#william t. vollmann

[litafficionado]

Interviewer: What most troubles you about the Internet?

William T. Vollmann: Well, first of all, I think the notion that there are virtual communities of interest is a fruitful one in some ways, but it’s also very dangerous, because it means that you are even more removed from your immediate surroundings; your physical center becomes less important, you have less invested in it, and—it’s like your mobile phone—you’re less likely to become friends with your neighbors, and I think that is contributing to the decay and loneliness of American society. The second thing that I hate about the Internet and mobile phones as well—and one of the reasons that the paths to individuality we potentially have are being abused—is that suddenly everyone becomes infinitely interruptible. And I think that you can’t, really, get anywhere: you can’t think about who you are, and what you’re doing and where you should be going, if you can be interrupted every second. That’s why I don’t have email, I don’t have a mobile phone, I don’t have a fax; I don’t watch television for the same reason: I hate the interruptions, the commercials. On the Internet you get exposed to all kinds of ads and, in the meantime, people who mean you no good are tracking your movements, your buying patterns, your interests, and making it all the more likely that the interruptions in your life will be more and more seductive, therefore more and more effective, and keep you from being yourself. 

[.... ] And of course we always do have a choice. We have the choice to say no, we don’t have the choice to say yes, sometimes. If you’re in a relationship with another person, let’s say, (and) both of you are decent people, if one says “no,” let’s say to having sex, or one says “no” to continuing the relationship, that’s it. No is stronger than yes. It takes two to say yes, but only one to say no. And I think that’s true really of any social contract: when you get to the point where you want to say no to the Internet and you’re not allowed to say no to it, that’s going to be really, really sinister and horrible, but fortunately we’re not quite there yet. My publishers are always saying, “What do you mean you don’t have email?” And they get upset, but what can they do?

[itswilliamleonard]

GIGI MURIN in: "FuwaMoco Misfire"

(drawn in MS Paint... it suits her best ^u^)

[litsnaps]

[quotespile]

Self-deception is a pessimistic definition of optimism.

William T. Vollmann, Europe Central

[razorsadness]

When someone longs for "the past," what she truly pines for is return into her vanished self, bearing all knowledge of what she has since become and lost, because how could this awareness not embellish the cherishing of that ancient hidden jewel of happiness now restored to her? But she also wishes to be spared this selfsame loss and knowledge which must shadow the jewel's green flame. Hence what she wishes is to unify a contradiction, without which the more trivial impossibility of time travel would be no good to her. That treacherous face she still adores, if she could make it love her again, all the while remembering its present readiness to turn away, wouldn't that be saddest of all?— Nostalgia is nothing more or less than a drive to square a circle.

—William T. Vollmann, from The Lucky Star (Viking, 2020)

[quotessentially]

From William T. Vollmann’s The Ice-Shirt

[musicmags]

[philosophybitmaps]

[alanshemper]

Awakening to the snowy sunny morning of Tuesday, March 7, 2023, I took due pleasure in looking out through my white curtains at white sun glare that appeared almost warm from within. Why not stroll outdoors? Should I take a chill, this warm room would receive me again—and, after all, certain dark brown puddles in the vacant lots along Second Street implied that spring might impend, never mind that unpleasantly cold breeze on the river, or the refusal of First Street’s prizeworthy icicle crop to even begin dripping. You see, I like to believe in spring almost as does a Christian in heaven. Why fret about unborn summer problems? The wind might numb my face, but my hands felt warm enough in their leather work gloves. In brief, I was a doughty tourist here in Reno, Nevada, on whose downtown I had fixed with the design of finding three homeless men—for in the United States, cities often rot from the center out.

November 2023

[dbluegreen]

(via Book Acquired, 9.09.11 — Or, I Buy Yet Another William T. Vollmann Book Against My Better Judgment – Biblioklept)

[cronenburger]

William T. Vollmann - Seven volumes of his study on violence: Rising Up and Rising Down

[litafficionado]

“The kind of reading and writing that I value is a dying art. While it lasts and while I last, I intend to write sentences that are beautiful in their own right, to write paragraphs that respect those sentences while conveying thought: and to arrange those paragraphs in works that promote love and understanding for people whom others with my background may despise or fail to know. I enjoy reading books that have beautiful sentences, and it makes me feel real good if I can try to create something that’s beautiful, even if it’s sad or on an ugly subject. If the thing is well put together, it makes me feel good."

-William T. Vollmann, quoted in Conversations with William T. Vollmann ed. Daniel Lukes

[ladykailolu]

After he's dead, the husbands freely beat their wives without fear, and the only thing the women can do is pray and go to church to be "cleansed of all ills". And look at the last sentence!!!!

"Now that he [the father] was gone, their husband's found courage to beat them whenever they deserved it; but in prayer the women consoled themselves, the priest wishing the tinkling censer, perfuming away all ills, and presently it seemed fantastic that their father had ever been able to shelter them from kicks and blows, which are, after all, the lot of most wives.

This paragraph in the middle is fucking bleak. A former rich sailing merchant falls our of favor of his uncanny luck and dies with significantly less fortune that what made him famous. While he was alive, he had liberal notions of the time that no man should ever take blows to a woman, and so he threatened or mysteriously vanished his sons-in-law if they ever hurt his daughters.

Bleak.

[heinrichheineee]

— William T. Vollmann, The Ice-Shirt

[art-van-delay420]

William T. Vollmann has been dealing with the death of his daughter and a cancer diagnosis.

Also the botched publication of his collected art work…