by Joe Buffaloe
Daily Lobo
Kurt Vonnegut is dead.
Can we finally call him one of the best writers ever?
Plenty of his fans have been calling him that for years. He could say more in one sentence, written in plain, everyday language, than James Joyce could in 300 pages of obscure classical references. He was so good, he didn't need to be difficult to read or make himself sound smarter than he was. He was so good, he could be one of the most wildly experimental, absurd, intellectually complex writers of the 20th century and still be entertaining. People actually bought his books, too.
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Maybe that's the problem, though. The literary world has always looked down on Vonnegut - and most popular writers - as juvenile and unsophisticated. This is pure snobbery. The people who don't appreciate Vonnegut as a true artist are the same people who ruined your English classes in high school and made you think literature was about as fun as trigonometry. They're the people who think that if you can understand a book without a degree in literature, it must be stupid. Above all, they're people with no sense of humor.
But books are supposed to be fun. They wouldn't exist if they weren't. Just because we study them in school doesn't mean they haven't always been meant for entertainment. And if you can synthesize entertainment with high art as well as Vonnegut did - and still be understood - that's about the greatest achievement a writer can have.
There's nothing wrong with making books relevant to contemporary popular culture. In fact, that's what they're supposed to do. That's forgotten too often by the people who decide which books you have to read in school. As Vonnegut warned, "Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak."
In a world where we're uncertain about our own culture, perplexed by humanity's place in it and doubting if there's any point to life at all, Vonnegut expressed these unsettling notions with a smile, a wink and a word or two of uplifting wisdom. He wrote fun books without obscuring the crushing existential problems of his generation and ours, and his humorous fables of modern life will resonate for generations
to come.
I realize I'm ranting here. I've read Slaughterhouse-Five more times than I can count, and when asked what my favorite Vonnegut book is, I can never answer. Personally, I don't see why UNM has a Shakespeare course when there's nothing devoted to Vonnegut. Maybe because he doesn't sound as pretty.
In another way, though, I'm glad he never won the respect of the literary world. The true value of an artist is the effect he or she had on the people who took the time to look at his or her work. In that respect, Vonnegut succeeded. If we ever have to start reading his books in classes, literary snobs might ruin them for students as badly as they ruin Charles Dickens or John Steinbeck. For instance, imagine if the Ramones had sold millions of records in the '80s and been a constant presence on MTV. Wouldn't that take some of the fun out of it?
English teachers will continue to make you think of reading as work. Vonnegut just might make you realize it's fun.
