It feels redundant to review anything by Vonnegut. Some of my contemporaries seem to think they should avoid seeming dull or pleasant by finding something to critique even within those things that they love. My friends, I am not one of those people. An open mind goes completely out the window when I encounter a work by someone I already like. I hate the objectivist bias against bias! I'm biased, dammit, for better or worse!
When I love something, or someone, I love them. And I love Kurt Vonnegut. Granted, I haven't read everything he's written, but the novels I have read combined with the opinion pieces I've read are enough for me to enjoy the man's writing like I would a friend's. It may sound presumptuous to go about referring to Vonnegut as my friend, but this is the feeling one gets after reading a personal collection such as Wampeters. It is difficult to dislike someone who is so modest, simple, and surprised at his own success.
This collection includes speeches, book reviews, musings, a Playboy interview, and an unfinished screenplay. I found his review of Hunter S. Thompson to be particularly intriguing, as I admire both authors. In his introduction, Vonnegut claims to have arranged the materials in chronological order, to the best of this ability, and this attempt shines through. One can chart his movements in and out of pessimism, gentle Christianity, sadness, hypocrisy, and humor, and yet simultaneously see which parts of him have always remained the same. It is in this sense that I say reading this book makes Vonnegut like a friend to you. He has peaks and valleys, but the same essential man, the one who yearns for an American "extended family" persists throughout episodes of despair and elation.
Vonnegut, is anything, is perhaps too compassionate for me. Underneath his political and social critiques, he is a lover of man and a defender of the shy and stupid. He stands up for what is most pitiful in man, and in many ways I envy his apparent ability to reconcile ambivalence toward humanity. Reconcile may be too strong a word, as he does periodically mention his struggle to overlook the unhappiness of life in favor of the beautiful. But facing up to the ambivalence is noble enough.
In short, if you are already a Vonnegut fan, this book is pay dirt. If you're not a Vonnegut fan, hopefully this will give you a better opinion of the man, if not his fiction. If you're never read anything Vonnegut has ever touched, ever, this wouldn't be a bad introduction. Even though I try to be a properly critical member of my generation, the whimsy of Vonnegut's life has completely, utterly, stupidly won me over.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment