literary anhedonia: Vonnegut
I should like Kurt Vonnegut. There was Slaughterhouse-Five, which pretty much everyone is impressed by, and that short story with the people wearing heavy weights and having loud noises go off regularly to ensure everyone’s “equal,” you can’t pass the 7th grade without reading that one two or three times. Any list of Vonnegut quotes will have some real winners.
Still, the recent two I randomly found on library and Fopp shelves (The Sirens of Titan and God Bless you Mr Rosewater) have mostly made me impatient. Which isn’t exactly fair - they came out in 1959 and 1965. Cleverly presenting the figures of admiration and culture of American life as inherently ridiculous was somewhat radical then, probably. 2012-me, reading these, nonetheless rolls eyes and thinks “Yes, this has all been thoroughly covered in my Hawkeye Pierce studies, thanks.”
Ok, one genuine complaint I have is his fictional women. They’re so flat (ok, so are the men), but also…externally observed, even in their own head. Even to themselves, they exist to relate to men, usually in resenting husband’s fiscal provisions or pesky sex drives.
Which could be part of the satire. I don’t know. Clearly, there is something not-a-soul where my soul should be.
This entry was originally posted at http://mustinvestigate.dreamwidth.org/31379.html.
Still, the recent two I randomly found on library and Fopp shelves (The Sirens of Titan and God Bless you Mr Rosewater) have mostly made me impatient. Which isn’t exactly fair - they came out in 1959 and 1965. Cleverly presenting the figures of admiration and culture of American life as inherently ridiculous was somewhat radical then, probably. 2012-me, reading these, nonetheless rolls eyes and thinks “Yes, this has all been thoroughly covered in my Hawkeye Pierce studies, thanks.”
Ok, one genuine complaint I have is his fictional women. They’re so flat (ok, so are the men), but also…externally observed, even in their own head. Even to themselves, they exist to relate to men, usually in resenting husband’s fiscal provisions or pesky sex drives.
Which could be part of the satire. I don’t know. Clearly, there is something not-a-soul where my soul should be.
This entry was originally posted at http://mustinvestigate.dreamwidth.org/31379.html.