Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut will always have a special place in my heart. He was my first favorite liberal philosopher author with whom I fell madly in love. His writing honest, humorous, and incredibly intelligent. Vonnegut has got this knack for conveying more ideas in one short sentence than most writers can in an entire novel. His words are powerful and memorable. Although he held a pessimistic view of politics and the modern day world, he believed in the good of human kind.

Armageddon in Retrospect is a collection of essays published posthumously, one year after Vonnegut's death. The majority of the essays explore the meaning of war and it's impact on those involved. While there is a focus on WWII and the bombing of Dresden, Vonnegut's writing is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago. I especially liked the introduction, written by Kurt's son, Mark Vonnegut, where he paid tribute to his father and offered an interesting perspective of a man and his writing:

“He often said he had to be a writer because he wasn't good at anything else. He was not good at being an employee. Back in the mid-1950's, he was employed for Sports Illustrated, briefly. He reported back to work, was asked to write a short piece on a racehorse that jumped over a fence and tried to run away. Kurt stared at the blank piece of paper all morning and then typed, "The horse jumped over the fucking fence," and walked out, self-employed again.”

I have to say this wasn't my favorite collection of Vonnegut's - some stories outshine the others - but it's worth the read, nonetheless. If you're new to Vonnegut's essays, I would suggest starting with A Man Without A Country.

Publisher: Putnam, 2008

A Man Without A Country by Kurt Vonnegut

A Man Without A Country is a collection of essays, speeches and drawings in which Vonnegut reflects on politics, religion, art, and human nature. It was the last book that was published before Vonnegut's death in April of 2007. The collection is a delight to read; though a bit disjointed, overall it's funny and incredibly sincere, it's moralistic, and at times biting. Vonnegut discusses war, the bombing of Dresden and how it lead to his classic Slaughterhouse-Five, he examines the coincidence and hopelessness of life, our less-then-ideal government, the bleak state of the environment, and how he feels helpless in a world where most of us focus on the now, rather than the state of the future.

I don't think people give a damn whether the planet goes on or not. It seems to me as if everyone is living as members of Alcoholics Anonymous do, day by day. And a few more days will be enough. I know of very few people who are dreaming of a world for their grandchildren.

Despite the fact that Vonnegut was painted as a bitter, angry old man in his most recent biography, from these essays it seems to me that while he was disillusioned with the state of America and society as a whole, he did maintain a certain faith in people and the good of which they are capable. Moreover, Vonnegut stresses the importance of acting in kindness and advises to pay attention to moments of happiness, lest they should pass you by wasted and unnoticed. It's a simple piece of advice that is overlooked by many. It's also a testament that while Vonnegut was cynical and pessimistic about a lot of things, he truly took the time to appreciate his happiness what was good in his life.

I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur of think at some point, "if this isn't nice, i don't know what is."

I think part of the reason I enjoyed this book so much is because I happen to agree with its outlook and politics. The essays are meandering, but it works. If you're a fan of Vonnegut's novels but haven't read any of his essays, I urge you to read this book.

Other opinions:
The Avid Reader's Musings
Things Mean A Lot

Publisher: Seven Stories Press, 2005

Kurt Vonnegut on The Shapes of Stories

In an effort to keep it light this on this lovely Saturday morning, here is a humorous KV video - a short lecture on the shapes of stories. Enjoy.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does.

I've always been a fan of Kurt Vonnegut's short stories, but this is my first full-length novel of his that I have read. Slaughterhouse-Five is a semi-autobiographical account of Kurt Vonnegut's experience in WWII told through the eyes of Billy Pilgrim. It combines the bombing of Dresden with Billy's capacity to be "unstuck" in time, time-traveling to Tralfamadore and living among aliens.

Vonnegut explores time and memory, and the human desire to explain the world around us and understand what we don't know. He writes about the human condition brilliantly, highlighting the twinkles of bliss and humor that shine through the darker occasions. He explores the human passion for life and the experience of living. But the book isn't hopeful, as we are left without any resolution or moral. Rather, Vonnegut exposes the follies and the misjudgments that humans experience as we try to cope with life, which to him, is insignificant.

If what Billy Pilgrim learned from the Tralfamadorians is true, that we will all live forever, no matter how dead we may sometimes seem to be, I am not overjoyed. Still--if I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice.

The book is fractured and written in a muted language, which adds to the non-romanticized, indefinable view of war. While it very clearly satirizes war and exposes it's absurdities, it also speaks to it's inevitability. Slaughterhouse-Five raises existential questions without slapping you in the face with them. We aren't left with answers, but Vonnegut surmises through an exploration of fate and free-will that we can chose our own path, however trivial it may be.

All time is all time. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all... bugs in amber.

 Publisher: Dial Press, 1969

Kurt Vonnegut in The Paris Review

As I finish up Slaughterhouse-Five and prepare to review it, I read a fantastic interview with Kurt Vonnegut via The Paris Review. The interview is from the 70's and details, among other things, Vonnegut's experience in WWII and what prompted him to write about it with the viewpoint that he did, an experience that he relates at the start of Slaughterhouse-Five:

I would try to write my war story, whether it was interesting or not, and try to make something out of it. I describe that process a little in the beginning ofSlaughterhouse Five; I saw it as starring John Wayne and Frank Sinatra. Finally, a girl called Mary O’Hare, the wife of a friend of mine who’d been there with me, said, “You were just children then. It’s not fair to pretend that you were men like Wayne and Sinatra, and it’s not fair to future generations, because you’re going to make war look good.” That was a very important clue to me. She freed me to write about what infants we really were: seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one. We were baby-faced, and as a prisoner of war I don’t think I had to shave very often. I don’t recall that that was a problem.

Vonnegut also recalls the importance of diversity among authors, namely a diversity of background - that not every author should hold an English literature graduate degree:

I think it can be tremendously refreshing if a creator of literature has something on his mind other than the history of literature so far. Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak.

If you get a chance I suggest you read the interview in its entirety. He explains what he believes to be the theory of writing a good story and what exactly makes a good writer. Vonnegut is truly captivating in a nonchalant, pessimistic kind of way.

April 11th marks the 4 year anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut's death. So it goes.

Another Reason to Love Vonnegut

Not only is Vonnegut one of the greatest and most influential American writers of our time, he also won the 1978 writers' best friend/humanitarian award. Turns out, unlike most successful authors, Vonnegut went out of his way to help other, less successful authors.

While pursuing the Huffington Post this morning I found a link to this article, which details a great example of why I wish Vonnegut were my best friend.

In 1978 Nicola Nikolov immigrated to the US with the hopes of becoming a writer. That August he wrote letters to successful American authors, including Vonnegut, requesting feedback on his enclosed short stories. Nikolov saved his responses he received and needless to say most authors weren't of much help. (From John Cheever: "...I consider my judgement on anything but my own work to be worthless.")

However, Vonnegut not only went as far as critiquing Nikolov's writing, he also enclosed a check for the hopeful writer and his wife:

In an extraordinary, lengthy typed letter Vonnegut discussed the plight of the immigrant to the U.S. ("I would never urge anyone to come here, unless he were a world figure or multi-millionaire like Sozhenitzen") and the fiction writer in contemporary America: "the best books earn nothing, usually. There are supposedly, at any given time, no more than 300 people in this whole country who make their livings as self-employed writers. America has more admirals on active duty than that." Then, miraculously, Vonnegut agreed to read the proffered short stories. Further, in an act of profound kindness, Vonnegut enclosed an unsolicited check for the poverty-stricken Bulgarian with the "hope that you and your wife will spend it on a good supper and a bottle of wine. The America you find yourselves in is the America I have tried to describe in my books. It makes no sense. Nobody knows what it is. Anything can happen. Cheers, Kurt Vonnegut."

Dispite Vonnegut's efforts, Nikolov was never published in the US.