The Brain Dump

I haven't been able to post anything lately because I had an emergency root canal and then I got sick. But I'm starting to feel better, so I'll find something to talk about soon enough.

Quick updates: I . . . had a root canal, got sick, saw Rufus Wainwright, and will start school again soon.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately, randomly about random things, and I had a happy realization about myself. But more on that later.

I was talking with my friend, Nate, the other day. He called me. He was annoyed with me. My review (oh yeah, I just linked myself) of Cat’s Cradle had gotten him thinking, which of course only filled me with smiles. I paraphrase: “You can’t get me thinking about all these books—I don’t have the time!”

Nate and I have a fascinating relationship—one that never fails to fill me with smiles. He is a conservative capitalist. I am a liberal socialist. And yet that doesn’t stop us from believing many of the same things. We both hate Bush (or, he’s at least annoyed with him) for totally different reasons. Neither of us has a particularly strong faith in the human race. You should hear us talk about institutionalized religion. Nate’s a Christian; I’m not. But Nate’s such a devout Christian that he doesn’t feel the need to preach to me or anyone. He’d rather live the Beatitudes than mount the Ten Commandments in a courtroom.

He didn’t understand if I was applauding or condemning the book because I chose only to quote one-star reviews from amazon.com. But more on that later.

I am a bit of a narcissist (I link my own blog . . .). I try to hide it but if you pay attention you can tell. My girlfriend is quick to remind me of this. It’s one of the reasons I love her. Sometimes, when I’m walking my sister’s dog or driving across town or just generally bored and alone, I interview myself. I pretend that I’ve just published a book to rave reviews and I’m the hottest thing since the Foreman Grill. I’ll pretend that I’m on The Tonight Show or The Late Show or even The Daily Show if they would have me, and Jay or Dave or Jon wants to know all about me.

J/D/J: Boy, this book is hot right now.
Me: You’re not kidding. If I’d’ve known, I’d’ve taken a page (heh heh) from Bradbury and printed it in a flame-retardant jacket.

*laughter*

JDJ: It’s interesting that you choose multiple protagonists in many of your works, including this one.

(He/They is/are talking about my gangster piece that’s set on Mars)

But more on that later.

I remember, about a year ago (has it been that long?), I was talking with my friend, Nic, about ideals. I don’t like em. I think they’re unrealistic and too narrow in any real world situation. Nic said that wasn’t the point. He said an ideal wasn’t something to be made manifest in the real world. We can’t have Eden. I paraphrase: “But just because they’re unrealistic doesn’t mean they aren’t something we can shoot for.”

I own exactly forty Batman comics and graphic novels in addition to The Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and The Death of Superman. I don’t think I like the idea of a superhero. I certainly don’t like Superman (one of the reasons the only comic I own of his is the one in which he dies). Yes, he’s a bastion of American virtue. Yes, he could probably use his powers to dominate and enslave the human race but he chooses instead to use them for good. But that’s just it. He has a self-righteous idea of good that he got from his wholesome, Midwestern upbringing. He supposedly fights for Good, when that good is no more capitalized than mine. Batman, on the other hand, has one clear mission statement: to destroy the evil that killed his parents. And so he works every day to do so. And he’s not always nice about it. But he does it because it works. And he does it unapologetically. It also helps that the people he isn’t nice to are criminals, so when he does it we call him a hero. But at least he acknowledges that he toes that murky, grey line.

He also occasionally kicks Superman’s ass.

On some level, Batman knows he’s a little crazy. He dresses up like a bat and fights crime, for crying out loud. He also rarely fights alone. Certainly, in the beginning, he was but one man in a suit, but he still had Alfred to cool him down. Then he met Gordon. And then came Robin. Robin’s suit has bright colors, he doesn’t take a whole lot seriously, he readily makes light of any given situation. He’s the perfect counterbalance to Batman’s seething will to revenge. Batman needs Robin to balance him out. Keep him safe. Keep him (a little more) sane. Batman knows he is just one man and that the darkness that he becomes, that he fights, could conceivably consume him. He doesn’t get self-righteous about it.

All Superman has is a Fortress of Solitude.

Me: Well the thing is J/D/J, I don’t think any one person has the answer.
J/D/J: How do you mean?
Me: It’s a matter of perspective. Everyone’s got one, and no one can escape it. Take a man and his view of the world. That view will be colored by his race, ethnicity, socio-economic upbringing, culture, gender, etc. And he will always be constrained by that. Therefore, he will never be able to see anything outside that. He needs other people to round his view out. Otherwise, he’s just some guy.

Any book I like will be hated by countless others. Sometimes, I need to remember that.

I realized the other day that as a human being who exists within a certain social context, I will never have a truly Complete Viewpoint. I need everyone else to round me out. I also realized how much of a thoroughly democratic idea that is. I used to believe that democracy was the best form of government because it was slow. That’s still a good reason. When things in government happen quickly . . . things can turn bad just as quickly. But now I think my view is a little more rounded out.

That’s not to say our government doesn’t have areas to work on. Oh-ho-ho, belieeeeeve me.

But at least now I know what I want to shoot for.

“I can’t understand why so many people rank it so highly. There is no accounting for taste, I guess.”
- avid reader “Emmy Lou”

“This book is absolutely horrible. Seriously, it’s hideous.”
- Hemingway Hater

“If I could give negitive [sic] stars I would.”
- A reader

“What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing.”
- Bokonon

Kurt Vonnegut has finally surpassed Thomas Pynchon as my favorite author, and he did it with his novel, Cat’s Cradle. Cat’s Cradle tells the story of a man named John. “Call me Jonah,” he says in the first line of the novel, “because somebody or something has compelled me to be certain places at certain times, without fail.” John is a Bokononist and he writes us his story “to include as many members of my karass as possible, and I mean to examine all strong hints as to what on Earth we, collectively, have been up to.” A karass, he explains, is what Bokonon calls a group of people who (unknowingly) work together to do God’s work. John first encountered members of his own karass while he was conducting research for a history book entitled The Day the World Ended, about the day America dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. He did not finish the book.

As I. Ujevic writes, “this is the first book in my life that I threw into the garbage.”

Cat’s Cradle is a satire, and within its pages Vonnegut charges straight at our society’s greatest institutions, including religion, American idealism, and the progress accorded to scientific research. John first pursues his research for The Day the World Ended by contacting the children of the late Felix Hoenikker, the key researcher in the development of the atomic bomb. The Hoenikker children, John realizes as he writes, and most definitely Dr. Hoenikker himself (regardless of the fact that he was dead), were part of his karass. Newt (Hoenikker’s youngest) tells John that on the day the bomb was dropped Dr. Hoenikker was frightening him with a game of cat’s cradle, a game formed by a long loop of a string, making virtually no attempt to represent a cat or a cradle. The notion of truth is Vonnegut’s biggest target for satire here. People revere Dr. Hoenikker as a hero for creating the atomic bomb, but those same people didn’t see the terrible indifference and careless irresponsibility with which he approached his family—with which he, in fact, approached all of life. Julian Castle, a philanthropist John is hired to write an article about while researching his book, turns out to be a blatant misanthrope. Even the first words in The Books of Bokonon are “All the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies.” Newt constantly makes reference to cat’s cradle—a game with no cat, no cradle, no meaning or value of any kind but that is nonetheless a childhood favorite. The game becomes a symbol of the characters’ (all nothing more than grown-up children) pursuit of some deeper significance for their lives—a long, drawn out game with no discernible end. Or as JP stated, “The title of the book has to do with a very minor incident and it should have been called ice-nine.”

John continues pursuing biographical information about Dr. Hoenikker when he discovers that Hoenikker, in addition to working on the atomic bomb, created a substance called ice-nine—what turns out to be a wampeter, or an object that is the center point of a karass. As Tom Newbro (or “shnowbrow”) states, “This is where the book starts to become horrible…”

John’s research eventually leads him to share a plane with two of the three Hoenikker children (now adults) as they travel to the Caribbean island of San Lorenzo, the birthplace of Bokononism and the residence of the third Hoenikker child. Bokonon also lives on the island. He and his friend, Edward McCabe, shipwrecked there and, seeing the desolate and miserable lives of the islanders, took it over, hoping to create a utopia. Bokonon created Bokononism to give whatever hope to the people a made-up religion can with its foma, or comforting but harmless untruths. Then he asked McCabe (now the political leader of the island) to exile him and outlaw Bokononism, making it more exotic and adding a deeper meaning to the islanders’ lives.

Vonnegut’s real genius rests in his ability to make us laugh about some of the scariest parts of our culture. And in the humor we are able to view our lives from a different angle, questioning the things we take for granted, the foundations upon which we build our lives. It was enough to garner A reader’s coveted “el Stinko Award,” who called it “a pointless, plotless book” that “should not be considered as any sort of literary achievement.”

John begins the book with a Bokononist warning: “Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book.” I, however, highly recommend Cat’s Cradle to anyone able to get past that initial warning. It is a wonderful (if harrowing) look at the lives we live. It was published in 1963, with America firmly planted in Vietnam, trying as fast as it could to create more efficient ways of killing other human beings. The American Ideal of democracy was a righteous one, and anyone not wholly committed to its enemies’ destruction could easily be labeled an enemy themselves and a traitor. Now, in a post-9/11 world, America is engaged in another war for democracy—trading communists for terrorists—and any opposition to America’s righteous cause is oftentimes met with suspicion and hate. Cat’s Cradle remains as relevant today as it was when it was first published. But vincent vega said it best:

“This is a decent sci-fi escape, but nowhere near as good an escape as Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, or Star Wars: A New Hope. This isn't very challenging, and you may feel compelled to read it because of the almost too simple story, and easy going language. This is basically a book about a mad scientist who tries to take over the world by freezing it over with a substance called Ice-Nine . . . not very complex or deep, a basic fable, but still entertaining. But as entertaining as Star Wars? NO. I recommend renting the star war movies or getting the star war books, especially the ones with Jabba the Hut. Cat's Cradle has no point or meaning to it, unlike Lucas's prophetic, amazing vision. Vonnegut is funny, but not very intelligent.”