I took care of it with Sonja. That is all I am going to say about it for now.
But, upon my return and my OCD-infused checking of my email and cnn.com, I found out that Kurt Vonnegut died. Love of my life. The author that after hating English for so long in high school, finally made me pick up a book again.
"How nice-- to feel nothing and still get full credit for being alive."
Slaughterhouse Five. God. I still remember the first time I read it. I was 14 and in Mrs. Percopo's contemporary literature class. We had to break into small groups and each analyze one piece from the era and she just happened to assign my group Slaughterhouse. I don't believe in fate, but I'd like to think it was. Amidst the copious amounts of teenage angst, his skeptisism and (I guess you would call them) freethinking ideas of nothing being off-limits drew me to him. Lines like the epitaph on his self-illustrated headstone, "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt" got me to stay.
And Vonnegut's prose is so refreshing. I love the modernists, really I do, but after a while they become a bit... dry. He was never dry. I hate to dode on Slaughterhouse, but his satirical and self-depricating humor (especially in the apologetic note to his editor) is hilarious.
"“And I say to Sam now: ‘Sam—here’s the book.’ It’s so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like ‘Poo-tee-weet?”
That's so raw. "Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again." Which, makes sence. I mean, he was forced to hide in a meat locker during the Dresden firebombings during WWII. He saw the hideous nature of humanity, to what extent one group will exert force over another simply to prove a point. Vonnegut recognized that the reader would be confused, switching between Billy Pilgram's time with the Tralfamadorans and the war. But, it works. By being so jumbled, he's reflecting on one of the overall themes of the book...destruction.
But, upon my return and my OCD-infused checking of my email and cnn.com, I found out that Kurt Vonnegut died. Love of my life. The author that after hating English for so long in high school, finally made me pick up a book again.
"How nice-- to feel nothing and still get full credit for being alive."
Slaughterhouse Five. God. I still remember the first time I read it. I was 14 and in Mrs. Percopo's contemporary literature class. We had to break into small groups and each analyze one piece from the era and she just happened to assign my group Slaughterhouse. I don't believe in fate, but I'd like to think it was. Amidst the copious amounts of teenage angst, his skeptisism and (I guess you would call them) freethinking ideas of nothing being off-limits drew me to him. Lines like the epitaph on his self-illustrated headstone, "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt" got me to stay.
And Vonnegut's prose is so refreshing. I love the modernists, really I do, but after a while they become a bit... dry. He was never dry. I hate to dode on Slaughterhouse, but his satirical and self-depricating humor (especially in the apologetic note to his editor) is hilarious.
"“And I say to Sam now: ‘Sam—here’s the book.’ It’s so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like ‘Poo-tee-weet?”
That's so raw. "Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again." Which, makes sence. I mean, he was forced to hide in a meat locker during the Dresden firebombings during WWII. He saw the hideous nature of humanity, to what extent one group will exert force over another simply to prove a point. Vonnegut recognized that the reader would be confused, switching between Billy Pilgram's time with the Tralfamadorans and the war. But, it works. By being so jumbled, he's reflecting on one of the overall themes of the book...destruction.
Yeah, it's one of the more obvious themes to pick out from it, but I'd like to think that Vonnegut would appreciate it. I had the absolute pleasure of hearing him lecture at the New School in the city a few years ago, right before we entered the war in Iraq. He was rediculous...so captivating...went off on these tangents against everything he felt was wrong with humanity as a whole.
It's almost fitting that he died now, for me at least. I've always found comfort in the almost mantra-like saying of, "and so it goes..." upon the passing of others. It makes death less of somthing I have to grieve...which isnt my strong point. And now, when I need it the most. It's gone.
Because everything I care about will either die or leave me or just not happen.
I'm just unlucky that way.
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