Review: A Man Without a Country, By Kurt Vonnegut

I enjoy reading Kurt Vonnegut, and if I had it to do over I would read this, his final book, only after I had read all the rest (which I have yet to do). The man has a talent for interesting humor into the most horrific of things, a talent he accounts for early on in this memoir of sorts, but this book ultimately reads like the final disgruntled rant of a disillusioned old man. Which, incidentally, it is, and he openly acknowledges it as such. It is Kurt Vonnegut, and that was the point of most of his work, but the difference here is the saturation of bitterness because it isn't embedded in a well written story.

Reading this there were many moments when I found myself laughing outright, others when I was nodding my head vigorously in agreement, and still others when I succumbed to frustration with the constant negativity. He repeats ideas, even phrases, throughout the book and there were times when I wanted to say enough already. It comes across as just bitterness, and that's a wasted emotion in my book. But every time I was about to set the book aside intending to never pick it up again, he would renew my interest with another fabulous observation or statement that got me hooked back in.

For many, especially the true fans, the people who grew up on Vonnegut's acerbic wit, this will be an enjoyable must read. And people who are one-hundred percent in line with his political views will enjoy it even more. I fall into neither of those categories, but I would still give it a three out of five.

15 down on my way to 52 in 2011

Review: Journey to the End of the Night, by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Journey to the End of the Night is like a travelogue of a journey into the darkest parts of the human soul. It is a dark, pessimistic, almost nihilistic work. Not written like a story, there is no plot to follow, and there are several sharp turns and hidden corners where, as a reader, you might find yourself digging deep to catch up. For all that, this is a great book.

I picked this book up originally because I'd heard it had influenced Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse Five and Heller in Catch-22. Liking both of those I decided to go back to their purported beginnings. It is easy to find Catch-22 in Journey, but that is only a small portion of the story, which begins in World War I France, moves to colonial Africa, with a strong flavor of Heart of Darkness (published long before Journey), then moves to the United States before heading back to France. This physical traveling, the moving around from continent to continent, aside from being part of the work's semi-autobiographical nature, mirrors the mental journey of Bardamu as he travels deeper and deeper into a dark human psyche. Céline examines the darkness of war, of capitalism, and of a shrinking world, touching on religion, science, gender relations, and madness as he does.

There is a lot more that can be said about this book, a lot more about symbolism and nuances, but those things are best explored by reading it. Céline was on the front of the 20th century literary movement, and his writing style is a mixture of descriptive prose and vernacular, is rife with satire, and has a rhythm all its own. My only disappointment is that I cannot read French because I think a lot can be lost from a book like this in the process of translation. I have also read that the newer translation is too contemporary and that to get a better feel for Céline's talent one must read the original translation by John H. P. Marks. That is now something on my list of things to do.

14 down on my way to 52 in 2011

Review: Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to always tell the difference." - Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse Five

I was surprised by two things reading this book. One, I had no idea that this was the origin of the above quote. Two, this was a very different book from Cat's Cradle. I'm not sure why I expected the books to be more similar than they are, maybe I've read too many one note authors, but while Vonnegut's voice is still clearly present, the two books are talking about very different things in very different ways. Slaughterhouse Five actually reminds me a lot of Joseph Heller's Catch-22, which I read last year and enjoyed. The post-modern anti-war flavor is strong in both books, and there's a pretty strong similarity between their loose play with time, too; These are not linear books. Catch-22 is more darkly humorous, though, like Cat's Cradle in that respect, while Slaughterhouse flirts with science fiction in a way that leaves the reader wondering what really did and did not happen. I love being left with that question. I also enjoyed the way Vonnegut called out the hypocrisy of war. I didn't care for this one as much as Cat's Cradle, and between them I think I liked Catch-22 better, but this was a good book. And it introduced me to the book I picked up to read next, Celine's Journey to the End of the Night, which I understand may have influenced both Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse and Heller's earlier Catch-22.

Book 13 on my way to 52 in 2011

Review: Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut's writing is an exercise for the sharp, witty, satirical mind. Every page, every sentence. When I read (only when I'm reading my own non-collectors copy of a book, of course) I dog-ear pages, pencil notes in margins, and keep a running tab near the front for important page numbers, quotes, or connections between ideas. That was not really possible in Cat's Cradle because everything was worth looking into. I stopped the dog-earing after the first 50 pages because almost 25 of them were folded and it seemed pointless.

Obviously I really enjoyed this book, but that's my post-modern, dystopian predilection showing. Cat's Cradle is not a story book or a character study, it's more of an anthropological argument, and in fact it was this book that earned Vonnegut his masters degree where an earlier thesis had failed him. Science, religion, politics, patriotism, it all comes under fire here, and every shot is set up to make the reader laugh first, then think deeply. Vonnegut's disdain for blind patriotism and war is not hard to read here, but more deeply nuanced is his argument between science and religion. Blind pursuit of scientific knowledge leads right up to the book's doomsday ending, but while science, written as a heartless man, kills the bulk of life, religion is portrayed as a blatant lie intended to guide and ease suffering, in the end failing to do either. Middle of the road it is, then.

Book 12 on my way to 52 in 2011