Hello, and welcome back to my passion blog. Before I begin, it’s worth noting that I have officially abandoned chronological order. Today, I’m going to talk about books that I read before Invisible Man and ones that I read after, so sorry about that. It would’ve been nice to have a more cohesive chronicle of the books that I have influenced me, but oh well. Without further ado…
If you somehow managed to obtain a copy of my senior yearbook and flipped to my page, you would see that my senior quote is as follows: “And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is” – Kurt Vonnegut.
Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favorite authors. First of all, if you look up a list of some of his quotes, they are spectacular. Some are humorous. Some are like the quote that I used. Nevertheless, he’s always had a knack to say something meaningful. However, more importantly, I really enjoy his books. I’ve only read three, but each book that I read by him was a stand alone book. Considering the fact that I generally enjoy book series, I don’t think I’ve read three stand alone books by the same author, aside from him. His prose, creativity, and satirical commentary are all equally enjoyable and have left me thinking deeply after finishing each book.
The first book I read by him was Slaughterhouse Five in my sophomore English class. The book captured my attention almost instantly. While the main character himself isn’t a particularly extraordinary human, there are two things going for him that make the story fascinating: he was abducted by aliens, and he was “unstuck” in time (meaning he experienced life non-chronologically, which I suppose makes this blog post fitting, as I’m breaking my chronology with this book). It was a shame that the book was only 200 something pages, because I could’ve read and read and read. I think what really struck me as awesome about this book was that it was a perfect combination of meaningful commentary and entertainment. I felt like I was reading so that I could find out what Vonnegut would comment on next.
Fast forward to this year, and I’ve read two more Vonnegut books – Cat’s Cradle and The Sirens of Titan. Cat’s Cradle tells the story of an author trying to write a biography about a scientist and his family, while The Sirens of Titan chronicles a martian invasion. I understand that I’m not doing the books justice by one sentence descriptors, but I nonetheless recommend them. In fact, I especially recommend The Sirens of Titan because of its profound message at the end. It will certainly leave you thinking, and perhaps a little more appreciative of life.
I feel like, for the most part, this blog has been about highlighting books, and perhaps I haven’t given the authors as much credit as they deserve. But the thing is, authors, and specifically good ones, are geniuses. After reading Vonnegut’s books, I began to really appreciate that fact because of his creativity that can lead to such profound messages. It’s a shame that the world doesn’t reward genius equally. While a business genius or a sports genius have the potential to make millions or billions of dollars, other geniuses, such as authors, aren’t recognized and rewarded as much, even if they are as much a genius as others. That’s a shame. So whenever you read something that speaks to you, take a second to think about the person who wrote that, and appreciate their genius.
What a wonderful quote by Vonnegut. Though I am unfortunately unfamiliar with him as an author, you really sold me on getting one of his books in my free time. When a book ends and you want more, that’s when you know you’ve found a good author. And not just a good author, but, like you said, a genius. And I feel that’s a problem in the world; while I know these rich businessman geniuses like Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, and Elon Musk, there’s not nearly the same amount of promotion to names like Vonnegut. As I continue to learn more about people and the world around us, it is really important that I self-educate and not just digest what mainstream media feeds us. Only then can people like us develop our own world views on what really matters and what is essential. Because if I know anything, it’s that money is not the goal in life.
Thanks for sharing! I, like you also read Slaughterhouse Five in sophomore year English, and I think that contributed to me not liking the book as much as I could have. When you are reading a book and specifically being told by your teachers, “look for symbolism, find themes, we will test you on this” at least in my experience, I tend to enjoy them a lot less. That’s a shame, because I agree with you, Vonnegut is a genius, and Slaughterhouse Five was a very clever anti-war novel. I think I’ll give those other two books you listed a try, to see if I can enjoy them as pleasure reads rather than school enforced reads. I actually really like some of Kurt Vonnegut’s quotes as well. I think my favorite quote by him is “We have to continually jump off cliffs and grow wings on the way down”. I think that quote represents life and taking risks well. Thanks for sharing again. I feel like I receive new books to read or new methods to read every week from you.
So it goes…