”This is just the dream of a jailbird. It's not supposed to make sense.“
Reading Vonnegut in your sixth decade is much different from reading him in your third decade. I see much different things in his work now and I'm not as enthusiastic as I once was. His books are still worth reading, but I find them much sadder, less funny. The Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon seem like ancient history now, but it was the biggest news when I was in junior high school. Frankly, it now seems laughably simple and straight forward, but then it required all of us to sit up and pay attention to the behaviour of our elected officials.
I'm struck by Vonnegut's characters who wander through their lives, bouncing off events nearly randomly, giving up much hope of achieving any goals. This was well before the concept of “six degrees of separation,” but these people run into acquaintances frequently and accidentally. Serendipity and bad luck seem to dominate their lives. They meander, wide-eyed, from one circumstance to another, strangely accepting of whatever good fortune or mistreatment they encounter.
”All happiness is religious, I sometimes have to think.”
Perhaps because happiness is down right miraculous in Vonnegut's universe, which highlights the grand indifference of capitalism, the grinding effects of poverty, the duplicitous nature of politicians, the uncertainty of justice and the futility of planning or trying to control anything.
”The economy is a thoughtless weather system and nothing more.”
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