Yog's Notebook, blog edition

Kurt Vonnegut died last week, as a result of head injuries incurred through a fall in his apartment. Throughout college (where I was, in part, a Literature major) and the subsequent years of voracious reading, I had somehow never read anything by the much lauded American author. His work had been described to me as everything from satire to post-modernist dystopianism, anti-war diatribe to science fiction; one thing everyone mentioned when recommending Vonnegut was that the man's writing was funny (something I believe is extremely important to the enjoyment of any book; there are very few writers not named Woolf or Faulkner who can - or should try to - write edifying and/or entertaining literature without injecting some overt humor).

By coincidence, I read my first Vonnegut book, Cat's Cradle, just a few weeks ago, as the monthly selection for our book club. It was as bizarre and intriguing as I'd hoped it would be, and most definitely qualifies as Sci-Fi in my opinion. The book, written in over 120 small chapters, has at times an almost poetic timbre to the narrative, a very spoken quality. The science-fictiony aspect to the story doesn't become apparent until about midway through, when we are introduced to a substance known as Ice-nine, which causes water to freeze at very high temperatures. Without giving away too much of the plot, I'll just say that what starts out as a fairly prosaic story about a reporter evolves into a pretty fantastic set of circumstances.

Vonnegut has the delightful ability to cram layers of texture and meaning into crisp and witty sentences that sometimes read as crass bon mots. His dialogue, in particular, elicited the most laughs from me, where his often cartoonish characters ineract in some frankly ludicrous situations. Ludicrous; yet within the confines of his self-contained universe, gripping enough to allow the reader to suspend disbelief with ease and enjoyment.

Whether you are a fan of sci-fi, or more "literary" writing (and my opinion of the distinctions therein will wait for another blog post), you must see to it that you read some of Kurt Vonnegut's books. I myself am very excited to read more from the man who said that he is sure that "evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer.... That's why we've got giraffes and hippopotami and the clap."

Labels: Cat's Cradle, ice-nine, Kurt Vonnegut, literature, sci-fi, Vonnegut