I’ve been looking forward to reading more Ben Marcus ever since I read his story “The Moors” in Tin House. On top of that, I like apocalyptic lit, and The Flame Alphabet appears to be apocalyptic in nature. You have to watch to about the 2:00 mark to get the gist of what’s happening. The Flame Alphabet will be published by Knopf January 17.
Charles Shields’ authorized biography of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., And So It Goes, has caused some controversy lately. Vonnegut died a little less than a year after beginning to work with Shields on the biography. Jill Krementz, Vonnegut’s widow, refused to participate even when Kurt was alive, and Mark Vonnegut, his son and co-executor, refused to let Shields quote directly from Vonnegut’s letters after his death. Mark has even publicly denounced the biography recently. Nonetheless Shields conducted extensive interviews and combed through more than 1,500 letters for five years. And So It Goes presents Kurt Vonnegut as a human, a complicated mix of good and bad. He was a writer by trade trying to make sense of the world he lived in.
I thought the biography was fairly extensive (roughly 400 pages) and paced well. Vonnegut was shaped by a series of complicated events and Shields does a good job documenting those critical events: his childhood marked by his family’s fall from fortune during the Great Depression and as a result his mother’s suicide; the struggle between his brother’s excellence at science and his desire to write; his experience as a prisoner of war in Dresden, which most people know later became the critical impetus for his most beloved novel, Slaughter-House Five; excelling as a PR man for General Electric; and his sister and brother-in-law’s tragic deaths that led Vonnegut to adopt their three children, which placed six children total under his wife at the time, Jane, and his care.
Shields does an especially good job capturing Vonnegut’s struggles as a new writer with a family of six children. Vonnegut was diligent in his writing regime, waking every morning and hunching over his typewriter for hours. It was the era of magazines, and Vonnegut paid his dues selling stories. Vonnegut’s novels didn’t come easily, but he followed his morning writing ritual for much of his life. Shields gives critical analyses of Vonnegut’s early novels, but his later novels don’t receive as much attention. Vonnegut was troubled by critics for much of his career, but especially with his later work.
I also found Vonnegut’s experiences at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop especially interesting. It was that experience that ultimately gave him the inspiration and motivation to complete Slaughterhouse-Five. I was also unaware that Vonnegut taught and befriended many great writers, like John Irving and one of my favorites, Andre Dubus. It was the first time that he felt like part of the literary community. His time at the workshop also led to an extra-marital affair that sped the end of his already stressed first marriage.
Writer Naeem Murr once told me, when he was the writer-in-residence at my my college, he didn’t think it was a good idea for artists to have children, because the art often takes everything the artist has. If you look at the lives of famous writers, you’ll find that this is often true. Vonnegut was no exception. Though he had enduring relationships with his wives and children, those relationships were often strained due to his work and his life-long battle with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
Shields begins the book with an appropriate quote from Vonnegut’s Wampeters, Foma & Granfallons (1974), “I keep losing and regaining my equilibrium, which is the basic plot of all popular fiction. And I myself am a work of fiction.” That quote sums up what I found most revealing about the biography. Much of Vonnegut’s image among his loyal readers, myself included, is part of the fiction. Vonnegut was on the cutting of edge of the new metafiction technique in literature, and he became popular during the 1960s. Shields writes about the film adaptation of Mother Night:
…in the film, Vonnegut is not there to intervene the way he could in metafiction—there is no safe, ironic distance in the storytelling—so that the film Mother Night unfolds pretty much as straight drama. The problem, Vonnegut later came to realize, was that filmed versions of his novels are one character short: himself.
Placing a fictional character of himself in his books is what makes them great, but the demand for that fictional character on speaking tours, as a creative writing teacher, and during interviews was something Vonnegut often wrestled with throughout life. Shields touches on that struggle throughout the biography:
His readers assumed the voice they trusted in the novels was rooted in a combination of wisdom and sophistication, but the truth was different. Vonnegut was more like his readers than they could have guessed. His themes of community and extended family for persons who are naïve or lonely had much to do with how he saw himself, and he idealized some of his boyhood. His summers at Lake Maxinkuckee had been his communal paradise lost…
I didn’t find the fact that Vonnegut was sometimes sad, cruel, or distant surprising. He’s human. If you’ve ever read his nonfiction essays, you will see all of those things, as well as humor, love, and kindness. What I found most surprising were the seeming contradictions between how his readers viewed him and his conservative nature. For example, Vonnegut was a shrewd investor in companies like Dow Chemical and Texas International Drilling Funds. Shields explains that Vonnegut didn’t object to capitalism, but the use of capitalism to “justify the power of the rich over the poor.” Vonnegut’s views of sexuality and society were also relatively conservative. Shields writes:
Unfortunately, many of his younger readers and fans misjudged him…Sometimes their wrong impression created awkward, man-behind-the-curtain moments when at last they saw him in person. In the spring of 1972, for instance, he spent one morning at West Point visiting classes and in the afternoon delivered a lecture. At the end of the lecture, a cadet who had been looking forward to the event approached him. “And he said, ‘I can’t imagine you wrote those books,’ and I had, I swear to God I had, but I was not the man he thought should have written those books.”
Vonnegut was a brilliant PR man. He created his own image, much like Mark Twain, which is discussed in the book as well. Whether that image conflicts with him in reality doesn’t matter. His work stands on its own. In fact, that image is part of the artistry. I believe much of the controversy over this biography is unwarranted. Krementz and Mark Vonnegut may use the premise that they are defending Kurt’s image, but the truth is they are likely more worried about how they are portrayed. Shields’ work is heavily annotated and documented. Anyone who is a fan of Vonnegut should read this biography.
Like most people these days, I came to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Philip K. Dick through Ridley Scott’s film Blade Runner. I knew the film was based on the book and always had it on my to-be-read list, but that list grows faster than I keep up with it. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep kept its spot as other books piled on. Then I stumbled onto this comic adaptation by Tony Parker and BOOM! Studios. It’s word for word from the book with panel-to-panel continuity. I couldn’t resist.
If you like Blade Runner, you really owe it to yourself to read the book or comic. Both the film and novel are excellent, but they are really two different animals (pun intended). The film is very character driven and its thematic focus is very narrow. It’s good, but it’s narrow. The novel is idea driven and is much more complex than the film. Philip K. Dick was as much philosopher as storyteller. There are some crucial scenes and ideas in the novel that make it superior to the film, because they add so much more depth and meaning to the story.
For example, one crucial element in the novel is Mercerism, a religion that uses technology to give people a sense of connectedness. People can plug in and feel connected physically and spiritually to Mercer (and all humanity as a result) as he eternally struggles up his hill, like Sisyphus. As his invisible persecutors throw rocks at him, everyone connected feels the pain. They actually bruise and bleed. This is a human need that androids do not understand. The film doesn’t have enough time to develop this idea, and it is too far removed from Dekker’s primary mission.
The Mercer idea also leads to Buster Friendly, a media personality constantly broadcasting on TV and radio. Everyone loves him. Everyone watches. He has a cast of silly characters that join him similar to variety show and late night TV. The idea of Mercerism and Buster Friendly are just two examples of Philip K. Dick’s prescience. They also contribute to the development of Deckard’s character and the difference between humans and androids.
I’m not sure if the comic adaptation now constitutes a third animal in addition to the film and traditional novel. It includes everything in the novel, and readers who know the film will recognize elements of it in the comic as well. Tony Parker’s illustrations are brilliant and flow seamlessly with the text. I had to keep reminding myself that I was actually reading a novel that was written in 1968. Everything fits and looks perfect in this adaptation.
Parker’s illustrations also illuminate Dick’s underlining themes and the bigger questions at play. What does it mean to be human? If the androids are more than human, what does that mean? What is empathy and why do we have it? Deckard feels like he is increasingly becoming dehumanized by the hunt for the escaped androids. During Deckard’s internal monologue, Parker often illustrates him imagining that he is killing the androids. By the time that moment comes in reality, Deckard has already done it in his mind repeatedly. There is a sense of anti-climax. It doesn’t mean that much anymore. He has lost some of that empathy.
In addition to the great adaptation, the comics also include an essay at the back of each issue by the likes of Warren Ellis, Jonathan Letham, James Blaylock, TimPowers, etc. The essays are very different from one another. Some discuss the book and film from an academic perspective. Some discuss Philip K. Dick in general. Some are like memoirs. I found all of them illuminating after reading the respective issue.
In short, the comic adaptation is fantastic. I loved every second of it. I managed to use the internet machines to track down all 24 issues of it, but BOOM! has issued 6 volumes that collect the whole series. I will close with a quote from Gabriel McKee’s essay at the end of issue 21:
Dick’s universes have shaky walls and insubstantial foundations. But throughout it all—and this is where I think many of Dick’s academic admirers get him wrong—he never abandons hope that an authentic ultimate reality exists. At the core of all of that anxiety… there is a faith that something real is hidden beneath the veil, and that it can and will break through that veil to help us. And it is that hope, more that the surface anxiety, that gives his stories such power.
