Many years ago I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become humane.

[jackshoegazer]

I read the entirety of Kurt Vonnegut's A Man Without a Country today and let me just say it was absolutely, pardon my French, god-damned mother-fucking fabulous. I cried at work it was so good. In fact, I don't think I've ever cried reading a Vonnegut book before.

It was very classic Vonnegut, he tells a few of the same stories you may have read elsewhere, but all the new material is amazing and the old material merely helps to build his narrative. A Man Without a Country reads like a heart-felt eulogy for the planet, and more specifically the United States that we once had the potential to be.

From another perspective, it's almost like Kurt is writing his own eulogy, giving us his final good byes, his last look around before he closes the door on his way to wherever humanitarians go when they die. How a book can be sad, heart-wrenching and triumphant all at once, I'll never be able to tell you, but Vonnegut pulls it off without breaking a sweat.

Kurt is probably more responsible for me wanting to be a writer than any other author. I owe him so much. Breakfast of Champions saved or changed my life when I was sixteen, I can't decide which. His ideas have probably influenced me in ways I'll still be discovering when I'm Vonnegut's ripe old age of 82.

For instance, here is a piece I started waaay back in January of 1998, but never finished.  You can probably smell the Vonnegut all over this thing.

The History of Earth

By Jeremy Parker

26 Jan 98

 
Once upon a time there was a planet known as Earth.  The inhabitants of Earth are known as humans.  The creator of Earth was a large portly fellow by the name of Bill Robertson.  The inhabitants of this planet knew him as God or Buddha or the Lord or many other names.  In the history of Earth, there has never been one commonly accepted name for Bill.  Theorists argue about it.  These humans have wars over it.  By the way, a war is something that happens when a large gathering of humans kill one another for usually silly excuses.  Anyway, a group of these humans once had a huge war just to get all the other humans to accept what they thought Bill’s real name was and what he had done in the past and what Bill’s son, Jesus had done.

    Jesus, by the way, was Bill’s illegitimate son.  Bill had gone one night and impregnated this local girl named Mary, without telling her about it.

    This Jesus claimed he was the son of the Lord (a.k.a. Bill Robertson) and eventually the other humans crucified him.  Crucification is when you nail someone to a cross, causing great amounts of pain.  But this isn’t the kicker, they leave you to hang on this cross until you die.  It’s not a party, let me tell you. 

    Later on some people wrote a very nice book about Jesus and the Lord called, the Bible.  This Bible became the rule book for people who did believe what Jesus had said.

    Anyway, Bill Robertson created Earth.  Commonly accepted belief on Earth is that Bill or God or the Almighty or whatever also created the Cosmos and the rest of the Universe and all that.  Bill just did Earth.  You see, Bill had a mom and a dad just like everybody else.  Bill’s dad’s name was Nothing Robertson.  His mom’s name was Something Phelps. 

    Anyway, they got married and became Mr. and Mrs. Nothing Robertson.  Bill’s parents had gotten for a wedding gift a large plot of space that they aptly named Universe.  Over the eons (eons not being a long time to Bill’s parents) Something and Nothing had many children.  These children were given the power of creation.  Mostly this was to occupy the time, sort of like television on Earth nowadays.  Bill’s siblings created beautiful planets and suns and stars and bacteria and elements like hydrogen and oxygen and simple minded creatures.  The possibilities seemed endless, always something new, always something to do.

    The problem was that Bill, being the youngest, was terribly lazy and unimaginative.  He was much happier talking and playing with his parents.  They only found this bothersome because they were very busy people and had jobs to go do and golf to play and other social functions.  Something and Nothing had lucked out and found and inexpensive babysitter, the Universe.  Whenever one of the children came around, Something or Nothing were often heard saying, “Not now, Go create in the Universe.  Make something nice and see what happens.”  Little did they know that the Universe would be the fore runner for interactive television on Earth. 

    Anyway back to Bill.

    More often than not, you could catch Bill watching his brothers and sisters creations rather than making his own.  His siblings always gave him a bit of a razzing for this.  So in a huff one day after one of the aforementioned razzings, Bill created a ball of burning lava right smack dab in the middle of some other planets in a galaxy that Bill’s brother Alfred had made, called the Milky Way.

    Because of Bill’s unimaginative mind, he found himself very self-conscious about making the new living things of the planet.  He was so self-conscious that he would only work on it when no one else was around, and he never used his own ideas.

    Bill tried to put life on the planet, but everything kept dying in lava.  So Bill got some dirt from another planet and covered the planet.  “There, Earth”, he said.

    All the life kept on dying.   Bill figured they might be thirsty.  So Bill then stole half of the planet Pluto.  He used this half of Pluto as a giant glacier.  The molten lava center melted the glacier, and then created the oceans and rivers and lakes.  So there was Earth, Bill’s only creation, most of it stolen from other places. Bill likes to call it sampling, since it doesn’t sound as bad as plagiarism or stealing.  He thought to himself, “Well this is all terribly nice and all, but still quite boring.”

It goes on from there, how evolution sort of took hold and eventually Bill's siblings discover this amazing planet that Bill accidentally made.  Bill is so angry with his siblings for messing around with his secret creation that he invents a parasite, humans, to destroy the planet in scorpion-like retribution.

Ah, how fun that would have been.  If only I were a better writer back then.  I'm almost frightened how bad that it :)

Comments

[shehasrisen.livejournal.com]

I borrowed A Man Without a Country a couple of months ago and read it in a day. I have nothing to add to your apt description of the book or the man. He's amazing.

Your writing is very Vonnegutesque.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'm glad I captured the book so well :)

Yes, my writing used to be very Vonnegutesque, but I've long since leaned away from that. Lately, I get Tom Robbins comparisions, even though the stuff that gets those comparisons was written before I'd ever heard of him :P

[kiwikat.livejournal.com]

how was i completely unaware that he'd written another book? what rock have i been living under?! cripes.

i gotta go get it!

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Yes, get it soon, it's amazing. Probably the best of his autobiographical novels. He rips the current state of our government to shreds!

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

It's actually nonfiction, right? Sort of current events/commontary/autobiography? It's not a novel from what I remember at the bookstore...

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Correct!

[kiwikat.livejournal.com]

he's written a few of those, and i tend to enjoy them as much as his novels... the only others i can remember are fates worse than death and lies granfallons and foma (i'm shaky on that title, i think i have the first word wrong). i just love how decent and human he always manages to be.

[kiwikat.livejournal.com]

as he should. he is uniquely well-equipped and informed to do so, and has a beautiful record on human rights and humanity and fascism and such. i must read this book!

[wwonka666.livejournal.com]

hey, i have a huge favor to ask. I'm working on a flyer right now and everything that's on it I dig and I want to remain on it, but asthetically it's not pleasing and I'm kinda stuck on it. Is there any chance I could send you the PSD of the flyer and you could play around with it a bit for me? It would be uber appreciated and of course any notice or refs would be directed towards you.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Absolutely, send it my way.... fnord777 at gmail dot com

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

It's pretty incredible to see how far your writing has come from those longago days. :) I'm excited that I get to be here through all of it, reading over your shoulder, corrupting you with my literary influences, being your de facto editor...

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

Evil! Evil!!

And thanks :)

[oxy-irony.livejournal.com]

*Loves Vonnegut and his bizarre, random ways* *Is just beginning Deadeye Dick

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

I've read almost all of them. You should really read Breakfast of Champions if you haven't already.

[oxy-irony.livejournal.com]

I haven't, but now that you've recommended it, I might sometime this summer. :)

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

It is fabulous. I found it in a thrift store for a dime when I was 16. Changed my life :)