Hocus Pocus

Caught something on a rerun of The Daily Show that I thought was worth a mention. The guest was one of my literary idols, Kurt Vonnegut, who has a book of essays out. First of all, that is a book I need to get since you just don’t know how many words Kurt still has in him. He’d be the first person to state that he has spent the past sixty one years of his life on borrowed time. If there was ever someone who realized that life is a gift and to make the most out of your moments on the planet, he is a prime example.

But what I’ve always admired about Vonnegut was something that was brought up in the interview. They were talking about evolution and whether man has advanced and Vonnegut stated what is basically his view of the world, he is amazed at what we can do but disgusted by how little we actually accomplish. As he said, you only have to look at the Inquisition, burning women at the stake, World War I, World War II, the holocaust, ethnic cleansing and Nagasaki and you really have to question just what type of species we really are.

That world view has always been prevalent in Vonnegut’s writing. I know others have considered it to be world weariness or detachment or cynicism in reality it is more disappointment. Disappointment that after centuries of the same stories being repeated over and over no one is smart enough to change the plot. And Kurt has been the observer now for sixty years, ever since he stepped out of the cellar in Dresden and found himself on the surface of the moon.

I’m not sure if that sense of being an observer is what drew me to his work. Jon Stewart said it well during the introduction, “This man made by adolescence bearable.” It was just this feeling that as you read Slaughterhouse Five or Cat’s Cradle that you realized that this guy got it. This guy understood what the world was like and was going to put it on paper. Not the sanitized view of life that we all convince ourselves is reality but the truth that we all try to hide. Because we all like to think that we live in a moral and ethical world but we don’t. There’s hatred and randomness all around and Vonnegut made sure that everyone was aware.