|
In October,
2006, the Hipster Book Club Livejournal community staged a
"Battle of the Writers" poll. It was done in a completely
whimsical and unscientific manner, pitting authors against
each other in a tournament-style succession of votes. In the
midst of the chaos, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. emerged as the community's
favorite American writer.
Vonnegut
probably would have been appalled by this. He probably wouldn't
have understood how he could best J.D. Salinger, Ray Bradbury,
and Joseph Heller (not to mention John Steinbeck, Walt Whitman,
or Mark Twain) for the title. For my part, I don't particularly
understand it, either…but I also don't deny it. Look up any
solicitation for general reading suggestions, and chances
are, you'll find a recommendation for Cat's Cradle
or Slaughterhouse-Five. Talk of genre fiction, and
Vonnegut's poignant yet irreverent comedy will be cited as
the work that turned people around to sci-fi. Take a look
around our corner of cyberspace, and it becomes resoundingly
clear: We in the HBC love Kurt Vonnegut.
In the
wake of Vonnegut's death, it seemed only fitting to acknowledge
the life and work of a collective favorite. But twenty days
have passed since his death, and we've all had a chance to
digest and lament. Chances are, many are downright sick of
hearing about his death by now, and we understand that. Dozens
of news outlets have written about his legacy, and we have
no desire to regurgitate information about Vonnegut's early
life or discuss how vitamin supplements saved his life in
Dresden.
Instead,
to bring this period of mourning to a close, we offer you
a small, sometimes personal tribute to the literature Vonnegut
has left for us. We've eschewed the aforementioned obvious
titles, instead choosing to discuss topics that are a little
closer to our hearts. The newest member to the HBC writing
staff, Joe Davenport, also offers a personal essay which touches
on what he calls "Vonnegut's place in my experience." As for
reviews, reviewer Bri Lafond speaks from experience when she
says The Sirens of Titan is "the kind of book that
can make the reader cry tears of sadness and tears of laughter
in the same sitting."
As for
me, I chose to review "Harrison Bergeron," the seminal short
story in which equality is achieved by making the United States
physically handicapped and stupid. When I taught it to an
English class last year, my students actually laughed so hard,
they couldn't continue reading for several minutes. Imagine—a
classroom of high school teens not only enjoying but actually
laughing through required reading! Surely, no higher
compliment exists for an author.
I'm glad
the HBC chose an abridged remembrance of Kurt Vonnegut. Seeing
as we are preaching to the choir about him, we'd much rather
turn your attention towards other ideas, such as interstitial
fiction or Cormac McCarthy books that don't carry the sticker
(or stigma) of the Oprah Book Club. However, to those of you
who haven't read Vonnegut before, I hope we are presenting
you with a few reasons why you ought to start. Two thousand
book geeks on the internet can't be wrong.
Thanks
for reading,
Yennie
Cheung
(May,
2007)
|
