"Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae."
- Kurt Vonnegut
- Kurt Vonnegut
A little over a year ago, I was startled out of whatever I was doing by the news that Kurt Vonnegut died. My first thought was a heartsinker of massive egoism: I'll never get to meet him. The second wasn't so bad. He wasn't going to write any more. There'd be no interviews, no more essays, no more of the quote machine that spawned a million and one really witty jokes that hurt as much as they made you laugh. And frankly, that was okay. He'd begun repeating himself, or maybe he had been all along and it was only obvious once the second wave of that Vonnegut-raised American youth had their hands in the media, dying for ways to give him a voice again.
This is not the same as saying he'd outgrown his usefulness. No, but he had written at least two masterpieces -- Slaughterhouse-five and Breakfast of Champions -- and about three or four others that are damn close to it. He could rest easy. And as America continues to redefine itself, I think he'll be more and more recognized as its essential 20th-21st century voice. As hard as Norman Mailer tried, I think he couldn't touch on what Vonnegut did, seemingly without effort: telling the bruising truth with a chuckle. That's just what I want to believe. Scholars will debate it, maybe. I just think that this country has no other way to handle its own ugliness than to laugh. Mark Twain. Really. Our funny people know us best.
Just a thought.
And so on.
This is not the same as saying he'd outgrown his usefulness. No, but he had written at least two masterpieces -- Slaughterhouse-five and Breakfast of Champions -- and about three or four others that are damn close to it. He could rest easy. And as America continues to redefine itself, I think he'll be more and more recognized as its essential 20th-21st century voice. As hard as Norman Mailer tried, I think he couldn't touch on what Vonnegut did, seemingly without effort: telling the bruising truth with a chuckle. That's just what I want to believe. Scholars will debate it, maybe. I just think that this country has no other way to handle its own ugliness than to laugh. Mark Twain. Really. Our funny people know us best.
Just a thought.
And so on.
1 comment:
Nice little post full of little chunks of truth...or at least a similar belief as mine which must be the truth because I am always right. I am an American for Christ sake!
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