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A Brief Word from a Literary Hero of Mine

by AltHippo @ 4:01 pm. Filed under Uncategorized

Please go read this article from NPR on Kurt Vonnegut, written by his son Mark. You can take any paragraph from the article and spend the rest of the afternoon pondering the truth contained therein.

At random, I’ll take this one:

He was like an extrovert who wanted to be an introvert, a very social guy who wanted to be a loner, a lucky person who would have preferred to be unlucky. An optimist posing as a pessimist, hoping people will take heed. It wasn’t until the Iraq War and the end of his life that he became sincerely gloomy.

Me, too, Kurt. Me, too. The Iraq War has sincerely depressed me for a variety of reasons. It’s impossible for me to reflect on Iraq without thinking about how many people are no longer with us. People that no doubt loved being alive just as much as I do, no longer walk the face of this strange and beautiful planet. That is very hard to accept. When you add to this that there was every reason to believe that the Iraq War wouldn’t accomplish anything, you have every right to be sincerely gloomy.

As I say, this is just one paragraph excerpted from Mark Vonnegut’s new book, Armageddon.

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4 Responses to “A Brief Word from a Literary Hero of Mine”

eRobin Says:
June 12th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I didn’t get sincerely gloomy until I read the Shock Doctrine. The failure of John Edwards’ campaign was also crushing.
AltHippo Says:
June 12th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Yeah, the Edwards campaign hurt, or rather the ending of it.

I’m reading Shock Doctrine now. Great book, and I’m glad to hear you’ve read it. Of course, I mean “great” in a sincerely gloomy kind of way.

I’ve thought about trying to get Naomi Klein to talk at DL at some point. I met her briefly at TBA, and was very impressed.
Bulworth Says:
June 16th, 2008 at 10:48 am
I have Shock Doctrine but haven’t read it. So what I’m about to say may be off the mark,
but I wonder about the thesis a little bit.

Consider the Great Depression. In that case, an economic crisis resulted in a great expansion
of government and a political realignment that has had largely liberal outcomes.

Of course I’m aware that some critics on the left see the New Deal and its successor policy regimes
as essentially corporatist in nature, done for the benefit of preserving capitalism. But still the
result has been the creation of programs that provide a range of benefits to working people.

How does Klein deal with this?

Meanwhile I should probably dig the book out and look at the index. But I haven’t thought about the
book for a while so in the mean time any thoughts would be appreciated.
AltHippo Says:
June 16th, 2008 at 11:19 am
I would say you’re correct. It’s entirely possible that the reason that Depression era programs took hold, was of the same nature as programs put in place by the Bushies after 9.11.

One of the reasons that it’s important to have these evenings where authors come in is to task questions just like that.

One thing that may be different is the degree that “we” (meaning research psychologists) understood the response to traumatic situations and environments. I gather most of this research was post-WWII.

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95. Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

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eRobin Says:
June 12th, 2008 at 1:28 pm

I didn’t get sincerely gloomy until I read the Shock Doctrine. The failure of John Edwards’ campaign was also crushing.

AltHippo Says:
June 12th, 2008 at 10:52 pm

Yeah, the Edwards campaign hurt, or rather the ending of it.

I’m reading Shock Doctrine now. Great book, and I’m glad to hear you’ve read it. Of course, I mean “great” in a sincerely gloomy kind of way.

I’ve thought about trying to get Naomi Klein to talk at DL at some point. I met her briefly at TBA, and was very impressed.

Bulworth Says:
June 16th, 2008 at 10:48 am

I have Shock Doctrine but haven’t read it. So what I’m about to say may be off the mark,
but I wonder about the thesis a little bit.

Consider the Great Depression. In that case, an economic crisis resulted in a great expansion
of government and a political realignment that has had largely liberal outcomes.

Of course I’m aware that some critics on the left see the New Deal and its successor policy regimes
as essentially corporatist in nature, done for the benefit of preserving capitalism. But still the
result has been the creation of programs that provide a range of benefits to working people.

How does Klein deal with this?

Meanwhile I should probably dig the book out and look at the index. But I haven’t thought about the
book for a while so in the mean time any thoughts would be appreciated.

AltHippo Says:
June 16th, 2008 at 11:19 am

I would say you’re correct. It’s entirely possible that the reason that Depression era programs took hold, was of the same nature as programs put in place by the Bushies after 9.11.

One of the reasons that it’s important to have these evenings where authors come in is to task questions just like that.

One thing that may be different is the degree that “we” (meaning research psychologists) understood the response to traumatic situations and environments. I gather most of this research was post-WWII.

June 7, 2008

4 Responses to “A Brief Word from a Literary Hero of Mine”

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