Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut

I’ll begin by acknowledging that Vonnegut is one of my favorite authors.  With that admission on the table, I do try to approach each book without prejudgment and remain open to view each piece on its own merit.  What I had forgotten was that Vonnegut always makes me laugh, and oftentimes guffaw, at some pretty heady stuff; wars, corruption, injustices, etc.

Jailbird delivers a convoluted story with outlandish characters that backdrop to the infamous Sacco and Vanzetti trial and the Watergate scandal, yet somehow this tale comes together flawlessly and wraps up like a gift prepared at an upscale store.

Walter F. Starbuck is recently released from a Georgia prison for his unnamed involvement in Watergate and heads to New York to begin anew.  Having lost his wife just weeks before his arrest, having no contact with his son, and having betrayed a friend, his hopes for the future are quite dismal.  An encounter with a mysterious “bag lady” sets things in motion and sends Walter into the depths of the city and into a new world of possibilities.  One hapless fellow that seems to get himself into one fine mess after another.

A Harvard roommate of Walter’s, Leland Clewes  pays the price, after stealing Walter’s girl, by being named a communist by him.  He resorts to selling matchbooks upon his release from prison and when he runs into Walter thanks him for showing him what a difficult life is like.  Leland does get his reward in the end.

Mary Kathleen O’Looney is a former girlfriend of Walter’s and when they run into each other, she takes him on a wild ride.  Due to a medical issue, she has forgotten his past mistreatment of her and his betrayal of Leland and only remembers their college heydays.  She takes Walter into her confidences and incorporates his experiences into a secret plan.

Quotes:

“Oh, I pity him,” he said.  “I even understand him.  How else could he ever amount to anything if he did not use loaded dice?  How has he used loaded dice with you?  The laws that say he can fire anybody who stands up for basic rights of workers–those are loaded dice.  The policemen who will protect his property rights but not your human rights–those are loaded dice.”

Was Vanzetti guilty of the lesser crime?  Possibly so, but it did not matter much.  Who said it did not matter much?  The judge who tried the case said it did not matter much.  He was Webster Thayer, a graduate of Dartmouth College and a descendent of many fine New England families.  He told the jury,  “This man,although he may not have actually committed the crime attributed to him, is nevertheless morally culpable, because he is the enemy of our exiting institutions.”    Word of honor:  This was said by a judge in an American court of law.  

On the banner were painted the words that the man who had sentenced Sacco and Vanzetti to death.  Webster Thayer, had spoken to a friend soon after he passed the sentence:  

“Did you see what I did to those anarchist bastards the other day?”

Where would I begin with Mr. Vonnegut?  The trouble would be masking my adoration and limiting my topics, believing he to be the gruff and impatient man he is portrayed to be.  I’d love to hear what he thinks of Anthony Weiner and I’m sure I’d howl over his response.  Hopefully he’d indulge me with some writing advice, by and by.

My rating for Jailbird is a 9 out of 10.

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Next up, Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis…

Book #18-Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse Five is an interpretative account of the author’s own experience as a POW during the 1945 firebombings in Dresden.  That it took him over 20 years to produce the novel speaks to the effects the experience surely had on him.  Known as a pacifist, it has been said that Vonnegut had it published in 1969 in response to the US involvement in Viet Nam.

Vonnegut is a master at constructing what seems to be easily written and simple sentences, but are actually well thought out nuggets.  Add to that his wonderful humor and the result is an informative, extremely well written novel that leaves the reader chuckling throughout.

The book is so titled since the new POW’s are housed at an abandoned slaughterhouse since the German prisons are already overflowing.  Ironically, it serves to save their lives while Dresden and its citizens are destroyed.

Billy Pilgrim,the main character, is transported from studying optometry to Germany where he is a bewildered soldier taunted by his captors as well as his fellow soldiers.  Vonnegut uses an interesting technique that takes Billy back and forth in time as well as to the planet of Tralfamador.  While this could be the undoing of the novel, it actually works quite well.

Billy’s wife, Valencia, is as devoted to him as he is to she, yet is unaware of the traumas suffered in Dresden.  She loses her life after extreme efforts to get to a hospital to see a critically ill Billy, who is the lone survivor of a plane crash.

An unknown science fiction writer, Kilgore Trout, becomes Billy’s idol as his books seem to substantiate his time traveling abilities.

Vonnegut introduces a multitude of interesting characters; a sadistic American soldier, bubbly British POW’s and many more.

I’d love to be under the tutelage of Mr. Vonnegut and understand his painstaking processes that resulted in seemingly simple narratives.  Unfortunately, I missed him by just three years…so it goes.

Quotes:

But then Weary saw that he had an audience.  Five German soldiers and a police dog on a leash were looking down into the bed of the creek.  The soldiers’ blue eyes were filled with a bleary civilian curiosity as to why one American would try to murder another one so far from home, and why the victim should laugh.

A German measured Billy’s upper right arm with his thumb and forefinger, asked a companion what sort of an army would send a weakling like that to the front.  They looked at the other American bodies now, pointed out a lot more that were nearly as bad as Billy’s.

His stance was that of a punch-drunk fighter.  His head was down.  His fists were out front, waiting for information and battle plan.  Derby raised his head, called Campbell a snake.  He corrected that.  He said that snakes couldn’t help being snakes, and that Campbell, who could help  being what he was, was something much lower than a snake or a rat–or even a blood-filled tick.

Another Kilgore Trout book there in the window was about a man who built a time machine so he could go back and see Jesus.  It worked, and he saw Jesus when Jesus was only twelve years old.  Jesus was learning the carpentry trade from his father.  Two Roman soldiers came into the shop with a mechanical drawing on papyrus of a device they wanted built by sunrise the next morning.  It was a cross to be used in the execution of a rabble-rouser.  Jesus and his father built it.  They were to glad to have the work.  And the rabble-rouser was executed on it.  So it goes.

My rating for Slaughterhouse Five is a 9 out of 10.

To see the entire list,  visit Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels.

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Next up, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man…