book review

Two new things happened today.

First, I just quit reading a Kurt Vonnegut novel. Second, I wrote a book review of a book that I didn't actually finish. I dig Vonnegut, and seeing Vonnegut struggle with this is similar to the embarassed feeling you get when you watch your good friend trip and fall down a flight of stairs. The book is Deadeye Dick, about the fateful chain of events that ensues after an adolescent boy accidentally shoots and kills a pregnant woman.

The book is the usual Vonnegut fare. The plot is, of course, guided by Chance, that old malevolent prankster. The characters are humorous and pathetic, like all of Vonnegut's people are (aren't we all a tad pathetic?). Vonnegut follows his normal style, which is at once witty, disjointed, dismally and hilariously cynical, and entirely random. In this work Vonnegut builds on his observation that very often the great things in life are booby-trapped. Love, family, fame, and acceptance all carry certain risks. Live long enough and all those things will burn you. That's the normal Vonnegut pessimism, skeptical of pretty much anything.

Vonnegut, in my opinions, personifies the skepticism inherent in postmodernism. Man is continually coming up with ways to keep himself sane. New systems of thought, new organizations, art, they all are human constructs designed to keep us from throwing our hands up in the air out of frustration toward the pain and chaos that are woven into the fabric of the universe. They're the Novocaine that numb the unbearable ache of being. Smart-alecky, iconoclastic old KV will have none of it. Anaesthetics are for pansies.

And maybe it's not a bad thing that Vonnegut is skeptical. Because, as one blogger put it, we do not want our homesickness to lead to false front houses.

Heartache and brokenness--themes like that can make for some great art. So why'd Vonnegut have to go and make the book so boring?

Not that I'll ever ask him. If I ever get to meet Vonnegut I'll tell him I loved it.

But behind his back, I give it a 2 out of 5.