And so it goes
The Kurt Vonnegut revival

We're witnessing a full-blown Kurt Vonnegut revival these days. Though the writer best described as Mark Twain on acid deserves his literary accolades, much of what's earning him ink nowadays is his politics.

What is it about science fiction writers and their ability to cut through to the clarity? As Harlan Ellison once put it: "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you."

Vonnegut will certainly generate at least some scorn as he tries to take the stigma from the word socialist.

"'Socialism' is no more an evil word than 'Christianity.' Socialism no more prescribed Joseph Stalin and his secret police and shuttered churches than Christianity prescribed the Spanish Inquisition. Christianity and socialism alike, in fact, prescribe a society dedicated to the proposition that all men, women and children are created equal, and shalt not starve."

As he tries to take the stigma from the word environmentalist.

"The good Earth -- we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy."

As he tries to navigate the final chapters of a personal journey now 82 years long.

***

A decade ago I wrote a novel about athiests trying to escape from Heaven; one of my test readers said it reminded him of Kurt Vonnegut's "Sirens of Titan." I considered it both a high compliment and an obvious fact. As a young writer, I devoured every single book he wrote, and my segmented writing style was patterned from him 35 years ago. I'm comfortable with my inner Vonnegut. My inner Hemingway gets me in trouble. My inner Crane is depressing.

If I had an inner Ogden Nash, I'd be able to laugh at more things.

Vonnegut certainly seems to -- and he's guided by an inner Eugene V. Debs.

As long as there is a lower class, I am in it. As long as there is a criminal element, I'm of it. As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

Vonnegut officially retired from fiction a decade ago, though he's collecting thoughts in a book with a working title "If God Were Alive Today." The protagonist is a comedian at the end of time, and he believes if God were alive today, he'd be an athiest. Vonnegut never expects to finish the book. I suspect it will be published posthumously, and that it'll be hysterical, cynical and sappy all at the same time.

As a critic friend of Vonnegut's once told him: "You put bitter coatings on very sweet pills."

***

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."

This line from "Mother Night" stayed with me for years. I was quite surprised when I later saw a similar line from Shakespeare, and even more surprised when I found a similar sentiment in the Bible.

The Bible reference got me to thinking. Do you know the Mesopotamian epics of Gilgamesh contain a nearly identical story of the Bible's Great Flood? It was published 500 years before the Bible, though there's a different God and a different Noah in the starring roles.

Maybe there really are timequakes. Maybe there really are chrono-synclastic infundibulum, and maybe it was Vonnegut -- not Shakespeare or Francis Bacon or DaVinci -- who planted cosmic jokes in the Bible. How else can you reconcile the diva, God-tyrant of the Old Testament with the beauty of the New Testament's Sermon on the Mount?

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The lines above come from the book of Matthew; the Luke version is slightly different, but no big deal. Wikipedia reminds us that "similar sayings are also recorded in a few of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and are found in Jewish sources that predate the Christian era."

I probably shouldn't have brought all the plagiarism up.

Probably wouldn't have if it hadn't been for Kurt Vonnegut.

***

Since this is an Internet piece, I have to state for the record that the great Vonnegut commencement address to MIT is a fake (Kofi Annan was the MIT speaker that year). The piece was written by a reporter, a reporter, I suspect, of about my age and of about my youthful influences.

Here's a line from one of his real commencement addresses:

"Do not take the entire world on you shoulders. Do a certain amount of skylarking, as befits people your age. "Skylarking," incidentally, used to be a minor offense under Naval Regulations. What a charming crime. It means intolerable lack of seriousness."

What a great charge.

Consider me guilty.

-30-

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Oct. 15, 2005