It's Monday in the middle of November, and about 69% of the waning gibbous moon is visible. What's new?
Happy birthday, Kurt Vonnegut. He would have turned 100 this past Friday. Our wedding anniversary is the same date. You'd think I'd remember that. In a bit of coincidence, I was reading his collection, Welcome to the Monkey House, last week. I read the titular story around Tuesday or Wednesday. I understood where he was going with it, but... the main action of the story was a woman being deprogrammed from the World Government's program of population control through indoctrination and drugs which inhibit sexual desire by numbing every sensation below the waist and culminates with her being raped for her own good. A nasty piece of 60s sci-fi. Maybe I should retract that happy birthday.
Mostly I find his work absurdly funny and also depressing AF. He had a dim view of humanity. Dimmer than mine, and I'm not what you'd describe as "sunny." Probably why I hadn't read anything by him since the early nineties.
He was born into privilege, but the Great Depression took everything from his family. His father became withdrawn and his mother harsh and cruel. She killed herself while Vonnegut was in the army. This seems like a key to his bleak outlook and humor; his unit was captured and while they were being transported to Dresden, Allied planes bombed the train they were on, killing many in his group. During the Dresden bombing, he survived because he was in the basement of the meatpacking warehouse where his unit was interned. The prisoners did better than the citizens. When they were freed, he was immediately tasked with digging out bodies from the rubble. Horrible and absurd, and you sense that Billy Pilgrim was born there.
Here's everyone's favorite Vonnegut quote (other than the wear sunscreen one, which he never said):
It's from Mother Night (1962). You should read it. IIRC, the quote, from the oh so metatextual narrative, is from the first ten pages or so. It is applicable to the modern GOP and their fascistic backbends in their naked power grab, but is applicable to other situations as well. That's how literature works.
No comments:
Post a Comment