Day 04: A Favorite Book
It is an indictment against my Oklahoma education that I never read Kurt Vonnegut until I was a freshman at college. Eighteen years old when I had my first experience with Vonnegut. And that wasn't even assigned in a class. No. I read my first Vonnegut book, Breakfast of Champions, after borrowing it from a dorm mate.
That book in a lot ways, set me free. Before that I mainly read non-fiction books. Even as a kid in grade school, when everyone else was reading Where The Red Fern Grows you'd find my reading a biography on say, Tecumseh.
In jr. high I started reading a bit more fiction, along with some classics that were assigned in class. SE Hinton books were a favorite at this time, but that might have had more to do with the fact that she was from where I was from, so I could understand her subject matter in a very insider sort of a way. She also had the same first and middle initials as me which made me feel as if we had some sort of special kinship.
In high school I quit reading for pleasure. Only reading what was required. Lord of the Flies being an example.
Then came that fateful day in Kelsey's dorm room where I saw Breakfast of Champions on his shelf. The bold cover in its vivid color made me want to pick up the book and then, flipping through the pages I saw the crude art in with the text and I was hooked.
I love Breakfast of Champions. It was the book that opened my eyes to Kurt Vonnegut. It is however, not my favorite book. That distinction goes to one of Vonnegut's earlier works, Cat's Cradle.
The Books of Bokonon interlude
A parable on the folly of pretending to discover, to understand
It is not known, in which Book this parable appeared, but it reads as follows:
I once knew an Episcopalian lady in Newport, Rhode Island, who asked me to design and build a doghouse for her Great Dane. The lady claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly. She could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or what was going to be.
And yet, when I showed her a blueprint of the doghouse I proposed to build, she said to me, "I'm sorry, but I never could read one of those things."
"Give it to your husband or your minister to pass on to God," I said," and, when God finds a minute, I'm sure he'll explain this doghouse of mine in a way that even you can understand."
She fired me. I shall never forget her. She believed that God liked people in sailboats much better than he liked people in motorboats. She could not bear to look at a worm. When she saw a worm she screamed. She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing.
Cat's Cradle is the first thing I ever read where I felt like the author got me. Or. Probably truer. I got them.
The absurdity of Bokononism. The social satire. The intertwined plot. All spoke to me in a way few books ever could or would.
Cat's Cradle is the way I think. If you could scan my brain. Read my thoughts. A lot of what you see in Cat's Cradle is how I think about things. Feel about things. How I look at things.
I'm not sure what that says about me. Personally. Or. Spiritually.
The Books of Bokonon interlude
The Fifty-third Calypso
Oh, a sleeping drunkard
Up in Central Park,
And a lion-hunter
In the jungle dark,
And a Chinese dentist,
And a British queen--
All fit together
In the same machine.
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice--
So many different people
In the same device.
Cat's Cradle is a favorite because it taught me that it's ok to laugh at the absurdity in life. The contradictions. That maybe Nietzsche was only partially correct when he said, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Maybe, just maybe, what doesn't kill you that you still laugh at is what really makes you stronger. And happier.
The primary tenet of Bokononism, the religion that plays such an integral part to the entire book is this:
"Live by the foma that makes you brave and kind and healthy and happy."
To which I say, Amen.
Until I BLOG again...busy, busy, busy.
That book in a lot ways, set me free. Before that I mainly read non-fiction books. Even as a kid in grade school, when everyone else was reading Where The Red Fern Grows you'd find my reading a biography on say, Tecumseh.
In jr. high I started reading a bit more fiction, along with some classics that were assigned in class. SE Hinton books were a favorite at this time, but that might have had more to do with the fact that she was from where I was from, so I could understand her subject matter in a very insider sort of a way. She also had the same first and middle initials as me which made me feel as if we had some sort of special kinship.
In high school I quit reading for pleasure. Only reading what was required. Lord of the Flies being an example.
Then came that fateful day in Kelsey's dorm room where I saw Breakfast of Champions on his shelf. The bold cover in its vivid color made me want to pick up the book and then, flipping through the pages I saw the crude art in with the text and I was hooked.
I love Breakfast of Champions. It was the book that opened my eyes to Kurt Vonnegut. It is however, not my favorite book. That distinction goes to one of Vonnegut's earlier works, Cat's Cradle.
The Books of Bokonon interlude
A parable on the folly of pretending to discover, to understand
It is not known, in which Book this parable appeared, but it reads as follows:
I once knew an Episcopalian lady in Newport, Rhode Island, who asked me to design and build a doghouse for her Great Dane. The lady claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly. She could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or what was going to be.
And yet, when I showed her a blueprint of the doghouse I proposed to build, she said to me, "I'm sorry, but I never could read one of those things."
"Give it to your husband or your minister to pass on to God," I said," and, when God finds a minute, I'm sure he'll explain this doghouse of mine in a way that even you can understand."
She fired me. I shall never forget her. She believed that God liked people in sailboats much better than he liked people in motorboats. She could not bear to look at a worm. When she saw a worm she screamed. She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is Doing.
Cat's Cradle is the first thing I ever read where I felt like the author got me. Or. Probably truer. I got them.
The absurdity of Bokononism. The social satire. The intertwined plot. All spoke to me in a way few books ever could or would.
Cat's Cradle is the way I think. If you could scan my brain. Read my thoughts. A lot of what you see in Cat's Cradle is how I think about things. Feel about things. How I look at things.
I'm not sure what that says about me. Personally. Or. Spiritually.
The Books of Bokonon interlude
The Fifty-third Calypso
Oh, a sleeping drunkard
Up in Central Park,
And a lion-hunter
In the jungle dark,
And a Chinese dentist,
And a British queen--
All fit together
In the same machine.
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice--
So many different people
In the same device.
Cat's Cradle is a favorite because it taught me that it's ok to laugh at the absurdity in life. The contradictions. That maybe Nietzsche was only partially correct when he said, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Maybe, just maybe, what doesn't kill you that you still laugh at is what really makes you stronger. And happier.
The primary tenet of Bokononism, the religion that plays such an integral part to the entire book is this:
"Live by the foma that makes you brave and kind and healthy and happy."
To which I say, Amen.
Until I BLOG again...busy, busy, busy.
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