{"id":650,"date":"2011-11-27T16:12:45","date_gmt":"2011-11-27T21:12:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/?p=650"},"modified":"2019-09-12T21:43:09","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T01:43:09","slug":"kurt-vonnegut-deserves-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2011\/11\/kurt-vonnegut-deserves-better.html","title":{"rendered":"Kurt Vonnegut deserves better"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Fred R. Conrad\/The New York Times<\/p><\/div>\n

Christopher Buckley’s New York Times Book Review frontpage piece<\/a> on\u00c2\u00a0And So It Goes<\/a>, <\/em>Charles J. Shields’\u00c2\u00a0biography of Kurt Vonnegut<\/a>, is as lazy a bit of evaluation as it’s possible to pick up a paycheck for. I can’t tell from it anything about Shields’ book, and nothing about Vonnegut’s many novels, either. (See “jazz” content at post’s end).<\/p>\n

How does Buckley — whose comic novels I’ve enjoyed (esp. his first, The White House Mess<\/a><\/em>) – – spend his 1500 words about a 500-page life of one of America’s best-selling fabulists of the late 20th century? He entertains us with what interests him<\/em>. So we \u00c2\u00a0learn in the lede \u00c2\u00a0that the bio is “often hearthbreaking,” evidently because of Vonnegut’s human flaws, his “vexed” relations with women (such as the “hell on earth” — Buckley’s phrase — he shared in marriage with photographer Jill Krementz<\/a>) and his attempt at\u00c2\u00a0suicide, perhaps in imitation of his mother (whose did indeed kill herself). We learn, too, that Vonnegut was sad, angry about the ways of the world (what satirist isn’t?) and resented being underrated by the literary elite but got rich off of actual book sales (sounds like a fair enough trade-off). We don’t find out what author Shields himself says about any of this in his long volume.<\/p>\n

Berkeley neither tells nor shows us how Shields writes, explains why Vonnegut was read (and feted and influential) or describes the social context of the period of his greatest productivity. I hope Shields writes about that; as a reader, I’m \u00c2\u00a0interested in an era that resulted in mainstream publication and public embrace of American satires and other serious, experimental, speculative,\u00c2\u00a0entertaining<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0fictions by V., his pal Joseph Heller and also Pyncheon, Roth, Nabokov, Mailer, Coover,\u00c2\u00a0Burroughs, Brautigan, Algren, Phillip Dick, Hunter Thompson, Thomas Berger, Jerzy Kozinsky, Jerome Charyn, Ursula LeGuin, Grace Paley, Stanley Elkin, John Barth, Gore Vidal, Terry Southern, Donald Barthelme, Ishmael Reed, Chester Himes, James Purdy, Bruce Jay Friedman, Richard Condon, Tom Wolfe, arguably even such learned pundits as William F. Buckley, Jr<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is this latter’s son, the reviewer Chris, who gets stuck on whether Kurt Vonnegut will matter forevermore (but doesn’t tell us if he thinks he should, only ties him to J.D. Salinger, relatively speaking a realist). One can only surmise Shields wrote a 500+page book because he thought his subject mattered.<\/p>\n

I dig Vonnegut, having read most of his 14 novels from the dystopian\u00c2\u00a0Player Piano<\/a><\/em>\u00c2\u00a0(1952, much indebted to Orwell and Huxley) through Timequake<\/a> <\/em>(1997), and I recommend the half dozen best of them highly.Vonnegut wrote clearly and directly, with a Midwestern-born sense of economy and understatement. He was comic and imaginative in a plainspoken style with an undercurrent of feeling — which might seem simple, but isn’t. Try to imitate his voice, his scruples about showing the worst sides of some protagonists and yet his compassion for ordinariness, his dry flights of fancy. In \"\"<\/a> Sirens of Titan<\/em><\/a> (1959) and Cat’s Cradle<\/a><\/em>\u00c2\u00a0(1963) \"\"<\/a>he is hilariously ironic and unblinkingly pessimistic, deeply fatalistic and soaringly fantastical. I get continued pleasure from both those novels.<\/p>\n

Mother Night<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0I haven’t read for quite a while but recall for its daringly dark yet sympathetic character creation.\u00c2\u00a0God Bless You Mr. Rosewater <\/em>also sticks in my mind as an unpredictable story about mixed-up morality.<\/p>\n

Personally I find Slaughterhouse Five <\/em>more sentimental and obvious than any of these early works, but I guess to many readers it seems most heart-felt, and it is no doubt earnest — the fire-bombing of Dresden is a searing episode.\u00c2\u00a0Of V’s later works, I thought\u00c2\u00a0Breakfast of Champions<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0troubling, skipped Slapstick<\/em>, remember little of Jailbird and avoided Deadeye Dick.<\/em> Galapagos<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0was diverting,\u00c2\u00a0Bluebeard<\/em> mystifying and\u00c2\u00a0Hocus Pocus <\/em>not very memorable, but I\u00c2\u00a0am firmly in favor of Timequake.\u00c2\u00a0<\/em>To me Vonnegut’s summing up joins Heller’s Portrait of an Artist, As an Old Man<\/a><\/em> and Charles Bukowski’s Pulp<\/a><\/em> as the finest, funniest recapitulations of careers writing fiction I’ve read.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Image \u00c2\u00a9 Edie Vonnegut<\/p><\/div>\n

I’ve met Vonnegut’s daughter Edie, and like her paintings of Domestic Goddesses<\/a>, \u00c2\u00a0and once met the man himself. I was standing behind him in a line for food after a preview showing of Robert Altman’s Kansas City<\/a><\/em>. I introduced myself as a fan, and answered his question about what I do as “write about jazz.” Vonnegut, whom I remember looking sort of hang-dog, said he had played clarinet, and loved jazz. He added that he had tried to introduce the music to high school students while he was teaching at a high school in Cape Cod, but couldn’t get them interested.<\/p>\n

I said I knew of only one bit of writing about music in his novels, one of my favorite scenes: When space traveller Malachi Constant finds himself stuck for an indeterminable amount of time in the caves of Mercury, he takes solace from the beautiful songs, light patterns and messages (“I am here, I am here, I am here” and “So glad you are, so glad you are, so glad you are”) of the harmoniums<\/a>.<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0Vonnegut seemed pleased I could quote that.<\/p>\n

I haven’t read Shields’ bio, and might not, but it and Kurt Vonnegut, too, deserve better from the Times than being tossed off as topics rather beneath the reviewer’s engagement.<\/p>\n

howardmandel.com<\/a><\/p>\n

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Christopher Buckley’s New York Times Book Review frontpage piece on\u00c2\u00a0And So It Goes, Charles J. Shields’\u00c2\u00a0biography of Kurt Vonnegut, is as lazy a bit of evaluation as it’s possible to pick up a paycheck for. I can’t tell from it anything about Shields’ book, and nothing about Vonnegut’s many novels, either. (See “jazz” content at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-650","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/kurt-vonnegut1.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1i3CL-au","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":194,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2009\/05\/jvc_jazz_fest-ny_cancellation.html","url_meta":{"origin":650,"position":0},"title":"JVC Jazz Fest-NY cancellation reported","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"May 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"No major, mainstream, corporate-supported jazz fest will occur in New York City this summer, according to today's New York Times report confirming my posting of\u00a0 April 15. Festival Network principal Chris Shields, purchaser in 2007 of the production company headed by George Wein which staged June jazz concerts at major\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":396,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2011\/05\/june_jazz_fests_bustin_out_all.html","url_meta":{"origin":650,"position":1},"title":"CityArts New York June jazz fests bustin’ out-all-over supplement","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"May 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"CityArts New York let me play jazz supplement editor. Read my lead feature on upcoming in June\u00a0the NYC Blue Note Jazz Festival, UnDead Festival, gigs everywhere and more respect!\u00a0Also Kurt Gottschalk on the Vision Festival's backstory, David Adler on three successful, smart, younger jazzers, snapshots of Brazilian drummer Adriano Santos,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1954,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2015\/12\/branford-marsalis-and-kurt-elling-in-new-orleans-ready-for-recording.html","url_meta":{"origin":650,"position":2},"title":"Branford Marsalis and Kurt Elling in New Orleans, ready for recording","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"December 15, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Saxophonist Branford Marsalis's quartet and singer Kurt Elling prepared for their upcoming recording in a rare four-night stand at Snug Harbor in New Orleans last week, and\u00c2\u00a0photo-journalist extraordinaire Marc PoKempner went each night, enthralled. \"It was sort of an open rehearsal for the recording, so the set list was the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/unnamed.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/unnamed.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/unnamed.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/unnamed.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/unnamed.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":268,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2009\/11\/winners_and_their_blues.html","url_meta":{"origin":650,"position":3},"title":"Winners and their blues","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"November 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Winners of this blog's first Blues Lyric Contest are suitably\u00c2\u00a0troubled -- and all get Wynton Marsalis and Willie Nelson\u00c2\u00a0Play the Music of Ray Charles DVDS to ease their weary minds. All have expressed regrets they can't get to \u00c2\u00a0Jazz at Lincoln Center concerts of Wynton and the Lincoln Center Jazz\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":320,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2010\/06\/_why_give_jazz_awards.html","url_meta":{"origin":650,"position":4},"title":"Why of the Jazz Journalists Assn’s Jazz Awards","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"June 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Why give Jazz Awards? See my new column in City Arts re the event Monday 6\/14 at City Winery in NYC, produced by the Jazz Journalists Assoc.\u00c2\u00a0 (Full disclosure: I'm deeply involved -- as left, last year presenting Kurt Elling his statuette for Best Male Vocalist, photo by Enid Farber.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"HM-and-Kurt-Elling-jazz-awa.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/HM-and-Kurt-Elling-jazz-awa.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2957,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/2021\/12\/holidays-with-music-in-person-or-not.html","url_meta":{"origin":650,"position":5},"title":"Holidays with music, in person or not","author":"Howard Mandel","date":"December 24, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Despite my avowed abhorrence of Christmas music, I enjoyed maestro Kurt Elling leading his hometown quintet in a holiday-themed performance at Chicago's City Winery last Sunday. Kurt Elling \u00c2\u00a9 Marc PoKempner My entire evening -- accompanied by best friends, and including the surprise discovery after the Winery show of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/HBrain-Xmas21-m.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/HBrain-Xmas21-m.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/HBrain-Xmas21-m.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/HBrain-Xmas21-m.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/HBrain-Xmas21-m.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/jazzbeyondjazz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}