Recently, I read Kurt Vonnegut’s below rant in The Breakfast of Champions. It made me laugh, made me sad, made me move, and made me wonder. Thoughts?
I had no respect whatsoever for the creative works of either the painter or the novelist. I thought Karabekian with this meaningless pictures had entered into a conspiracy with millionaires to make poor people feel stupid. I thought Beatrice Keedsler had joined hands with other old-fashioned storytellers to make people believe that life had leading characters, minor characters, significant details, insignificant details, that it had lessons to be learned, tests to be passed, and a beginning, a middle, and an end.
As I approached my fiftieth birthday, I had become more and more enraged and mystified by the idiot decisions made by my countrymen. And then I had come suddenly to pity them, for I understood how innocent and natural it was for them to behave so abominably, and with such abominable results: they were doing their best to live like people invented in story books. This was the reason American shot each other so often: It was a convenient literary device for ending short stories in books.
Why were so many Americans treated by their government as though their lives were as disposable as paper facial tissues? Because that was the way authors customarily treated bit-part players in their made-up tales.
And so on.
Once I understood what was making American such a dangerous, unhappy nation of people who had noting to do with real life, I resolved to shun storytelling. I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done.
If all writers would do that, then perhaps citizens not in the literary trades will understand that there is no order in the world around us, that we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead.
It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Phil // Oct 28, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Only problem with KV’s argument is that it assumes a lot of people read.
Not to make a depressing conversation more depressing.
I reread that novel this summer and got so much more out of it than I did as a teenager … the little epiphany in the conference room, right before the violence starts, is amazing.
2 Sarah Moffett // Oct 28, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Phil~Ahhh the days when people read…how I miss them.
I have to wonder if the real genius is in making all characters the same or in realizing you’re freakin’ Kurt Vonnegut and can write whatever you want. People will still read it.
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