vonnegut

Just finished reading Vonnegut's famous Slaughterhouse Five. New York Times, in their original review of the book, said something to the effect that you'd either love it or push it aside as a science fiction book. I suppose great works have that capability of sharply dividing public opinion but I just found the book... listless - which is probably a great compliment for it in a warped sort of way.

The book, like other Vonnegut's novels, is about nothing really. I mean, it sort of has an anti war message in its mundane and trivializing portrayal of the bombing of Dresden. It may be called a science fiction novel in its description of the planet of Tralfamadour but the greatest compliment I can give to the book is that it's about nothing and the only thing it manages to do in its 250 pages is babble about zillion small and disconnected happenings and concepts. I am by no means being critical -Â because I really believe that Vonnegut, for the kind of writer that he was, appreciated above all other acclaim, the acclaim of being the champion of nothing. It seems to me that he was the sort of chap who looked at the triviality of the world and the seriousness with which people took themselves with an amused look - and the world with all its self-presumed purpose was nothing but a heady dose of entertainment for him. Very much like George Carlin actually. He preaches no morals, sort of believes in predestination, really doesn't have much sympathy for any cause, and doesn't want anything to do with group mentality. He is disinterested with the travails of the irrational humanity but understands that he needs to milk it in order to lead a decent life. And he knows that he is smart enough to jeer at the dumb humans and us humans would love him for it. Slaughterhouse Five is exactly the sort of novel which you expect to come from such a person.

I love the ideas in the book and share Vonnegut's amusement at human irrationality (not to say that I'm not irrational), but a satirical antiwar book, for me, has to be measured against the gold standard of Catch-22, and it just doesn't hold up there. There is a cruelty in Catch-22, an absolute inhuman disgust at human herd-mentality, a complete disregard for so many of our cherished ideals - it's a symphony in cacophony, and S5 is nowhere near. Vonnegut probably never tried to write another Catch-22 and there is no obvious reason to compare the two but I cannot help it. But here is the thing - if I had to ignore the content of the book and evaluate Vonnegut as the avant garde, zany writer that he was supposed to be, I'd prefer Woody Allen over him. Allen is not considered a great writer maybe because he never really wrote seriously, but from what I have read from him, there is nobody that I've read (with the exception of Kafka) who even comes close to how crazy his imagination was and is. The trouble with Vonnegut is that in whichever department I choose to evaluate his brilliance, it is always easy to find someone else who is much better. So it goes (and that's how Vonnegut ends most of his paragraphs).

I guess it was the apt time to read Forster's 'A passage to India'. Any book that Kowsik recommends demands to be taken with a pinch of salt by me. Not to cast any aspersions on the merits of his choice for his is an extremely keen intellect and possesses a very envious literary repertoire, but our reading habits and general lines of beliefs diverge enormously. This book, though, is a thoroughly enjoyable masterpiece, although I liked it not for being a great story but for Forster's insightful painting of flawed characters set against the Indian background - a background which has been beautifully dissected by an author more observant than most. His language sketches the Indian landscape in surreal, metaphoric shades and nails the famed subcontinental overdrive of emotions to the T. His portrayal of the religious umbrage that clouds the Indian social intercourse is exactly what it should be - drugged at places, euphoric at others. Because it is futile trying to capture that abandon in logic. As much as a nonbeliever as I am, I cannot but respect the primal surge, the self-sacrificial faith that drives religion in India. It is a spectacle that should be described in words as turbulent as the phenomenon itself. Forster's characters are gray, something which is very welcome because real life doesn't have infallible heroes and impeccable mistresses. His characters fall repeatedly to weave a story that actually appeals to one's emotions and sympathy. A very good book all in all.

The other book that I read was Kurt Vonnegut's 'Breakfast of Champions' and found it to be too episodic, too incoherent for the most part. Aware of the author's mighty reputation as a contemporary master of prose, I was searching for vantage points, lookout hills, from which to make sense of the book but I did not find any till about 2/3rds. It seemed to me to be a sorry attempt at imitating Joseph Heller's humor, only less complex. But then I came across a few lines which put everything in perspective and explained away 200 pages of incoherence and arbitrariness:

'I thought Beatrice Keedsler had joined hands with other old fashioned storytellers to make people believe that life had leading characters, minor characters, significant details, insignificant details, that it has lessons to be learned, tests to be passed, and a beginning, a middle, and an end.

As I approached my fiftieth birthday, I had become more and more enraged and mystified by the idiot decisions made by my countrymen. And the I had come suddenly to pity them, for I understood how innocent and natural it was for them to behave so abominably, and with such abonimable results: They were doing their best to live like people invented in story books. This was the reason Americans shot each other so often: It was a convenient literary device for ending short stories and books.

...Once I understood what was making America such a dangerous, unhappy nation of people who had nothing to do with real life, I resolved to shun storytelling. I would right about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order.'

As long as someone does something not just because he cannot do any betterÂ but because he believes in it. I actually ended up liking the book.

Finally, India! The source which generates a million thoughts, a billion confusions. You only need to peek out of your window to see the radiant faces on malnourished bodies of sunburned toilers and marvel at the mysterious source that keeps them going in a life that doesn't and will not reward them in a manner commensurate to their efforts. It not only does not give them clean water, decent food, and breathable air, it breathes venom and sucks them dry of their last reserves of life. And yet, and yet... How do they manage their smiles? Why doesn't the twinkle not vanish? In a society where material comforts are on such short supply, I'm actually thankful that religion, with its nebulous promises and abstract goals, has such a strong hold. It is such a reason to live for so many people here. It has ideals which might never be achievable, but at least those ideals would never be beyond one's reach simply because he was unfortunate enough to be born without means. For all its shortcomings - and glaring they are - I'm happy that it's there, at least for now.

I'll be going to Delhi this weekend to meet my best friend - I talk to him once every two months for a few minutes. Next weekend I'll visit IIT Guwahati for the first time after graduation. I hope there will be experiences to speak of!

Tag Archive: vonnegut

So it goes.

Forster, Vonnegut, India et. al.