Kurt Vonnegut Appreciation Thread - Page 9

This last week, I had the opportunity to re-read the book as an assignment for my local book club. What struck me about it, and I had failed to appreciate the first time around, was the intricate relationship between the story and the neuroscience of free will.

Tralfamadorians don’t perceive time as an arrow, but as an all-encompassing experience of simultaneous past, present and future. Without before and after, there is no cause and effect. To ask yourself, “Why me?” in the face of tragedy makes no sense: there is no why.

The simplicity of his style. As adjectives go, "simple" is a bit of a double-edged sword. So let me be clear from the outset: I'm talking about the kind of simplicity that cuts right to the heart of matters. Simplicity can be extremely beautiful, and it can also be profound. And in writing, it's surprisingly hard to do well - to write something simple that's also sharp and compelling and elegant.

Vonnegut attributed much of his style to his training as a journalist, where brevity is paramount. But I'd suggest that his scientific background was equally important here (he studied chemistry at Cornell). Scientists tend to have a great love of simplicity, of finding the simple law or equation that underpins the complicated natural phenomenon. For my money, Vonnegut's writing has a similar trajectory. He does a lot with a little, and is the master of finding the pithy phrase that describes perfectly a character, trait or situation.

Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:
I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don't make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.
What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow.
Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you're Count Dracula.
Here's an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don't do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don't tell anybody what you're doing. Don't show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?
Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals [sic]. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what's inside you, and you have made your soul grow.
God bless you all!
Kurt Vonnegut