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.'"