to mention the resurgence of Nazi culture in America that this book unfortunately foreshadowed.