Scripturally, No One Survives A Tragedy

Several weeks ago, months, whatever, some of the girls I work with came up with the brilliant idea of having a book club. We were going to meet every Wednesday, have lunch, and sit around and talk books, just like Oprah and Gayle.

In the emergence of a book club, the immediately pressing issue is determining what books to read. This was hard, because I love many things that many people think are stupid. So after a highly inspirational and convincing argument for book four of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (The Dagger Affair), my opinion was decreed dysfunctional, and therefore void.

One of my co-workers googled a list of "Classics" which was absolutely fine with me, but boring, because I'd already read most of the books on that goddamn list, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. totally houses that shit. Google’s second list of classics was better (everyone's got an opinion), and one of the first books on the list was Slaughterhouse Five.

Not one of my co-workers had read it. Some of them had never even heard of Kurt Vonnegut.

Now, I’ve been umbrella-ed by the assumption that if you're even partially sane (you could be crazy, and I don’t want to get too ambitious here), there are certain things you like in this country: The Goonies and Kurt Vonnegut.

Those who didn’t like them were a myth, like dragons, mermaids, soul mates, and people who honestly believe that teachers get paid too much money. Shouldn't my co-workers just have soaked up Vonnegut somehow at their respectable colleges - Notre Dame, Georgetown, Cornell? Especially with all those smart people running around? How have these people lived their twenty-whatever years without flashes of him, without hearing his name?

I launched into a tirade of Are You Fucking Kidding Me and Dude Seriously. But then I realized that not everyone hates themselves as much as I do, and therefore they probably want to read things where people fall in love and collect sea shells and count the stars all romantically.

"That's it. Okay. You guys pick out your book. I'll read whatever. But his books are like, good." That's it, Rass. They're good. They're all crumbly and broken and full of more heart and self than nearly anything else I've read. They're written by a man who truly understands satire, because if life's not a satire, then we've been handed a tragedy, and realistically, scripturally: no one survives a tragedy.

So like I said. They're good.

If I could choose any way to be sheltered from the big, scary world, it would be in knowing that everyone believes in evolution and everyone likes Vonnegut. That everyone who's read any of his words was instantly tickled and contemplative, just like the first time I read Slaughterhouse Five, god, how long ago? I was fourteen, I think? Math it up, nerds.

So, happy birthday, Mr. Vonnegut, and happy Veterans' Day too.

For a much better blog honoring Kurt Vonnegut, please read Pistols', because mine is way inferior.

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On another note, I've literally broken another umbrella, and it's raining liquid frogs out there. I'm pretty sure that I'm just going to give up on covering my head altogether and deal with being wet.

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