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Rumpus Book ClubEverything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt
Part Two
If you really want to hurt your parents and you don’t have enough nerve to be homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts.
It is an odd and disquieting experience to read the undergraduate thesis you wrote eighteen years ago, not unlike finding photographs of yourself dressed up as a member of Flock of Seagulls. (I am not suggesting here that I ever dressed up like a member of Flock of Seagulls; I am merely using what we in the lit business call an analogy.)
Nonetheless, I cannot proceed any further without some mention of the document. I have read it twice in the past week and am therefore ready to enumerate its major intellectual conclusions:
1. Kurt Vonnegut rules.
2. You should totally read his books.
3. I will never be an academic.
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I would also like to reassure those of you concerned that I may not have used the verb “adumbrate” frequently enough in my thesis. In fact, I found occasion to use the verb three times in the first 30 pages alone: “More fundamentally, I hope through this investigation to adumbrate Vonnegut’s unorthodox conception of author/text/reader relations.”
My thesis is full of sentences like this.
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One of the funnest things about rereading the thesis is tallying up all the critics and authors I pretended to have read, but hadn’t. A partial list would include James Joyce, Stendahl, Cervantes, Twain, Leslie Fielder, Ortega y gasset[9], Northrop Frye, Rubin[10], and Wayne Booth.[11]
Who, then, did I read?
I read Vonnegut. I read his novels. I read his stories. I read his essays. I read his interviews. I read his commencement speeches. Had his shopping lists been made available, I would have read those. I also quoted him at length. Approximately one third of the thesis word count is Vonnegut. I did this mostly because I was, and remain, stupendously lazy. But it is also true (as I shrewdly noted back then) that Vonnegut has not attracted much formal criticism. The foremost commentator on Vonnegut is Vonnegut himself.
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My thesis was not a total wash. It was merely a partial wash. But it also had what I believe the Chief Curator has referred to as “a certain plucky, undergraduate charm.”
I was interested in the ways Vonnegut makes himself known in his fiction – writing prefaces to his novels, introducing himself as a character – and how these interventions affected what I called, rather grandly, “the fictional contract.”
My best crack at a summary of the thesis ran like so:
“… Many novelists and critics take as their credo the following sentence from James Joyce’s A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man:
‘The artist, like the God of Creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.’
My thesis might be thought of as an attempt to explore what happens when a writer steps forward and, in full view of the audience, bites his nails frantically.”
I do not remember having read A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, and have grave doubts as to whether I ever did, but I do remember taking extraordinary pride in having come up with this last bit.
The thesis also included a term of my very own invention: realismo.[12] Realismo, as I defined it, entailed “both the reality claims made by the author and their acceptance by the reader.” I am sorry to inform you that this quite obviously brilliant formulation has not, as yet, found its place within the parlance of the lit crit crowd.
As if I even care.
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And while we’re bashing those dweebs, let me mention, as a significant furthermore, that people read mostly for emotional reasons, not ideas. They seek a chance to experience the feelings inside themselves – lust, shame, agony – for which daily life offers no outlet. The more openly obsessed our narrator is, the better. (Consider Humbert and the thousand eyes wide open in his eyed blood.)
From this perspective, my thesis turns out to be perfectly fascinating, not for its facile notions about authorial presence, but for the moony allegiance it expresses toward Vonnegut. It was a love letter for God’s sake![13] A chance for me to pronounce my adoration for Vonnegut, to defend his style, to advocate for him in what I took to be the court of academic opinion.
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November 11th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
I spent a good part of my day at work reading this and it’s really wonderful. Thank you.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Thank you for sharing this.
I also was one of those irrevocably changed by reading all Vonnegut’s books before the age of 18. His work provided the mentorship I sorely needed.
The day he died I woke at 6 a.m. to a text message from an estranged friend who broke the news. I went to work in a daze. I was more stunned (I know it’s sad to say) than I had been by the news of my grandparents deaths. Somehow Kurt Vonnegut had for me a more certain familial bond.
It’s difficult to distill the impact Vonnegut has on his readers, but you’ve done a splendid job here, Steve Almond. It is an emotional effect, to be sure. Somewhere along the line I, too, stopped listing Vonnegut among my favorite authors. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:06 am
Great piece Mr. Almond. I was working at chain bookstore when Vonnegut died and had several weeks earlier convinced the merchandising manager to let me replace her Ayn Rand display with Vonnegut. The top row was all Breakfast of Champions, still my favorite Vonnegut, and the book I most often suggested to people when they asked me what I liked to read.
November 12th, 2009 at 5:43 am
This is one of the finest essays about the formation of a writer (or, in this case, two writers) that I’ve ever read.
November 12th, 2009 at 6:11 am
i think it’s important to think about what vonnegut would want us to do in the face of our current moral challenges. he made things quite simple, as did Jesus in the beatitudes. he implored for our decency. when i think about what he faced, and how he coped, i’m both grateful and heartbroken. we’re wasting so much love on this earth.
November 12th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Don’t mean to be a dick, but it’s Delano. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Sorry, I get douchey about spelling.
November 12th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Thanks for pointing that out Jono. It’s been corrected.
November 13th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
I have never read Vonnegut but was captivated nonetheless by your thoughtful essay. I also went to a college that basks in the unmistakable glow of prosperity, in my case Bard, so I can relate to that part of the piece, although I never read Vonnegut while I was there. No one I knew was reading him. We were too busy trying to decode Derrida and Lacan, I suppose. After college, I lived with an English professor, a literary critic who would periodically make pronouncements like “there’s really no point in reading modern fiction,” or “modern poetry is dead.” It’s amazing sometimes how easily the things people say to you can shape what you read. What an idiot I was to listen. So thank you so much for introducing me to this wonderful author (I adore the quote you found in a letter to him: “I’m afraid I have an almond macaroon for a heart when it comes to your writing.” That is now tattooed on my brain).
It is very timely, I think, to reconsider Vonnegut, now more than ever in this politically challenging and environmentally vexing historical moment. As you rightly point out, there is a real lack of love in this country as far as what we choose to do, what we choose to ignore and way too much self-aggrandizement. Hello, facebook, anyone? How is it that we are so thoughtless and unkind? I am left with the image of Vonnegut himself, old and wizened, facing an audience of many, carefully crossing the stage alone so as not to trip over the microphone cord…and no one there to help him across.
Thanks again for this riveting essay.
November 13th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Very happy I took the time. Thank you.
November 20th, 2009 at 2:38 am
I wasn’t sure if I’d get through the 60 pages, but I couldn’t put it down (in a matter of speaking)…thankyou!
November 25th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
I mean, in a manner of speaking.. not matter of speaking.
September 29th, 2010 at 11:27 pm
This may be the best thing I’ve read this year.
November 11th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
It’s late and much later than when I started, but worth the lateness. Thanks.
November 11th, 2010 at 10:03 pm
I just enjoyed that in one gulp! Smashing read. Yours too, Stephen. Thanks for sharing.
November 11th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
and now it’s going to haunt me in bed.
November 22nd, 2010 at 8:14 pm
so wonderful to see this again.
January 27th, 2011 at 10:25 pm
Steve,
I met Mr. Vonnegut very briefly after a commencement address he gave at a college in Atlanta about ten tears ago. My son’s girlfriend was in the graduating class. My only acquaintance with Mr. Vonnegut’s work was via a small movie called “Who am I this time?” which was probably based on one of his short stories.
I liked his speech, and really love the movie – so I wanted to get his autograph. He was standing on the landing of a campus building, with a single police bodyguard. It seemed to me that he had just gotten away from the milling crowd, maybe to have a smoke, though I don’t remember if he was smoking. The bodyguard tensed a bit as I approached, but relaxed as he saw I was friendly.
As to the autograph, Mr. Vonnegut said something like ” I don’t do those. Once you start there is no end to it.” I was disappointed, but, reflexively held out my hand, saying “well, thanks anyway”. He shook hands with me. He seemed very kind and not the least bit ‘affected’ in any way.
Steve, I really enjoyed this article. The part about many, many failures finally teaching you how to succeed rings true. Your humor is wonderful.
I will now go about reading some Vonnegut, and some more of your work.
Thank you.