'
So I had started this book, gotten almost through with it, and then it apparently fell under my bed and got covered in dust bunnies for about two months. So I picked it up, dusted it off, and finished it on this quiet Sunday night. If you've been reading my previous posts, you know my deep and abiding love for Kurt Vonnegut is as great as my deep and abiding love for Haruki Murakami, and this book just makes me ache for him. He is one of those authors that infuse themselves into their books, and it's impossible to untangle the fictitious story and the reality Vonnegut was grappling with. In my opinion, this is his saddest book, his most personal book, a book written in a crisis. I don't think there's another modern author who can draw back the curtain on modern life and make you feel it's loneliness and absurdity more keenly. After all, who hasn't felt like Lancer, the wretched greyhound, who, "had a very small brain, but...must have suspected from time to time, just as Wayne Hoobler did, that some kind of terrible mistake had been made."
I don't really want to say much more about this book. It would kind of feel wrong to dissect it apart, and like Vonnegut says, it's not your normal kind of book, with plots and story arcs and personal triumphs. It's hilarious and terrible and bizarre: no one else, no one would think to describe the word schizophrenia as being like a human sneezing in a blizzard of soapflakes, and it DOES sound like that. How does he come up with this stuff? But Vonnegut was the master of dark humor, and this book got an extra shot of darkness.
'"This is a very bad book you're writing," I said to myself behind my leaks.
"I know," I said.
"You're afraid you'll kill yourself the way your mother did," I said.
"I know," I said.'
That's all I got, folks.
In summary: This book is like a kick to the chest, but when you put it down you realize some hope managed to sneak in along with the pain. Resquiat in pace, KV.
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