Vonnegut appreciation post

I really got into Vonnegut a couple years ago -- it was one of those phases where you read a book and say "Yes, I like this" then embark on a spree of reading one book after another by the same author until you get burned out. I made my way through maybe five Vonnegut books this way before I either moved onto something else or just lost the free time required to read books outside of school, but in re-reading Slaughterhouse Five for class, I kind of got back into Vonnegut all over again.

For one, Vonnegut just reminds me of the perfect grandpa -- maybe it's because of how many pictures there are of him as an older man on the Internet, or because he has such a great grandfatherly voice. He writes great letters (I read about half of a book of his collected letters before the 464-page book was due back at the library). I'm always amazed at how many quotes his books include where you read them and think "God, that is such a good way of putting things." His books feel like he's laughing along with you. His books sometimes feel like bedtime stories -- a lot of wry humor interspersed with "be kind to everyone."

For all we've talked about how Slaughterhouse Five can provoke a feeling of hopelessness, I honestly find his books pretty warm and comforting. Vonnegut is obviously angry about some things -- for example, God Bless You Mr Rosewater includes a quote which scathingly sums up a large problem in America: "Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun." On the other hand, it laters includes a quote from a baptismal speech the main character is asked to give: "Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind." He shows this kind of hope for humans despite how much they've failed.

Vonnegut, a humanist, particularly shines with his character descriptions. He writes in the first chapter of Slaughterhouse Five, "Another thing they [University of Chicago anthropology department] taught me was that nobody was ridiculous or bad or disgusting. Shortly before my father died, he said to me, 'You know -- you never wrote a story with a villain in it.'" Yes, not everyone in his books is a paragon of virtue, but that's the point. Vonnegut seems to have a kind of compassion towards all of his characters -- even if someone's kind of a dick, I feel like they're very human, and his succinct, honest character descriptions show this. His novels have a feeling of connectedness -- a quote from Timequake shows this: "Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"

Anti-glacier

In the first chapter of Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut presents one of the difficulties of writing a war book:

"Over the years, people I've met have often asked me what I'm working on, and I've usually replied that the main thing was a book about Dresden.

I said that to Harrison Starr, the movie-maker, one time, and he raised his eyebrows and inquired, 'Is it an anti-war book?'

'Yes,' I said. 'I guess.'

'You know what I say to people when I hear they're writing anti-war books?'

'No. What do you say, Harrison Starr?'

'I say, "Why don't you write an anti-glacier book instead?"'

What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too."

Re-reading this book, I was struck by this quote because it seems to sum up Slaughterhouse Five's attitude towards war. Vonnegut writes a strange anti-war book. We talked a little about how lots of war movies will try to shock you with the brutality of war -- gore, atrocities, death, etc, and Slaughterhouse Five sort of does the opposite. In the first chapter, Vonnegut writes, "Another thing they [University of Chicago anthropology department] taught me was that nobody was ridiculous or bad or disgusting. Shortly before my father died, he said to me, 'You know -- you never wrote a story with a villain in it.'" Slaughterhouse Five includes no raving-mad general, and while some characters may take the war a little more seriously than others, they never seem particularly dangerous. The English POWs are friends with the Germans, and the Germans are really just a ragtag group of old farmers and babies (referring to them as babies is another way Vonnegut takes the glamour out of war: you'd have to be particularly sick to get excited about babies stumbling around in the snow trying to kill each other). Everyone is stuck in the amber of the moment.

Honestly, Vonnegut just makes war sort of boring. It seems like a glacier -- related to the free will question. It's not exciting but it's got to happen -- there's no glory for anyone. His war descriptions reflect this -- as we discussed in class, there's no real suspense in the book. Yeah, we don't exactly know what's going to happen, but we know Billy survives without major injury, we know the climax, and of course we know what's going to happen in Dresden (the German assurances that no one would bomb Dresden as it produces nothing war-related only create a sick sort of irony), as Vonnegut sets all this out in the first few chapters. Yes, we don't know what happens to some of the minor characters (and Vonnegut even goes ahead and spoils some of their fates, such as the high school teacher, much like Doctorow did in Ragtime), but there's a sense that it doesn't really matter in the end, evidenced by the "so it goes" refrain. It's not exciting, and so, really, why wage it?

Mumbo Jumbo style

I'm not sure Mumbo Jumbo was my favorite book ever, but I did enjoy reading it, especially with the help of the class discussions. I liked the plot and ideas but probably my favorite part was just the way the book was written. I really like television and movies so the cold open was really cool (actually, I read the first few chapters online due to my inevitable failure to never take my English books home on the first day of readings, so the effect didn't work as well as when the book was in my hands). It makes me think about the traditions that TV and movies have developed that are so different from books -- television & movies involving so many more people and so much more money whereas books seem more free. The pictures were also pretty cool -- I liked the sort of non sequitur of having a random picture that.... maybe has some relation to the book?

On the other hand I know that kind of stuff annoyed a lot of my friends. I'm not sure I would have pushed through to the end of the book without English class, but as with a lot of books in a class, I come to appreciate them more after hearing other people's insights, and it was fun hearing people's thoughts on the style. Also, I like books that play around with the style (to an extent -- I guess it's a fine line between a cool effect and super annoying). It makes it seem like the author is having fun writing the book and I feel the effects of that. The playfulness reminds me a bit of Jes Grew with its bucking of literary traditions.