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Slaughterhouse Five

3/23/2016

It’s time once more for the fourth update in my year-long experiment of living (actually reading) fictionally. For those of you keeping score at home, the first book I tackled was Oscar Wilde’s fascinating 19th century novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Next was Ernest Hemingway’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1952 novel The Old Man and the Sea, followed by my first ever cat mystery novel in Lillian Jackson Braun’s The Cat Who Played Post Office. For book number four I decided to take on a novelist who I’m sorry to say I had not read up to this point: Kurt Vonnegut and what is considered his greatest work, Slaughterhouse Five.

Despite previous essays on this experiment shying away from delving into the plot or narrative of the books I’ve been reading, I feel little bit of gushing is required. This may very well be the best novel I’ve ever read. This may be due to the paucity of titles I have gotten to over the years, but I feel I can state this with some confidence. Vonnegut’s use of simple language combined with the post-modern satirical nature of the entire work combine to make a powerful indictment of our violent humanity and how we react to the violence of our age. The short, clipped sentences reminded me of Hemingway, while the overall caustic commentary on warfare was more Joseph Heller, and yet Vonnegut weaves a story that is completely his own. I came away from this book seeing almost everything in my universe differently, which is what I’m looking for in each work I delve into, and I was immensely satisfied with the statement Vonnegut was trying to make.

Digging down more into the writing takeaways from this book, I would say there are two:

Use of repetition. Vonnegut’s use of repetition, almost exclusively after mentioning some kind of death, is masterful. While you might think that reading the same phrase (“so it goes,” which according to Wikipedia shows up 106 times) would get annoying, in fact somehow the author uses it to repeatedly hit you over the head about how little we as humans seemed to care about death in the 20th century. It’s a bizarre little mix of humor and horror, and is used deftly to create a sense of anesthesia against the very dark subject matter while simultaneously making you consider each instance on a deeper level.
Injection of Science Fiction elements into any story. While Vonnegut is apparently known as a SciFi writer, for me that wasn’t the major element of this book. While this book stands supreme as an anti-war novel, Vonnegut goes above and beyond that with his references to time travel and alien cultures, all in service of immense story lines about humanity and how we perceive time, violence, and each other. The simple matter of the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, being “unstuck in time” allows the narrative to fly literally anywhere, from the deepest recesses of space to various points between his birth and death, and allows us to consider just how important it is to even tell a story in a linear fashion. The alien beings Pilgrim meets can view time as a fourth-dimensional construct, one of many mind-blowing notions within the book that help us see the story unfold from various angles.

In short, while I am ashamed it took me this long to get to such a monumental author’s work, I can say without a doubt that reading anything by this man will improve your writing. An absolute joy of a novel to read, it also is an epic yarn that ought to rattle your perceptions of time, the universe, and our own human nature. I would highly recommend this book to anyone, and hope to continue reading more of Vonnegut’s work throughout the years.

Up next in the experiment I return to the mystery genre, this time tackling a book I have wanted to read for years: Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. There are only a few books remaining on my list before I start working in some recommendations from you all out there. If you still want to give me your list, feel free to shoot me an email or comment on this here bloggy. And stay tuned for the next exciting installment in my year of living (actually reading) fictionally.

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The Cat Who Played Post Office

3/6/2016

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It’s time for the third update in my year-long experiment in living (actually reading) fictionally. For those of you keeping score at home, the first book I tackled was Oscar Wilde’s fascinating 19th century novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Next was Ernest Hemingway’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1952 novel The Old Man and the Sea. Now I have switched gears, turning to a book my wife suggested, Lillian Jackson Braun’s 1988 novel The Cat Who Played Post Office.

I will be the first to admit I never thought I would read a mystery series, let alone one whose main mystery-solvers are a pair of Siamese cats and their owner, Jim Qwilleran. But part of my learning experience over the past year has been opening myself up to new concepts, one of which was trying to understand various niches and where my own writing might fit in among them. As usual, I won’t get too much into the plot or give away the ending, but I will say that this was a very engaging novel and Braun creates a world, albeit a few books into the series (which originally started in the Sixties) that I enjoyed jumping into each time I sat with the work. This leads to the first point about writing I wanted to observe.

Keeping reader interest. Braun had me hooked from the beginning of this book: the main character suffers a bicycle accident, and the reader is right there with him as he regains his memory and recalls the people in his life. I thought this was an excellent way of helping readers get caught up with the universe, even if they haven’t read other books in this series. More than this, the writing is very engaging and witty, and though the author introduces a lot of characters (and potential suspects) throughout the book, she imbues each with a funny small-town charm that I recognized from my days living in rural Iowa. She also keeps the clues, found by the curiosity of the main character’s cats, coming so that I was always speculating about the murders that were taking place throughout the story. This is another lesson that seems simple but is of the utmost importance if you are hoping to become a popular author. Yes, it’s a series of cat mystery novels, but it’s one that existed for decades and had a strong enough fanbase to keep selling. Ensuring that your writing is retaining the reader’s interest at all times is an important part of the process behind your drafts, and something we as writers should never stray too far from as we work.
Reading for pleasure. This concept had almost become a lost art within my psyche as I had not considered reading a book for the simple pleasure of it in some time. While this book was a great read and I did enjoy it, I would also have to say it was a welcome antidote after the two heavier philosophical novels I took on at the beginning of this experiment. This was key for me simply to break up the deep thinking that was taking place in my mind as I read those two masterworks. I don’t know that I will ever return to this series, but it’s nice to know it and others like it exist for when I do want to tune into some “light” reading material. Just remember, this stuff is popular for a reason and can be a good source to provoke your mind, even if you consider it not “true” literary fiction. Keeping an open mind is what we writers are supposed to do, after all.
Make sure your “hook” catches people. This is a point more specific to the genre, but does kind of tie into the previous lessons. Braun really understands the relationship a cat owner can come to have with their pets, and uses that to create some dynamic scenes involving the Siamese locating clues for Qwill, the main character. This meshing of the cats and their moustache-endowed owner is a “hook” that catches readers and keeps them engaged in the clues to the mystery, and is an idea that has been quite popular within the genre for decades. Christie had Poirot, and today’s equivalent might be Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, but both of these series has a bedrock of characters and worlds that keep the readers coming back for more. Yes, there are some more bizarre, food-related (and otherwise) type “hooks” out there in the mystery world, but enough exist that you as readers ought to be able to find a series you can get into. Once you do, take good care to see what within the story keeps your interest.

These are the three main writing lessons I’ve come away with after reading The Cat Who Played Post Office. And yes, I would recommend this book (or series) to anyone looking to get some enjoyment out of their reading. While it probably won’t cause you to make a deep reappraisal of your world and society, it still should give you some good ideas for how to become a more popular author.

Up next in this experiment I turn to an author who I have sorely neglected for some time, and hope to begin rectifying this by reading what is considered his best work: Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. Stay tuned for the next exciting installment in my year of living (actually reading) fictionally.

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Slaughterhouse Five

The Cat Who Played Post Office

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