Sunday, February 08, 2004
(8:26 PM) | Anonymous:
History is merely a list of surprises. It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again - UPDATED
As of later tonight, I'll have finished Mother Night and thus be merely 3 books (God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons and Jailbird) away from reading the entire Vonnegut Cannon. I even own Venus On The Half Shell, which is written by someone other than Vonnegut under the pseudonym "Kilgore Trout"..which is Vonnegut's name for a character suspiciously resembling himself in many of his books. Kotsko talked about the black hole of Vonnegut a while back..as well as, strangely the black hole of CS Lewis, the only other prolific author of whom I've read 90% of their works. I swear, if he ever writes a post about the "black hole" of indie rock, hockey, or the movie Donnie Darko, I'm going to give up all rebuttal and full-fledgedly believe he's out to get me.Nevertheless, Vonnegut, in the intro to this book points out three morals which he says aren't "marvelous morals", but are the only morals to stories of his which he happens to know. They are thus: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." You may have seen that one on the four million Vonnegut quote lists, but it never made sense to me till I read this book. Secondly, "When you're dead you're dead" and finally "Make love when you can. It's good for you."
The second and third one seem trite and silly, but really, they are pretty much the point of every american novel of any depth written from 1945-1990. And why not? The people writing those books had come through World War II, Korea, Vietnam.. the most horrific amount of evil the world had ever experienced, from all sides. Atom Bombs, Holocausts, Concentration Camps, Japanese-American internment camps, propoganda out the wazoo - what were they going to do, go back to claiming that the novel could realistically depict the world? Go back to telling stories that attempt to show some sort of lesson? What lesson is left when so much evil can happen at once? Vietnam only reinforced all this, and all that's left to say is this: We're all gonna die. It's a simple fact we all miss. One day the fingers I write this message with are going to be decaying and rotten bones underground or in some lab. One day your eyes you read this with will rot, and all that will be left is the sockets. It's true, it's going to happen no matter what we do between now and then. This is simple, but important, because in trying to deny this fact - trying to go on living forever, we completely screw up everyone else's lives. We screw the poor because otherwise we might not be as well off, we might not live forever. We bomb the heck out of other countries because otherwise they might bomb us first and cut us off from living forever. We completely disregard the friends we have in favor of some pursuit of intellectual knowledge or material wealth that will help us to live forever. All there is are these friendships, life won't last forever, and the only hope is that it can be as decent as possible for as many as possible. Make love whenever you can, it's good for you.
But I knew all that from my "American Fiction Post-WW II" class, and I'm sure you all did too..I just thought it'd be fun to type. What makes this book rank (through the first 150 pages) with Galapagos, Slap Stick and Cat's Cradle as my favorite Vonnegut books, is the first moral he points out. In case you forgot, that was "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
The book is all about an American who moved to Germany when he was 10, and grew up to be an American spy, giving out information to American forces through various signals during his radio broadcasts, which are made as the top Nazi propogandist. He's now on trial in Israel for war crimes, and awaiting his near-certain death, since the US certainly isn't going to acknowledge him. If you've read anything by Vonnegut, you know that reading a plot summary is probably the easiest way to make such fascinating books seem stupid, so basically, ignore this whole paragraph.
The book is seemingly trying to make a point about how perfectly good people go about doing perfectly evil things. He talks at some length about his run-ins with Nazis in Dresden in the intro, and the character describes Goebbels and other Nazis at length in the book. There isn't really any political opinion at all to the book, which is strange, considering the immense potential for "politically charged tension" or subplots about him being torn between the two sides. If any "political" lesson can be given, it is that people are generally the same...from your neighbor, to Hitler, to George W. Bush, to Sadaam Hussein to Darryl Strawberry to Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Mark Spitz to WWF SUPERSTAR THE MOUNTY. All people, to some degree, think of themselves in terms of goodness. Even when knowingly doing evil things, we always maintain that inside there is some degree of hidden goodness, and we are simply pretending to be evil to achieve some purpose - we're spreading insidious racist comments against jews on the radio with the purpose of giving out vital info to the Americans, even though such rants motivate others to acts of terrible violence or reinforce abhorrent views. We're killing hundreds of Jews which would seem evil, but there's the hidden good that the human race will be better off - we're good people, generally, there's no chance that what we are doing can be evil. We're lying about reasons for going to war and limiting reports of the numbers of innocent civillians killed, going off and starting wars without due reason or support, passing the PATRIOT ACT and everything else, which certainly seems evil..but hidden inside is the good..we're doing it to get rid of dictators and terrorists, we're doing it to re-insure a safer America, I'm a good guy - it's not possible that I am actually doing something evil.
This is the trouble in pretending. The way life works, we don't get to write the story. I have no doubt that I could sit down and watch a football game with George W. Bush, Osama Ben-Laden, Atilla the Hun, or Ronald Reagan and, if I didn't know who they were, and we never talked about anything except the game and various life experiences, we'd probably have an amazingly good time. At the worst, there might be some personality traits that would get on my nerves. And the thing is, all of those people have/had experiences "chilling with friends" or spending a holiday with family, that if we just had the video, would probably chill us to the bone. People are, generally the same..including our ability to each think that there is no possible way we can do bad, or evil, even in spite of all the facts. The truth is that life is not a story we get to write, and sometimes, if we aren't careful, it casts us as the villain. I don't mean to make everyone doubt every move they make, but only hope that we can realize that it is perfectly possible that you or I, under the hope of some perceived greater good, could do an immense amount of evil. Only in considering that possibility can the common sense that killing 6 million jews is not a good thing get through to Hitler, only in considering that can the possibility that killing 10,000 civillians without researching facts or making sure you're in the right get through to George W. ..with whom I'm sure I could sit back and have a really good time with on his ranch any day of the week.
I'm not comparing the atrocities of Hitler to Bush..please don't read that..but I do think the same basic human flaw that we all experience is present in both..we're good kids..we can't be doing the wrong thing. I can't hate Bush..I don't think he's an evil man. He's not the masked cartoon villain sitting in some far off tower hatching evil elaborate plots. He's likely a good guy who is in over his head, under immense pressure, and doing what he generally believes is right. He's probably a lot like you and I. The thing is, that doesn't mean that what he does can't be evil. If you ever had a conversation with Sadaam Hussein about the movie "The Rookie", and didn't know who he was or what he'd done, you'd probably come away thinking he was pretty normal - if he spoke unbroken english and was white, at least.
I'm pretty much saying the same thing over and again here, so I'll quit. I blame this constant repetition on the fact that somewhere here on my father's computer a freaking trailor for "Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights" keeps coming up. There is no video..just an audio feed, and nothing that could cause such a thing seems to be open, though I've checked just about everything. I blame the terrorists. Oh..I also blame the terrorists for the movie versions of Mother Night, as well as Breakfast of Champions.
UPDATE:
Upon finishing the last few pages moments ago, Vonnegut basically sums all this up in much more beautiful language that I'd like to quote, as I think it might better steer conversation. Normally I wouldn't give something from the end of the book, but, with Vonnegut there is no such thing as suspense. Basically, the scene involves Howard Campbell, the main character, returning to his apartment that has been destroyed and pilfered, and finding the colonel who captured him the first time, only to see Campbell released through the workings of the US government...I really can't explain it in detail, but suffice to say, since that time the officer has seen Campbell as his nemesis, his chance at redemption for the crappy businesses (the soldier is now a frozen custard truck dispatcher)..The Great Evil in the world..He comes back to kill Campbell, but is drunk and thus defeated which leads to this speech from Campbell, and makes this book, as of right now, my favorite Vonnegut.
"I'm not your destiny, or the Devil, either! Look at you! Came to kill evil with your bare hands and now away you go with no more glory than a man sideswiped by a Greyhound bus! And that's all the glory you deserve! That's all that any man at war with pure evil deserves.
There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive.
It's that part of an imbecile that punishes and vilifies and makes war gladly."
Whether it was my words or humiliation of booze or surgical shock that made O'Hare throw up, I do not know. Throw up he did. He flashed the hash down the stairwell from four stories up.
"Clean it up," I said.
He faced me, his eyes still filled with undiluted hatred. "I'll get you yet, brother," he said.
"That may be, but it won't change your destiny of bankruptcies, frozen-custard, too many children, termites and no cash. If you want to be a soldier in the Legions of God so much, try the Salvation Army."
...
I find that pretty amazing..that perhaps the only Ultimate Evil in the world is any mindset that sets out to fight Ultimate Evil. But then..I really dig seeming paradoxes like that. Geeze, I hope I didn't ruin this post with this little update ringing of fanboy-dom.
