https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/164551617213/riding-toward-everywhere-by-william-t-vollmann

Never been much of a Kerouac or Dean Moriarity fan, but have always been interested in the road, marching to a different beat, and eating off the land. The people Vollmann highlights here do not exactly fit the exacting romance I hold so dear. What William does achieve however is making me listen to him and actually focus on what he has to say. And that is good writing, no matter the subject or obsessions posed on his page. I read this book much as a slow-moving train. The sway and rhythm soothed me, and the certain-to-come rain failed to dampen my days like it might have his. I did feel sodden however with the pain of loss presented through the characters he met along the rails and diners and ditches on the way to his own Cold Mountain, the satori Kerouac strove for.

I never could have gotten to Cold Mountain because I lack Cold Mountain’s mind. I love cities as much as solitude, prostitutes as much as trees…But as Vollmann finishes, saying …Sometimes when I ride to Everywhere I believe in Cold Mountain.

Butterfly Stories - William T. Vollmann https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/163363705108/butterfly-stories-by-william-t-vollmann

This being only my third indulgence into the literary work of WTV it is painfully obvious to me that he isn’t an easy read. Previously a foolish premonition on my behalf perhaps, due often to his brief sentences and short paragraphs. But Vollmann makes me rather uncomfortable. And I can’t say my reading of him is “fun”. That is not to say it could be, one day, after I get past his own particular “difference” on the page. Simply put, Vollmann performs his craft in such a way as to make me see it just might be possible. Hearing others and discerning between these many voices, and then considering the foreign ideas presented in a devised, but parallel existence of deviance, can only do me some good. Perhaps my emerging tolerance for all the different sizes, colors, shapes, and smells I find in the world around me is due to this enlarging present feeling of acceptance I have evolved to not only for myself and my own differences but for the other strange ones among us.

…Something touched him. He didn’t know what it was. It was fishy and silverwhite and crew-cut soft like sealskin kamiks…

The dude can obviously write when he wants to. My complaint is he does not care enough for what I need to tender more abundant examples of great sentences. The “whore trilogy” is a supersaturation of all things that drip of sweat, disease, stink, and slime. Of course, there is in his characters a constant need for love and then their roiling indifference as it pertains to others. If this review makes no sense and seems haphazard and wanting to flit, try reading the Butterfly Stories. The title says it all. It always felt as if Vollmann was keeping me away at arm’s length. No intimacy or connection with anyone, and of course no one ever fitting in. Not knowing if this novel was truly a love story or a death wish realized, but understanding all along that we, as in my heart and mind, are never coming back.

https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/162763473983/the-book-of-dolores-by-william-t-vollmann

…I had already reached adolescence before I realized that my nature could scarcely be changed; hence I might as well accept myself. At once I felt relief. I could not be like others. Very well; I need not try. Strange to say, I then began to be liked, and since then I have been blessed with as many loyal, loving friends as I could wish…

The quote above by William T. Vollmann came toward the end of a brilliantly “felt” essay titled How You Are in which he relates a personal history that naturally would evolve into his morphing into Delores. The emotional impact of the essay struck me to my core. In an instant I became completely enamored with the man Vollmann. The writer, artist, and celebrity he has and will become will always place second to me. Vollmann put his heart on the line here, and shared with this reader the greatest demand placed on it; his agonizing need to belong. How many of us are brave enough to say it, and strong enough to thrive in spite of it? Amazing, and I have only begun to scratch the surface of what he has to offer us, let alone what he might offer the world. And as an added bonus he has also written a few academic essays for the amateur photography buffs among us.

https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/161848367868/whores-for-gloria-by-william-t-vollmann

…I haven’t told the truth for so long now that I’ve given up lying.

William T. Vollmann’s name has come up often and been noticed on lists of books deserving to be remarked upon. For some reason I have resisted reading him, but my being recently compared to him by another writer I am intimate with, I decided to examine a bit of the fuss behind the legend of Vollmann. Whores for Gloria signals my starting point. And what a point it is.

…Virgin Mary candy full of sunlight and ocean fruit…

The narrator’s voice is natural and through the use of no punctuation the dialogue between all the players is easy to discern, understand, and know at all times just who is talking. But the subject matter perhaps excludes too many of us on purpose. And I like it that Vollman’s work is exclusionary. Becomes a sort of fraternity I have been temporarily made member of. In this particular case a membership in what might be referred to as a gutter club. Flying dirt balls of emotion and most certainly a fated dead end. It is obvious to me that Vollmann has studied his whoring subjects well. His disturbed protagonist is named Jimmy.

It isn’t easy for me being this close-up to Vollmann. Too few pages of pure joy, reading pleasures somehow massaging the pain and loss that permeates everything everywhere. Jimmy’s absent love conjured up in real time, futile attempts at recovering some sense of belonging in the world, even in light of his daily encounters with a confounding nature called time. And sadly, time being something apparently needing to end for him.

…alley by alley I will search and destroy…he could not believe that he was actually remembering anything because he had not done that since before he started drinking, and he felt uneasy…

In light of Jimmy’s incessant delusion in his remembrance of his long-lost Gloria the story is as much about forgetting. Fueled by alcohol his escape from the horrors of the Vietnam War seemed to morph into a parallel fantasy regarding the woman of his dreams brought to life through the seedy culture of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district.

One night Riley hopped a freight into town, and because he had been living the life of himself he was in bad shape.

For me, my first exposure to William T. Vollmann was portend, portend, portend. And for more of that I will be back. [b:Butterfly Stories|45683|Butterfly Stories|William T. Vollmann|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348089356s/45683.jpg|44857] is calling.

Imperial (Photographs) - William T. Voll... Maps: The Entity called Imperial

--Imperial. Photographs by William T. Vollmann

Subdelineations: Photoscapes (1927-2008)
Technical Notes
Notes
Photocaptions
Acknowledgments