The Rise and Fall of Kurt Vonnegut

I was in Junior High the first time I read Kurt Vonnegut. I guess they call it Middle School now. I had been reading a lot of science fiction and fantasy, and while I loved that stuff, I was hungry for something different.

One of my older brothers graced me with a copy of Slaughterhouse-Five. I started reading it, and was instantly shocked. This novel was unlike anything I had encountered before. I would later come to call it a meta-novel.

Slaughterhouse-Five is a shrewd blend of memoir, an anti-war polemic, and science fiction.

In the book, Vonnegut came across as bitter, but not uncaring. Cynical, but not without kindness. It's a tour of his harrowing past experiences in the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany, in WW2, and a trip through the author's own imagination.

I was hooked. And his next novel, Breakfast of Champions, was richer, more outrageous, and also hilarious.

Kurt Vonnegut (then known as Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.) rose to meteoric fame and fortune with this two books. His earlier work had been extremely well received, but now he was a literary superstar.

I read all the back works, and I liked them all. Much of it was published as straight science fiction. My favorite was The Sirens of Titan, but I also really loved Cat's Cradle and Mother Night. Kurt Vonnegut, in fact, became one of my favorite writers.

I had a fairly turbulent late youth, and I ended up missing out on the two books that followed Breakfast of Champions. But I made up for it by buying the next one. In hardcover, no less, which was foolhardy of me in those days. But then I have always been a fool for books.

Palm Sunday was the name of the book that I financially overextended myself with, but I was only too happy to have done so. I could not wait to start it. Then I could not wait for it to be over.

I suffered through the whole thing. I found Palm Sunday to be massively egotistical, and worse, uninteresting. It included the short story, The Big Space Fuck, but I had already read that in Ellison's Again, Dangerous Visions. Mostly I felt that I had been rooked when I bought Palm Sunday.

I went back and read the previous two books: Slapstick and Jailbird are not what you might call bad books, but they did not possess the vitality and passion of the earlier books. Had success spoiled Kurt Vonnegut?

I also read one called Deadeye Dick, but I was largely unimpressed.

I did enjoy his novel, Galapagos, but again, not to the extent of the earlier books, and I passed on later publications like Hocus Pocus and Timequake. Other books of unpublished short fiction and essays came out in book form, but I had the impression that they were filled with trunk pieces.

So, yeah, I had given up on Kurt Vonnegut. I was not happy about that, but it happens.

I didn't think a lot about Vonnegut. It was very cool to see him show up for a minute or so in one of my favorite comedies, Back To School. Other than that, he rarely crossed my mind. The inferior later material sort of soured me on him.

I grieved, like most did, when I heard that Kurt Vonnegut had passed away. He died of complications after a fall down some stairs.

Regardless of how I felt about some of the stuff that came after Breakfast of Champions, it was a major loss to American letters.

Here and there I heard good things about his final novel, Timequake. I picked up a copy at a thrift store, and tucked it away for a rainy day.

That day came last week. Weary of horror and suspense, I was looking through the ridiculous number of books in my house, and I focused on Timequake. Now was the time to see if the old magic had arisen.

How I wished it would be so, but unfortunately I did not make it very far in Timequake. What I did read was excruciating. The old cynicism was there, but it seemed silly and put-upon. The 50-75 pages I read meandered and seemed to be going nowhere. I was not enjoying it, and I reasoned that moving forward would only serve to further sully my admiration of Vonnegut.

Yet others seem to like it. I don't know what it is. The old saw about the emperor and his nonexistent clothes comes to mind. Do fans see something there that I didn't through some form of loyalty?

Or maybe I am the one who has grown too cynical. I really have no idea.

Maybe it's time to go back and re-experience and re-evaluate the past work of Mr. Vonnegut.

I recently obtained a copy of Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle in audiobook form. The narration is done by Tony Roberts, who was so good in the early Woody Allen movies. From there I plan to eventually reread more of Kurt's older catalog, and hopefully I will regain love and understanding of his work. And then maybe I will approach Timequake in a more suitable frame of mind to appreciate it.

ADDENDUM: I began listening to the Cat's Cradle audiobook today, but I had to shut it down. I loved it when I was around fourteen years old, but now it comes across trivial and condescending. Cat's Cradle is ostensibly a science fiction story, but Vonnegut seemed to have utter contempt for that audience. Times change, people change, and I guess I have changed, because I no longer think Kurt Vonnegut is a writer I care to read.