Vonnegut & Hemingway...

...sittin' in a tree.. no, just kidding.

ANYWAY. This post is about my first impressions of Slaughterhouse Five, and let me just say that they are very favorable. I really enjoy this book so far, and one of the main reasons is that Vonnegut's writing style reminds me of Hemingway's style which I hold so dear.

I might just be lazy, but I really enjoy a simple writing style. When I read novels, or read anything for that matter, I don't like to have to work hard to figure out the content of what is being said. (I leave that for poetry, and I don't mean that in a disparaging way. I find that sometimes, the beauty of the words masking their meaning so that it's not readily apparent is neat, but that "sometimes" does not include novels. Just poetry.)

In novels, I really appreciate a simple writing style that is conversational and explains things. I like a writing style that doesn't try to do to much, or "try" to do anything at all; it just is. It's something written down in a way that you could imagine the author speaking to you, and what's really important is the content of what is being told to you.

Hemingway does that; he has very sparse prose to which I once likened the writing of an intermediate-level foreign language speaker. Let me explain that: when we have a rudimentary knowledge of another language, we kind of sound like children when we speak. The grammatical structure is very simple, and could be something along the lines of "The blanket is red." In that example, the sentence is simple but so is the content, thus sounding like a kid. Hemingway, however, sounds like an adult foreign language speaker because his grammatical structure is simple but his ideas are complex; for example, "Love is confusing." A kid could understand what that sentence means, but they're not likely to grasp the content.

Anyway I should probably stop talking about Hemingway and start talking about Vonnegut, and the reason I'm talking about them in the same post is that Vonnegut has this simple sentence structure as well, though he's not quite as spartan as Hemingway. I like that in this book, I can focus purely on the story and immerse myself in what is happening to Billy Pilgrim. I also like that Vonnegut is not trying to play any tricks on us, or make things complicated for us. If anything, he's deliberately making things easier for us to understand. He not only tells us what happened, but then goes on to explain it, or give his interpretation of it.

One example I just came across was on page 60 in my edition where the narrator is talking about Billy Pilgrim not being able to find his steering wheel and thinking that someone had stolen it. After Billy passes out, Vonnegut writes, "He was in the backseat of his car, which was why he couldn't find the steering wheel." I like how simple and frank this is. It's like, "Hey, I'm just going to flat out tell you exactly why he couldn't find it. It's cause he was in the backseat!" This tone and okay-ness with just saying what you actually mean is not lost on me. I am a big fan.

In any event, I think I'm going to like this book a lot; since the writing style is so uncomplicated, and the plot seems to be at least somewhat character-based, I think I can really connect to what's going on in a way that I couldn't with Ragtime and Mumbo Jumbo.

"I knew that song before it was popular."

One of the things that popped into my mind during History as Fiction yesterday came up in relation to somebody's comment about Jazz music (or any other kind of cultural phenomenon) selling out. Selling out would encompass the phenomenon becoming more common and more accessible to more people. Another effect is that the phenomenon strays from its original intentions and purpose, and becomes diluted and different.

The question that arose in my mind was, "Isn't this inevitable? Does it not make sense that the longer something is around, the more dispersed throughout the world it will get and the more it will change?" I feel like the answer to these questions is that this occurrence is inevitable, but that it's not necessarily bad. Nothing can really stay the same forever, especially something that is amorphous and undefinable as a cultural phenomenon. Although it might be sad that something changes in its nature because it is enjoyed by a large and diverse group of people as opposed to a small and select group of people, I think we shouldn't be surprised by this; it's only natural, and is only a matter of time that the phenomenon is going to morph, change, and spread. I think this is what happened to Jes Grew; it ended because the times moved on, and the world as a whole was concerned with different things. Jazz was still alive, it was just that the Jes Grew associated with it had run its course.

Another question arises that's not really related to the book, but was just something I was wondering about. It kind of connects to something cultural being enjoyed by a larger group of people, and it generally leads to the comment, "I knew that song before it was popular," or "If that's the only song you know by [fill in the blank], then you're not a real fan." These comments beg the question, "Why does something have to be obscure to be good?" Or perhaps not obscure, but exclusive? I'm not quite sure I know the answer, but I don't think it has anything to do with the song (or whatever cultural phenomenon the conversation is about) intrinsically. I think it's mainly to do with the fact that people want to feel like they know something that others don't. That a song is special, and therefore "good" because it's a secret. Once the secret gets out, and once the song becomes popular and commercialized, then it has "sold out" in a way.

I think this reaction is kind of sad, and like I said in my first few paragraphs, this development is inevitable. No artist that's any good is going to stay underground forever. People are going to discover them, and share them with others, and eventually, even if they don't get uber famous, they will become more well-known. This doesn't change the quality of the work, it just changes how people feel about the work. If people subsequently feel like the artist sold out because they are more popular, it's not really the artist's fault, it's just that the perception of them is changing.

Anyway, I don't really have any conclusive answers; I just think it's kind of interesting to try to figure out why we (and I include myself in this) want to have this feeling that we know something that other people don't; that we know about this super obscure band that's so awesome and once people start to like them, they become "old," but you can say that you knew them before they were popular.

Throwback blog!

I had an incredibly Mezzanine-like experience the other week, a I have to tell the world about it.

So. One day, my mother and I discovered that our right brake light was out. We subsequently fixed said brake light, and went on our merry ways.

The next day, the left brake light went out.

I nearly exploded with Howie-like excitement. What are the chances that one brake light would go out the day after the other one! 'This is crazy!' I thought. 'I have to tell Mr. Mitchell!'

For those of you who haven't read The Mezzanine, the main character, Howie, breaks one shoelace one day, and on his way to buy a replacement the next day, breaks the other one. He wonders what are the chances of this ridiculous coincidence. I wonder what are the chances of both break lights going out.

The world may never know.