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The Speed Chronicles by Akashic Books from 2011 includes a Vollmann short story called "No Matter How Beautifully It Stings". For those only who are interested in Bill's drug writing, perhaps. The back cover says "Brand-New Stories by".... so I assume it's not showed up elsewhere yet.One page excerpt at googlebooks :: http://books.google.com/books?id=2cAN...
"Note to the Reader: The following passages have to do with speedy substances, which, like any loyal American, I know only in the most theoretical sense. -WTV"
Hemmingson's bibliography describes it as a "Profile of a transgendered person addicted to the drug methamphetamine."
Here's a review blurb :: "And William T. Vollmann’s 'No Matter How Beautiful It Stings' goes for an impressionistic, near-hallucinogenic effect that comes off as pretentious." [which sounds about right] [edit : not really right ; not 'pretentious' but rather just not very good]
http://www.bookgasm.com/reviews/crime...
Nathan "N.R." wrote: "... an impressionistic, near-hallucinogenic effect that comes off as pretentious."Sold.
Geoff wrote: "Nathan "N.R." wrote: "... an impressionistic, near-hallucinogenic effect that comes off as pretentious."Sold."
Don't rush out for it. You'll wanna wait for the whole novel, How You Are.
Bill reviews three photography-type books ::"Seeing Eye to Eye", Bookforum, Feb/Mar 2009 :
"How should we parse a documentary image that directly or indirectly portrays evil, injustice, anguish? What rights and duties, if any, does our understanding engender?"
http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_...
"A Good Death" in Harper's, Nov 2010, about his father's death -- anyone know if it's appeared elsewhere yet? (anyone send me a copy?http://harpers.org/archive/2010/11/a-...
"Homeless in Sacramento: Welcome to the New Tent Cities" appeared in Harper's in March 2011. https://field.files.wordpress.com/201...
(warning: I tried printing this, and about half is in computer garbage=out)
Re: "A Good Death", here's a blogging piece about Bill's piece ::
https://ijustreadaboutthat.wordpress....
I'm going to risk being redundant rather than risk expending energy to find out whether this/these have been mentioned previously in anther thread.Vollmann wrote an afterword for an edition of Journey to the End of the Night. I had it on my shelf for a while when a friend distributed his books before shipping on to further shores, but I never read the afterword because--after all--who the heck is this Vollmann character. Now I know a bit of who the heck he is. His afterword is passable.
He also wrote a forward to an edition of A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, which I assume everyone knows, but then why should I assume?
Zadignose wrote: "He also wrote a forward to an edition of A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, which I assume everyone knows, but then why should I assume?"
That one got slipped into Expelled from Eden: A William T. Vollmann Reader. No Vollmanniac can do without.
I don't think I've see all of the Celine one, but it begins something like; Dear Reader, Fuck you! and goes on to complain that he received a meager 1200 bucks to write this afterword.
Zadignose wrote: "I'm going to risk being redundant rather than risk expending energy "That search box up there is pretty quick and user=friendly, should you know the magic words to enter. Meanwhile, multiple postings of obscure chunks of writing bring the light which provides for the eyes to read. Redundancy? Where'd promotionalism be without it?
Just spotted a new Vollmann Foreword. The new edition of Bernard Wolfe's The Great Prince Died: A Novel about the Assassination of Trotsky (May 2015), has that Vollmann Foreword. Sci-fi Vollmanniacs may also be interested in Wolfe's more famous novel, Limbo
He was the editor (which gives the collection some bleed over into his own research for Riding Toward Everywhere) for The Best Travel Writing 2012. He has a decent introduction (~15-20ish pages) and the price of $0.01 cannot be beat!http://www.amazon.com/Best-American-T...
Has this one slipped through the cracks?A good article by Vollmann, responding to W.G. Sebald's On the Natural History of Destruction, titled "And Suppress the Unpleasant Things." Published 2003.
Do believe I've not seen that one. Thanks!
"William T. Vollmann visits a San Francisco S&M club and Many More!"Not sure what the piece is, whether it's already appeared elsewhere (eta :: probably not), but I think it was commissioned for this publication? State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America. A little bit visible in the Look=Inside at ama=zone ::
http://www.amazon.com/State-Panoramic...
Vollmann wrote an afterword to the new ddition of Bernard Wolfe's The Great Prince Died: A Novel about the Assassination of Trotsky (1959). That afterword is available at the NYRB ::"The Trotsky Paradox"
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/...
Vollmann wrote the foreword/preface/text(?) of Frederick Wiseman. And so relatedly, here's a review of Wiseman's film Lost in Jackson Heights ::https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/los...
Near Death, the only work of his I've seen, is a hugely powerful piece of film which I'd recommend just about everyone watch.
Your results may vary, but atm Harpers has granted me access to the entirety of Bill's Letter from Japan :: "Invisible and InsidiousLiving at the edge of Fukushima’s nuclear disaster" from the March '15 issue --:
http://harpers.org/archive/2015/03/in...
Vollmanniac Cody just got this thing ::The Tale of the Dying Lungs
https://www.goodreads.com/photo/user/...
Is this included in Rainbow Stories? I can't quite read it. Uncollected? Sweet piece either way.
"Maidan Voyage: Exploring the riven region of Ukraine"Sept/Oct/Nov 2016 BookForum
http://bookforum.com/inprint/023_03/1...
Nathan "N.R." wrote: ""Invisible and InsidiousLiving at the edge of Fukushima’s nuclear disaster" from the March '15 issue of Harpers--:"
http://harpers.org/archive/2015/03/in...
Now twice best'd ::
The Best American Travel Writing 2016
The Best American Series: 16 Short Stories & Essays
The latter is just a cheap (free!) kindle thing that bests from 8 Best of '16 collections.
WTV has a short piece in Fiction International 22 Pornography and Censorship which does not appear to be online anywhere. I will transcribe and put up here in a moment.
William T. Vollmann - from the "Forum" in Fiction International 22 Pornography and Censorship (which also contains similar pieces from Raymond Federman, Rikki Ducornet, Delany and others): 1. Pornography has two components. The first is the aim of the pornographer, which may or may not be realized: to give pleasure. The second is the effect which it inevitably has on some people (who may or may not be distinct from the pornographer's intended group); it offends. Both these elements must exist for a work to be pornography, just as both sex and compensation must be present to constitute prostitution. A work which sets out only to offend cannot titillate, and so is not pornography. A work which titillates everybody cannot aspire to pornography's underdog status.
2. Pornography need not be sexual in content. The vicious mendacity of President Bush and his managers on the subject of the Gulf War is a good example of political pornography. These statements gave many Americans pleasure and disgusted me. By my standards they were obscene.
3. Because pornography as I define it must produce opposing feelings in people, it's clear that any definition of pornography must be relative. (Examples of the problem: certain Inuit folktales which even ethnographers have bowdlerized: the painting Dejeunersurl'herbe: Mein Kampf. the Kama Sutra.) Since the term is pejorative, it is those who are repelled by the work who will apply it, not those who are pleased. But since there must also be people who are pleased and since, being pleased, they will prefer the word "art" or "sexiness" or "patriotism" or "Holy Writ," it becomes clear that nothing is inherently pornographic.
4. What this means is that each of us has the right to define pornography as we see it. No one has the right to regulate it.
5. When I look at a human body, I make aesthetic judgments. I think most of us do. I see nothing wrong with looking at a cunt (on a real woman or in a photograph) and deciding whether it's pretty or not. I've never seen a girlie magazine or a self-styled dirty book that I thought shouldn't exist. I've seen plenty of "pornographic" products that don't interest me, and in general I prefer to get my sexual gratification from sexual acts, but live and let live.
6. When a "feminist" tells me that I have to say "woman" instead of "girl," I immediately say "girl." I think "girl" is a prettier word, and sometimes it's a more appropriate word, too. No one word can substitute for another word. The "feminists" seek to impoverish our language, and I won't stand for it. They are free to be offended or insulted by what I say, but I'm free to say it. Forbidden words are like guns. No one should be denied the possession of them a priori, and no one should use them carelessly or viciously. If they do happen to be abused (for instance, to yell at a passing woman, "Hey, cunt!" instead of using the word "cunt" in an innocuous context as I did in #5 above), the abuse can be condemned, but the word itself shouldn't be prohibited.
7. Well, what SHOULD the reaction be to "Hey, cunt!"? I don't know if there could ever be a general rule. It depends on how much you think you can do. (I've written about this in my "Epitaph for a Coward's Heart" in Thirteen Stories and Thirteen Epitaphs.) In any event, that's not pornography, that's hate speech. It almost certainly doesn't titillate anybody, even the man who yells.
8. And what should the reaction be to pornography as you define it? I'd say, if it doesn't appeal to you, leave it be; don't censor it. If you can admit that there might be another side to the issue, leave it be. If it's a work of words or images or plaster or whatever, not a real life situation, not a "Hey, cunt!" then leave it be.
9. Are you a censor? Do you tell people not to say "girl"? Shame on you! If nothing offends you, you're a saint or you're psychotic. If a few things offend you, deal with them—fairly. If you're often offended by things, you're probably a self-righteous asshole and it's too bad you weren't censored yourself—by your mother in an abortion clinic.
10. A friend of mine who used to be a Nazi gave me his authentic swastika armband. I was touched that he would give me something with meaning to him, but embarrassed by my ownership of that particular object. I still have it, locked up where it can't hurt people. Many people wouldn't want a swastika armband in their house. But I'd have to say that it's no one else's business whether or not I have one in my house.
Jonathan wrote: "William T. Vollmann - from the "Forum" in Fiction International 22 Pornography and Censorship (which also contains similar pieces from Raymond Federman, Rikki Ducornet, Delany and ot..."A classic bit. It is also included in Expelled from Eden: A William T. Vollmann Reader.
William T Vollmann Central
Books mentioned in this topic
Fiction International 22: Pornography and Censorship (other topics)Expelled from Eden: A William T. Vollmann Reader (other topics)
Fiction International 22: Pornography and Censorship (other topics)
Fiction International 22: Pornography and Censorship (other topics)
The Best American Travel Writing 2016 (other topics)
More...
Short Stories
Journalisms
Editorial work -- Prefaces, Afterwords, Forwards, Introductions.
Reviews.
A few pre-2004 items may not have been collected, but much of it might be in Expelled. So, mostly more recent things go in here. Also, I might make a new thread for new stuff as was the case with the FBI-file item.