I never “got into” Vonnegut, or “dug” his work like my “buds,” several of whom pronounced his work as “intense,” so I am not particularly bothered to find he applauds suicide bombers, and thinks they experience “an amazing high.” In the literal sense, perhaps; it’s possible that skull fragments may reach the third floor before they carom off a balcony and patter back to earth.Wonker actually taught Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five" back in his liberal university phase, before the professoriat decided that Wonker might be hazardous to the complacency of America's English Departments as they morphed into propaganda mills promoting unintelligible theories and turgid writing. Even at that point, however, one had to wonder at the hollowness of Vonnegut's content-free little books, of which "Five" was merely the most hyped.
I should note that Mr. Vonnegut’s comments, reported in the Australian, were made while touring to promote a collection of anti-Bush essays, and as such all attempts to refute them are intended to suppress his freedom of speech. It goes without saying he will be spending his senior years naked in a cell, fighting rats for a scrap of bread, writing brave quatrains on the wall with a shoelace-tip dipped in rat’s blood, awakened daily at 4 AM with bright lights and the national anthem. Such is life in Chimpsuit McHallihitler’s America...
A senior professor, and noted Vonnegut scholar at the time, came to the sage conclusion that "Slaughterhouse Five" was really the apotheosis of Vonnegut's profound social message, which somehow conflated the revenge firebombing of Dresden by the allies with the evils of Naziism and Communism, a kind of prequel to today's monolithic moral relativism. The professor triumphantly concluded that Vonnegut's conclusion was: "Well, what can you really say about a war?"
Brilliant stuff. Wonker is certain that this brilliant insight alone will place Vonnegut right up there in the firmament with other great chroniclers of humanity like Tolstoy.
Not.
If Vonnegut is what passes for today's literary intelligence in America, it's clearly time that we start all over again with people who can think before they write. Vonnegut is yet another case of a scribbler who's career ended long ago and who is attempting to regain it by sucking up to the zeit geist of the New York Times and the few hundred remaining leaders who take the opinion of other has-beens like Maureen Dowd seriously. The pathetically myopic world of the American and European intellectual today differs little from the cliquish adolescent societies that impose, er, party discipline at particularly snotty high schools in affluent city and suburban neighborhoods. Be there, or be talked about.
But hey, Lileks sums this up a lot better. Catch the rest of his article here.
5 comments:
Funny you say "vastly overrated". IMHO, it is exactly the other way round. Vonnegut has been kept in the closet, I suspect, because of his not trying to be politically correct. This grand old man has assumed the role "To be the ears and eyes and conscience of the Creator of the Universe," and can bow out now, as someone who has never been beaten at this - albeit his own - game.
The Wonk's opinion stands, though we can happily agree to disagree. (Or not.)
Vonnegut has stood firmly with the PC crowd since Wonker taught "Slaughterhouse Five" in college sophomore lit back in those halcyon days when Kurt, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, and John Fowles were actually read outside English Dept. classrooms. Although Fowles was a pretty good yarn spinner when he wanted to be, all these writers and quite a few others, lionized at the time by the professoriat, created artifices that proved quite adept masquerading as art.
Vonnegut, like these other "fabulators," was always technically clever. Further, he cannily goosed his Age of Aquarius street cred by pushing the antiwar line hard, guaranteeing popularity among a crowd that required--and still requires this--from any writer who would become a literary hero.
But Vonnegut's work, as is also the case with Pynchon's "Crying of Lot 49," is in reality an endless do-loop.
As to Vonnegut's posing as the Almighty's conscience. That's a typical conceit of lefty agnostics who believe that God, if there is a god, is undoubtedly a Marxist. Note this Vonnegut sound bite from a 2003 interview posted on the "In These Times" website:
"Vonnegut is an American socialist in the tradition of Eugene Victor Debs, a fellow Hoosier whom he likes to quote: 'As long as there is a lower class, I am in it. As long as there is a criminal element, I am of it. As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.'"
Lovely thoughts. But a couple of paragraphs later, he's busy taking cheap shots at the Bushies (of the McChimpHitler variety) which, I guess, qualifies as pure genius these days in certain circles. This stuff, reeking with bile, is always quite colorful. But in the end, it's a content-free zone.
Yet Vonnegut's vaguely tweedy persona, sincere if lacking in gravitas, guarantees continuing adulation in a literary world that has degenerated into a self-congratulatory in-crowd of armchair collectivists who rage against capitalist warmongers whilst reaping the ample benefits of the system they profess to detest. It all looks pretty PC to me.
Yes, Wonker, your scribbling is so much more "literally" than Vonnegut's or, someone like me;), who learnt what passes for English - for themselves - from listening to the BBC or reading books. No, you do not lack "gravity", merely solidity.
To say that "[Someone's] busy taking cheap shots," makes you culpable of the same offense, doesn't it? This very accusation, calls your own credentials into question.
The argument, about busy hating the Capitalism and reaping its benefits is so unoriginal, whatever its other merits may be.
To my mind, Vonnegut used to be discovered by people on their own, without much help, if any, from the publicity quarters. That alone testifies for something.
To rage that someone doesn't deserve the fame or publicity, implies that the author thinks himself to be at least more deserving of that fame and publicity.
To assume that God is Marxist is so Christian, to my mind. Maybe that's what deep-down Vonnegut really is. Maybe that's why people like him so much - the atheist Christ.
Welcome back to Anonymous, and appreciate the engagement. With reference to a few of your points:
"No, you do not lack "gravity", merely solidity."
Not sure what you mean here--last time I looked, my corporeal being was still quite solid.
"To say that "[Someone's] busy taking cheap shots," makes you culpable of the same offense, doesn't it? This very accusation, calls your own credentials into question."
Not sure that the mere observation that someone is taking "cheap shots" automatically makes the Wonk guilty of the same. In the cited piece, Vonnegut goes to great pains to indulge in quite a bit of namecalling regarding folks he doesn't like. Namecalling generally qualifies as a cheap shot in my book. Observing that such behavior betrays clannishness and a lack of intellectual heft is criticism, not namecalling.
Today's intellectual left is not comfortable engaging the ideas of the right because the right is regarded as inherently evil and therefore unworthy of engagement or respect. This apparently releases the left from any obligation to provide the reasons for its casual slanders, sneering, condescension, and namecalling.
"The argument, about busy hating the Capitalism and reaping its benefits is so unoriginal, whatever its other merits may be."
The argument--more of an observation really--is indeed unoriginal. But that makes it no less valid. The paradox remains.
"To my mind, Vonnegut used to be discovered by people on their own, without much help, if any, from the publicity quarters. That alone testifies for something."
Actually, in Wonker's youth, Vonnegut was regularly assigned in college contemp lit classrooms which accounted at least in part for his mid-career best sellerdom. Of course, Wonker's youth seems to be rapidly receding into the mists of history, so it may very well be that for some these days Vonnegut is a discovered pleasure. But then, that's true of Ayn Rand, too. Perhaps that testifies to the same thing?
"To rage that someone doesn't deserve the fame or publicity, implies that the author thinks himself to be at least more deserving of that fame and publicity."
Wonker rarely rages, but often rants and fulminates, usually with good reason. It's quite satisfying, actually.
A great many famous people today--particularly those in Hollywood--don't deserve the fame and publicity they get, but they get it anyway because they have good PR agents. (I'm too cheap to hire one.)
Like most writers on the right, the Wonk fully realizes that things like Pulitzer Prizes, MacArthur Grants, etc., will never happen for them because they are all run by the left. But this is the life we have chosen. Resentment is futile. Most of us don't waste time on it, although resentment of other writers is indeed a time-honored passion among the literati. Mr. and Mrs. Wonk actually make a rather good living from scribbling, so in the end, we're grateful, not resentful.
"To assume that God is Marxist is so Christian, to my mind. Maybe that's what deep-down Vonnegut really is. Maybe that's why people like him so much - the atheist Christ."
Liberation theologians might agree, but the observation doesn't hold up. First of all, it is Jesus who is often assumed to be a Marxist by some, not God the Father. Indeed, the social leveling effect of Jesus' preaching and the communal existence of many early Christians adds some heft to this observation. But in the end, Marxism is about godlessness, about a worldly existence that ends at death and posits no afterlife. So there could be no atheist Christ as there is no afterlife in need of redemption.
Bottom line--HazZzmat is primarily in the business of cultural criticism, operating from the right side of the aisle. We have our likes and dislikes and provide reasons for them which our readers can accept or reject. If Vonnegut floats your boat, by all means read on. Wonker was once a fan himself. But many authors pale upon second or third reading, over time, and for this writer, at least, Vonnegut is one of them. After time, you may or may not come to a different conclusion.
So it goes!
Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year to all who read this page!
Hello Wonker. Thank you for your response. I have been won over by your "solidity" this time (whatever it may be):) Taken sentence by sentence, your response was as of a benign professor to a raging punk student. It was good.
It is not that Anonymous necessary agrees with your point of view, though.
I am saddened by your claim of being political. Being right-wing means being political, I think. Doesn't it deprive you from the luxury of having an opinion of your own, that might be in disagreement with your party line?
I don't mind people being Right-wing, Communist, Christian, Lesbian or anything, in fact. It is only when someone resigns his/her intellect or opinions for some gain, or political reasons.
It is not that I can point to anything you've said so far as being blatantly political, though.
"Not sure that the mere observation that someone is taking "cheap shots" automatically makes the Wonk guilty of the same."
Hmm. OK. The expression "to take cheap shots" is well over-used, in my opinion. When you say that a person "takes cheap shots", it probably means that you yourself are taking a "shot" at the person in question; and in this case, as your weapon you are employing a worn-out (cheap) phrase. Wouldn't it be a cheap shot?-)
"The argument--more of an observation really--is indeed unoriginal. But that makes it no less valid. The paradox remains."
Fully accepted.
"Like most writers on the right, the Wonk fully realizes that things like Pulitzer Prizes, MacArthur Grants, etc., will never happen for them because they are all run by the left."
Funny, but it is very easy to imagine your opponents say exactly the same. Something on the lines that all the prizes are run by the Conservatives.
"First of all, it is Jesus who is often assumed to be a Marxist by some, not God the Father."
True. But here we have a very scientific stab at something which is not scientific to say the least. Are the members of the Holy Trinity supposed to have differing political opinions?
"If Vonnegut floats your boat, by all means read on."
I just can't believe that it is possible not to like "Breakfast of Champions" or "Deadeye Dick", unless it is because of what you perceive as the author's gutter-mouth language, or his atheist or left-wing stance, or because of - sorry - sheer lack of sense of humour on the reader's part.
On the other hand, the stuff like Joyce's "Ulysses", or Kafka's "The Castle", or Evelyn Waugh's "Sword of Honour Trilogy", or David Foster Wallace's "Depressed Person" would probably take a connoisseur to be enjoyed.
My guess, Vonnegut will survive because of his humanism, honesty and - at least for some - for his sense of humour. There may be writers whose English is better or more dazzling. But to hell with their crafty turn of phrase if they don't have anything to say.
Happy Holidays!
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