My first Vonnegut...uhm...

Slaughterhouse Five 

or The Children's Crusade 

by Kurt Vonnegut

I'm going to assume this was perhaps not the best Vonnegut 

to make my first reading experience with this writer.

I will try reading Breakfast of Champions next since 

one of my friends stated it is her favorite Vonnegut.

This will probably be one of the shortest blog posts I've ever done!
There just isn't much I want to say...
except...this did not resonate with me much. 
I think it was mainly Vonnegut's writing style; at least in this book,
it is as if there are bits and pieces rather disconnected, though some are interwoven,
I was rather confused and much of the time felt similarly as when I read
The Stranger by Albert Camus.
Though with Camus' book I felt there was a story, strange and nonsensical as it seemed, 
whereas with this book I felt as if I was reading stream-of-consciousness as the
author had memories or thoughts. 
As I read where I had marked, I realized it was a bit more coherent and cohesive than
I remember it being, but still not a reading experience I wish to repeat! 
So, I read this classic. And I have now read a Kurt Vonnegut.
That is the best I can say of this one...

Although I had many markers in this book when I finished reading it, I was aware they were more to try to help me understand this work than items I wanted to quote or make note of in a review. And...did it work to help me better understand? I certainly hope so... 

In the preface Vonnegut admits he has "no regrets about this book," though it has been said it "trivialized the Holocaust." He describes it:

It is a nonjudgmental expression of what I saw and did in Dresden after it was firebombed 

so long ago, when, in the company of other prisoners of war and slave laborers 

who had survived the raid, I dug corpses from cellars and carried them, unidentified, 

their names recorded nowhere, to monumental funeral pyres. 

The corpses could have been anybody, including me, and there were surely 

representatives among them, whether collaborators, or slaves, or refugees, 

of every nation involved in the European half of World War II. 

How could I be nonjudgmental? It was bombs that had done the killing.

I had several decent and honorable and courageous friends who were pilots and bombardiers.

Actions of men like them on the Dresden raid required no more fury and loathing or angry vigor 

than would have jobs on an automobile assembly line. (xii)

So I guess they were just 'doing their job'? Well, yes, perhaps...but... When considering war and how humans can be so inhumane to others of their own species, I am always reminded of All the Light We Cannot See (by Anthony Doerr) and how in both the book club discussions in which I participated so many readers stated this was the first time they felt they could understand how a person could participate in war and kill others; how we could become convinced to do so, particularly for a madman like Hitler. So, yes, in a way, it is just 'doing a job,' and yet... 

Vonnegut continues:

The drama at Auschwitz was about man's inhumanity to man.

The drama of any air raid on a civilian population, 

a gesture in diplomacy to a man like Henry Kissinger, 

is about the inhumanity of many of man's inventions to man. (xiii)

But...there is no difference, in my humble opinion--inhumanity and indiscriminate murder is just that, whether inflicted by one person upon another with a knife, gun, or hand-to-hand combat, or by flying a plane that drops bombs onto people. Though admittedly, to drop bombs does remove a layer of culpability by eliminating personal contact with the victims of your weaponry, but it doesn't remove your responsibility for killing others. Or is Vonnegut just simply being satirical? Definitely up to a reader's interpretation...

In discussing the writing of this book with his friend, O'Hare, he states

"I think the climax of the book will be the execution of poor old Edgar Derby...

The irony is so great. 

A whole city gets burned down, and thousands and thousands of people are killed. 

And then this one American foot soldier is arrested in the ruins for taking a teapot.

And he's given a regular trial, and then he's shot by a firing squad."

Definitely irony in that. Sick irony, but...irony. It is said that 130,000 people died in the Dresden bombing. Did you get that? One. Hundred. Thirty. Thousand. People. Dead. All in one city. 

Many years later, he wrote the Air Force,

asking for details about the raid on Dresden, who ordered it, how many planes did it, 

why they did it, what desirable results there had been and so on. 

I was answered by a man who, like myself, was in public relations.

He said that he was sorry, but that the information was top secret still.

I read the letter out loud to my wife, and said, "Secret? My God--from whom?" (10-11)

In such instances, I wonder exactly who is in control of such decisions and what their ulterior motives might truly be. Who knows? Will we ever know? Only many decades later, as has been the way of it. Interestingly, this book was published in 1969. A very tumultuous time in U.S. politics and society, where upheaval and protest were the norm. 

Vonnegut couldn't help but notice that Mary, O'Hare's wife, had a particularly cold attitude toward him. She did finally express what was bothering her: It was the fact that he was writing a book about war, and in her opinion "wars were partly encouraged by books and movies," in that it idealized war and glossed over the fact that they were "fought by babies like the babies upstairs." From this he felt her anger was not directed toward him, but toward the concept of war:

She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. (14)

Yes, who does? And yet when the world is faced with a madman like Hitler, who has been allowed to grow so strong, what else is to be done? Though what of the bombing raid on Dresden? Why? Exactly what "good" was to result? It is a conundrum to be sure... I personally feel violence only begets more violence, but there have been times when it was necessary, haven't there? 

Vonnegut gives us a brief account of the actual "Children's Crusade" begun in 1213 by two monks who had the 'brilliant' idea of 

raising armies of children in Germany and France, and selling them in North Africa as slaves.

Thirty thousand children volunteered, thinking they were going to Palestine...

about half of them drowned in shipwrecks...

the other half got to North Africa where they were sold. (15-16)

What?!? I had never heard of such a thing. Honestly, what we humans have done and can and evidently will do to each other. Horrific... "So it goes." Vonnegut repeated this one phrase throughout this book more times than I could (or wanted) to count. 

The Billy Pilgrim portions of this book sometimes reminded me just a bit of Douglas Adams' The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But only a bit and only for a moment every now and then. Did I mention Vonnegut's writing style in this one did not resonate well with me? Yeah...it didn't...

One character, Weary, is obviously a psycho, and he ends up with Billy Pilgrim, in the middle of World War II. Bizarre. Nonsensical. Random. Two scouts ditch them in a creekbed and soon after are shot by Germans. Absurd? Ironic? 

Billy Pilgrim is abducted by Tralfamadorians:

"Welcome aboard, Mr. Pilgrim," said the loudspeaker. "Any questions?"

Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: "Why me?"

"That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter?

Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?"

"Yes," Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office 

which was a blob of polished amber with three ladybugs embedded in it.

"Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why." (73-74)

It does seem that way at times, doesn't it? 

"If I hadn't spent so much time studying Earthlings," said the Tralfamadorian, 

"I wouldn't have any idea what was meant by 'free will.' 

I've visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, 

and I have studied reports on one hundred more.

Only on Earth is there any talk of free will." (81) 

Hah! What fools? Or at the very least idealists? 

Rosewater was reading a book entitled Maniacs in the Fourth Dimension by Kilgore Trout, 

about people whose mental diseases were all in the fourth dimension, 

and three-dimensional Earthling doctors couldn't see those causes at all, or even imagine them.

One thing Trout said that Rosewater liked very much was that there really were vampires and werewolves and goblins and angels and so on, but that they were in the fourth dimension.

So was William Blake, Rosewater's favorite poet, according to Trout.

So were heaven and hell. (99)

Ha! I had to chuckle at that last line. Yep! Vonnegut was an atheist and humanist. :)

Rosewater congratulates Billy Pilgrim's fiancee on her engagement ring,

"Thank you," she said, and held it out so Rosewater could get a close look.

"Billy got that diamond in the war."

"That's the attractive thing about war," said Rosewater.

"Absolutely everybody gets a little something." (105)

Ugh. How facetious is that statement? 

According to the Trafalmadorians, Earthlings might learn to "Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones" if they just tried hard enough. I agree that we need to concentrate much more effort on remembering and celebrating the positives in life. 

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are untrue...

Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money.

They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and therefore,

those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves.

This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, 

who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, 

than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times.

Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these,

a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. 

They do not love another because they do not love themselves. (123)

Amazing how 47 years later these words are still prophetic. Sad...

I admit this did make me chuckle:

Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves.

Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings 

who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer.

So it goes. (159)

Ugh. All too true... Quite easy to imagine, isn't it? It happens every day...

I'll end with this tidbit...

Robert Kennedy, whose summer home is eight miles from the home I live in all year round,

was shot two nights ago. He died last night. So it goes.

Martin Luther King was shot a month ago. He died, too. So it goes.

And every day my Government gives me a count of corpses created by military science in Vietnam.

So it goes.

My father died many years ago now--of natural causes. So it goes. He was a sweet man.

He was a gun nut, too. He left me his guns. They rust. (200)

Okay, maybe not so short a review after all! :)

While there are some gems in here, I can't say I really enjoyed reading this book.

I get the symbolism, the seeming inevitability of war, the hopelessness of humanity,

the inhumanity of humanity...

To say this was not an optimistic or positive read is a definite understatement. 

Though it contains many truisms.

Have you read this book?

Any other Vonnegut novels you might recommend that might be a bit 'lighter' fare?

Happy reading

--Lynn

A Desperate Fortune: Past and Past!

A Desperate Fortune 

by Susanna Kearsley

(Title links to synopsis.)
This book was a Borders Book Club read and 
will also count for the following challenges:
20 Books of Summer and Historical Fiction.
The only other book written by Kearsley that I have 
read is The Firebird which I found to be excellent, 
and it makes me want to read The Winter Sea, 
her first book in the Slains series!
Honestly, I've added nearly every single one of her releases to by TBR listing!
(I actually own a couple more of hers, but have yet to read them.)

I have a special place in my heart for books that manage to alternate
between two different settings/times/storylines, successfully 
interweaving them seamlessly in the end. 
This book certainly does that...and so much more!
Borders Book Club members really enjoyed it,
with the exception of one who still finds 
it difficult to follow alternating storylines. 
But I'm sure she'll get the hang of it over time. :)

Sara copes with Asperger's--her senses are, well..."very sensitive" and she can easily become "jangled and jarred," though her cousin, Jacqi is ever faithful and watchful, helping her to successfully negotiate society whenever possible. Sara is, and always has been, a 'numbers person.' Though numbers may serve a different purpose for her than for many others, as they provide a calming influence when her nerves are riled, helping her prevent major meltdowns when provoked. Jacqi and Sara are at a family wedding when Jacqi hands a piece of paper to her with the following numbers and text written on it:

10.e.18.18.e.17.space.8.12.18.e.17.1.e.16.18.e.4.space.5.17.2.12.1.e.space.21.12.19.2.5.e (8)

As it turns out, this is a cipher from a handwritten diary that a famous historian is determined to have decoded, as he is convinced it will provide him with needed material for a book he is writing about the Jacobite exiles who existed some 300 years in the past. Since Sara is currently out of work, she agrees to meet the author to see if the job of transcribing this diary is something she would want to do, and he would want her to do for him. There is one minor glitch--the job itself would have to be completed in Paris, France--they're currently located in England. Sara translates this message within 17 minutes:

Letter intercepted. France unsafe. (10)

This message alone is enough to pique Sara's interest in the diary and what information it may contain. It appears Sara would be very well-qualified to complete this type of code-breaking work, given her interest in numbers, her skills, and her perfectionist tendencies.

Mary Dundas had authored this diary and when we meet her in mid-January of 1732:

It seemed on that morning...that the new year intended to go on exactly the same as the last, bringing all the excitement, surprise, and adventure she'd come to expect in her twenty-one years: namely, none. (26)

This made me chuckle and smile. In discussing citizenship, Mary declares herself "nationless" as her mother was French, but her father was "an exile at the French court of a foreign king who had himself no country and no crown." This was King James VIII of England who had been denied the throne, first settling in France and eventually Rome, under the protection of the Pope. Though she remembers little of her life during those first six years with her parents, she clearly remembers the day her father left, 

"Now, Mary," he had told her, "be a good lass for your uncle and your aunt, and mind your manners you've been taught, and use the sense that you've been given, and I promise you, 

you'll have a better life here than I ever could have given you."

At least that's what she thought he'd said. The years, perhaps, had rearranged his words and phrased them into a more sentimental speech within her memory, 

the same memory that insisted she'd replied to him, "I want to stay with you." 

And that his thumb had brushed a tear from her hot cheek, and he had said, 

"We do not always get the things we want." 

She did remember, clearly, that she'd cried for him and called him back, 

and that he had not turned. (32)

This passage made me tear up. How awful for a 6-year-old child, and she had siblings from whom she had been separated, too! Though suddenly, her younger brother (by 4 years), Gaspard, reappears, wanting to bring her to his home. I personally thought this felt a bit too sudden and spontaneous...but you hope you can trust your own brother, right?!? Though Mary was also a bit hesitant, asking her aunt if she was to have a choice, and the woman replied to her, "My dear, you always have a choice." Those prove to be prophetic words over time...

Sara is a very hard worker, 'driven' is the word I believe might best describe her work ethic. Mary is similarly a very hard worker, though their 'work' is of very different substance for each of them. Mary's is to serve as a member of a company of spies while Sara's is to unravel the various codings used to record Mary's experiences. While Mary's world expands to include situations she could never have imagined so does Sara's... Both women must be brave in their own way as they face challenges, Mary as an actor and Sara as a code/cipher breaker, but also as they each learn to trust and eventually love another. The one similarity between the two women in this respect was not to assume, but rather to allow themselves to get to know each person as an individual, regardless of their initial impression.

Kearsley better explains some aspects of Asperger's through Sara:

I'd always been puzzled when books about people with Asperger's claimed that 

we didn't have empathy...My problem wasn't that I didn't understand their feelings, 

only that I didn't have a clue how to respond to them. 

I never knew the proper thing to do or say. I wasn't good at comforting.  (207)

Sara has a huge lesson in 'synchronicity,' as I term it. She allows herself to 'comfort' Noah and in turn learns several different things, not the least of which is a key to breaking the newest cipher she has encountered in the diary...allowing her to continue working and translating. Having felt distinctly uncomfortable in the presence of children in the past, this is a breakthrough for her. This mirrors Mary's acceptance of MacPherson and the sense of 'protection' she begins to feel when in his presence, something to which I could personally relate. When I first met my husband...let's call him "Mr. G," and we started spending time together, I experienced that same feeling of being 'protected' while with him. I later confessed that to him and learned there were underlying reasons that probably contributed to my feeling that way in his presence, but it also informed me of a much deeper, more 'spiritual,' if you will, connection between the two of us. So I hoped this connection would prove to be just as happy for Mary in the end, as it has for me! 

I had to laugh as in one of the confrontations between Mary and MacPherson as they are about midway in their travels, Mary states that Frisque, her cocker spaniel, needs "to do his necessary business," so therefore she must leave the room. 

Whether MacPherson believed her or not he gave no indication, 

but answered her with a brief nod, that although not completely polite, was not rude. 

As with most of his gestures, as Mary had found, it fell stubbornly somewhere between. (316)

Ah, yes, that stoicism one might expect of a 'protector' of clandestine mission teams! And as they all learn, MacPherson is one smart man in many ways, particularly with regard to outwitting the 'other side,' as it were. And even if his plans go awry, he is still capable of saving them all. Mary begins to see a small chink appear periodically in MacPherson's armor, as in the discussion with Thomson's associate regarding slaves, when she states, "Slavery is a kind of death." He waxes on about how "well treated" are some of the slaves, etc., denouncing her "sentiment" as "wrong," when MacPherson intercedes, "She has a right to think as she decides." Mary sees for an instant "a pain so deep and dark" as she had never seen before in his eyes...as he defended her right to voice her opinion. At one point, Mary asks "Hugh" (MacPherson's 'Christian name') if he would have killed her if she had tried to mail the letter she'd written to end her participation in this mission, and he replies, "The letter's burnt, and I've not killed ye. Let the past be past." Hah! At least he's willing to forgive, it seems. And then Luc is, Sara discovers, all too familiar with Asperger's and the meltdowns it can cause, since his own brother has dealt with it his whole life. Luc knows exactly how to comfort ('protect'?) those who must cope with the symptoms. 

Sara serves as a matchmaker of sorts, insisting that Jacqi bring the author to Chatou where she is staying. She hopes to reunite Claudine and Alistair, as she now realizes Claudine truly loves the man. She also realizes her own love as Mary's final entry mirrors her own thoughts and feelings:

In truth there is but one man in the whole of Rome whose honor I am certain of, 

whose friendship I have now come to rely upon, and if it were my choice to make, 

I would lay all my heart before him and refuse to leave his side. 

My father said we do not always get the things we want, and he was right; 

for though my aunt once reassured me I would always have a choice, 

if there is one before me now I do confess I cannot see it, so instead I must-- (449) 

And it is at this point that Sara realizes she does have a choice, and she follows through on her own decision. 

Upon learning of Hugh MacPherson's life experiences, Mary can only comment, as she watches him approach...

"...surely every broken thing can be rebuilt." (481)

As she states to Hugh, when he questions her regarding her determination "to go home,"

Mary gave a little shrug and looked deliberately away.

"Home, as you once told me, is not always where you left it." (487)

Ah, so true. Home is where you make it for yourself. Just as friends are "family you choose," one of my favorite sayings! And so, life continues, and couples try to make a go of living it together. 

In Kearsley's notes regarding the characters, she reminds me of Ariel Lawhon's thoughts about Ritzi and her treatment of this character as a villain or not, in 
The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress and the relief she felt when contacted by the real-life child of this historical character, as expressed in this follow-up posting to my review. I can appreciate the predicament for authors as they construct a fictional account of historical events. As Kearsley states,

It's one of my personal quirks that I can't make a person a villain unless I'm convinced, 

from the records available, that's what he was. 

However long dead these people might be, they were--and remain--people first, 

and as such they deserve to be written about with respect. (506)

I would think this a fair way to handle it. And we all know that people can be very complex, although they may appear to be villainous, the reality is that they most likely have a much gentler side, at the very least on occasion. 

Just as Hugh requests Mary to create a "different" ending, we learn that is exactly what Kearsley did for Marie Anne Thérèse Dundas, baptized on July 25, 1710, and died September 4, 1710. 

She wasn't given a chance at life. So I gave her one.

Writers can't truly change history, but we can decide...where a story should end.

Not being fond of the ending of Mary's tale, I wrote a different one.

I wrote a better one. (513)

As I reviewed portions of this book where I had left markers, 

I had to stop myself from continuing to reread it!

That, is the mark of a book I truly love reading.

I was shocked to realize how long this book was, 

because I was so totally enthralled while reading it 

that I didn't remember it being very long.

I highly recommend this one--very enjoyable with complex 

yet well-defined characters and many plot twists!

Just what I love--historical fiction AND mystery/suspense!

Has any book lately fulfilled your favorite characteristics?

Happy reading

                                                                     --Lynn