Letters to the Editor
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Hey! I just watched the movie last night!
It's a weeeeiiiiird movie. Of course, it's a weird book too, but it's a very enjoyable read. I can't say I'd call the movie "enjoyable." (Valerie Perrine is enjoyable, though.)
The recent episodes of "Lost" are filled with references to Vonnegut. The whole episode where Desmond keeps popping between two different time periods of his life is a direct take-off on "Slaughterhouse Five." The main character, Billy Pilgrim, keeps getting "unstuck in time."
I consider the book to be about the non-linearity of time and what time means to our lives. It's about finding the importance of the mundane, and the mundane in the important.
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Vonnegut's introduction to Slaughterhouse Five
also has some autobiographical info. about how the book came to be (though this new material is fascinating, I agree) and I've always found that introduction one of the most moving and understated pieces of writing anywhere.
The intro ends with this passage, describing going to Dresden much later in the 60s to research his book.
"I looked through the Gideon Bible in my motel room for tales of great destruction. "The sun was risen upon the Earth when Lot entered into Zo-ar," I read. "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven; and He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of those cities, and that which grew upon the ground."
Those were vile people in both those cities, as is well known. The world was better off without them. And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes.
People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore. I've finished my war book now. The next one I write is going to be fun. This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt.
It begins like this:
Listen:"
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Vonnegut and prophesy
The article states, "One need only replace the noun 'Germany' with 'Iraq,' however, to discern the unique prophetic role Vonnegut continues to play in our literary culture . . .' and then quotes the following from the book: "'[T]he 'Get Tough America' policy . . . has earned us a name for obscene brutality, and cost the World the possibility of Germany becoming a peaceful and intellectually fruitful nation in anything but the most remote future.'"
The choice of quotation is ironic. America's conduct towards Germany in WWII didn't "cost" the World anything - whether because of, or in spite of, American "vengeance," Western Germany was a social and cultural vanguard within a couple of decades - a leader in public education and socialized medicine, a rich source of music and literature and science.
Iraq is a mess, and Bush's elective war has materially damaged our country's reputation. Still, the Iraqis would do well indeed to become as "peaceful and intellectually fruitful" a nation as Germany became, and as quickly.
I won't be holding my breath.
t.
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Slaughter House 5-etched something within me.
I was sensing sorrow. I read it before a Nam experience. The heart hurt.
Words cannot express my appreciation to Kurt Vonnegut's anti-war views.
I wish I could have puffed with him a Pall Mall, a light either end, Class A` cigarette.
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after WW-2, a Kurt V. leans against a wall... watch a man puff some tobacco smoke,
And read Kurt Vonnegut, and ponder enlightened and anti-war thought.
The native inhabitants believed a blend of herbs was a sorta collagen glue.
Kurt's V's lush anti-kill lips, puffs a cigarette. It keeps Kurt's earthen and grounded.
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The Timelessness of Vonnegut
I read Player Piano when I was 19 years old and it inspired me to rebel against the establishment.
I read it again when I was 49 and had a hard time relating to all the main character gave up in order live his dream.
Thus is the genius of Kurt Vonnegut. He was timeless. He wrote simultaneously to the 19 and 49 year old. The same person. And I didn't even know it. Until I was ready to.
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On Vonnegut
On some days I imagine what he thinks of the continuing insanity and I can even smell those stinkin' Pall Malls.
Or maybe it is just the ruins of Iraq, burning.
Rest in peace Mr. Rosewater.
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@ olesage
I agree. I first read "Slaughterhouse Five" in high school and really enjoyed it. But I read it as a kid does, for the story.
I re-read it not too long ago (now I'm in my 50s) and I think I might be beginning to understand it. And his friend's wife was really right about the subtitle- "The Children's Crusade", although I think that I didn't appreciate it too much when I was in the military.
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Jeanette...
I'd not offer you a crumpled cigarette stomped on the floor.
I'd not stand too close.
May a reader here offer another Salon reader a puff of smoke?
A smoke after a eclair?
A chocolate filled bun?
A smoke is not as fun.
Warm milk is the best.
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BTW the 250,000 figure comes from, wait for it.....wait for it
David Irving of Holocaust denying fame. In truth if you trace back the barbarity committed upon the poor Germans, all the stories, facts and figures lead back to David Irving. Isn't history fun?
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Kilgore Trout and Ice 9
Kurt Vonnegut is my favorite writer. Probably the reason I am a writer. Thanks for this article.
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C'mon, Pappa Kurt!
"Lousy little book"?! One, two, three; you are better than you think!...
Always moral without being preachy. Wish he was President.
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That statement is not prophetic.
First, before anybody smears me for having a bias that would lead me to write this, I am opposed to the Iraq war and think it is a disaster.
Second though, the idea that replacing "Germany" with "Iraq" in that last quote proves how prophetic that statement is is ridiculous. To say that Iraq won't be "a peaceful and intellectually fruitful nation in anything but the most remote future" is purely an assertion made by the author of the article. The validity of the author's claim is further cast into doubt because the quotation does not even accurately describe the country it was meant to describe. The claim made in the Vonnegut quote had the opportunity to be tested only once so far, and it was in context of post-WWII Germany. Fortunately for the world and unfortunately for Vonnegut's reputation as a prophet, he was wrong. Germany took a bit of time to recover but basically reentered the world community fairly quickly as a peaceful and intellectually fruitful nation.