Much Of A Good Thing

I'm taking a break from the Vonnegut binge. As my friend so aptly pointed out, he's a lot like a truffle, and I've gorged as much as I can appreciate for now. It's interesting how differently he reads now than my last marathon Vonnegut binge, which was about 9 years ago. He's still phenomenal, I'm just realizing how my own perspective on life has changed. I suppose that's not a bad thing.

It's tough trying to decide what to read next. Like the bumper sticker so wisely says - "So many books, so little time." (And really, what wisdoms are there outside the bevy of bumper stickers used to express our innermost thoughts and beliefs?)

The Finnish mythology is definitely calling me. I also have a lot of good books I need to read for research for my own book. But I'm sort of hankering for Thomas Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon", one of my all-time favorites. Still, it's another saga, and I'm sort of liking the idea of something more brief.

There is a Studs Terkel book I bought a while back and still haven't read. I love Studs - if you've never read "Working", may I strongly suggest you navigate over to your favorite bookseller's site and purchase it right away. The one I'm going to read is "Division Street: America", his first book. Aside from "Working", my favorite Studs book is his most recent, "And They All Sang". It's a remarkable work, whether you're into oral history, music or American history. Studs Terkel is a national treasure!

Ode to Used Bookstores

Is there anything better than a used bookstore? I confess, I get excited when I see a crowded parking lot at a big-box bookstore, thinking of all the folks inside whose minds are about to expand. But go into a used bookstore and breathe the peaceful, slightly musty air of the last repository of America's intelligent culture.

Maybe it's because my mom's a librarian, but I find the very presence of books soothing, let alone that wonderful smell in an older library or bookstore. To me, it's the smell of books waiting to be read. Or as Homer Simpson might say, "Mmm... books. (drool)". Okay, or he might not, unless the books were covered in chocolate sauce. I need no such additional temptation.

I recently found a great used bookstore in Colorado Springs, called The Bookman, at the corner of 31st Street and Colorado Ave. The owner was really helpful and kind, and the selection was fantastic. In less than 30 minutes, I was back out the door with a collection of poems published in the New Yorker over 50-plus years, two books of essays by T.S. Eliot, a Vonnegut book that I'd loaned out and was finally replacing, and a thick tome of Finnish mythology. Y'know... a little light reading. I was practically euphoric that I'd come away with such a haul.

I don't think it's just the eclectic inventory that I love, or the out-of-print or hard-to-find editions. I think it's the soul of the books. They've already got personality. Sure, a new book is fun to make one's own, but a used book can inspire great speculation on its former owners' lives, and evokes the feeling of being part of a larger tradition.

Props also to The Renaissance Book Shop in downtown Milwaukee, which for me was one of the highlights of our Thanksgiving road trip. This is one of those incredible bookstores that upon approach, you aren't entirely sure is open, but upon entering, you find yourself in freakin' Biblio-Paradise. Six floors and two buildings of books, books, and more books, the lopsided wooden shelves reaching to the tops of tall ceilings, huge boxes of books stacked in the aisle waiting to be shelved. A word to the wise: use the buddy system, or you'll never leave the store. Make sure you take someone with you who will want to leave in an hour or so, just to ensure you remember to eat again that day.

A Little Prehistory

I owe it all to my mom, really. She's a librarian. She retired this past November, but in some ways librarians are like Marines; once a librarian, always a librarian. Some of my fondest memories of spending time with Mom are of reading together before bedtime. Sometimes she would read to me; sometimes I would read to her. It was great together-time. (By the way, I don't care how old you are, you need to read "The Pushcart War" if you haven't already. It was our all-time favorite.)

I learned to read when I was three years old. I've always been fascinated by words, and the fact that they could be captured by these markings on a page seemed like magic. I still remember the first book I read by myself, "The Wolf and the Seven Kids". It was during free time in preschool one day. Surprised the hell out of the teacher - I still remember the look on her face when I walked up to her afterwards, held up the book, and said, "I read this."

Sometime in the next year, I learned that books were written by people. I think this again was thanks to my mom. Before that, I'd assumed books were just there, like trees and cars and people. To find that people created books was like being struck by a lightning bolt.

Close upon the heels of that epiphany came the realization that I was one of those people who created books. Brimming with the certain knowledge of my destiny, I ran into the kitchen. "Mom," I said, my voice urgent. "I know what God wants me to do when I grow up." (My notions of God were a lot more clear-cut at age four.)

Mom looked surprised, then tolerant, as adults often do when kids make their life-changing discoveries.

"What's that, honey?"

"He wants me to be a writer."

She half-suppressed a smile. "Oh! Okay, honey."

"I know it, Mom. That's why I'm here," I insisted.

"Okay, Ann. Be a writer."

At the Very Beginning, There Was Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut gets credit for this entire blog, little though he'd want it, were he still alive. Am I the only one still mourning Vonnegut's death? Surely not. I bet John Irving's still pacing his halls, if no one else.

When I heard the news, I felt like I'd been punched in the gut. I focused on finishing the new Pynchon book as fast as possible, so I could start 'tribute reading' all the Vonnegut books I had. (Neither easy tasks, by the way. Have you seen the new Pynchon? It could stop a bullet! Likewise, tribute reading a prolific writer like Vonnegut is not a task for the faint of heart.)

So now, a week or so and a Cat's Cradle, Deadeye Dick, Player Piano and introduction to Breakfast of Champions later (with many more books yet to go), I am forcibly struck by the absence of the love letter I never wrote to Kurt Vonnegut. It was the force of this realization that drove me to start a blog, so I could tell the online world how much Vonnegut meant to me, since I never told him while he was alive.

Vonnegut is probably doing triple axels in his grave right now, assuming they buried him wearing ice skates and he's somehow magically online reading this post. I can just imagine him: "Good Lord! Why are you cluttering up the collective consciousness with odes to an absurd, deceased writer?" Maybe he'd quote a relevant Bokonon poem, or maybe he'd just say, "Hi-ho."

Regardless, here it is:

O Greatest of Kurts,

This letter's been a long time coming. Half my life ago, my hands cracked open the cover of "Breakfast of Champions", and when I closed the book again, I was changed forever. I suppose part of my love for you will always be the fourteen year old who was so astonished to find that somebody else out there found the world as funny and pathetic and hopeful and sad as I did.

I think that's where your greatness lies - and don't scoff, because you truly are a great writer. Your books are incredible, the way you interweave humor and pathos, effortlessly, naturally, with a brutal harshness and a sweet poignancy.

It is remarkable. It is, in fact, purely Vonnegut.

Maybe that's what I admire the most - that your style can't be imitated, and you imitate none other. Maybe it's the honesty that shines through your work, even as you protest that everything you say is untrue. Maybe it's the kinship I feel reading your mockery of mankind's pretense that we're better than human, and your celebration of the fact that we are, after all, only imperfect, blundering, frail, self-delusional humans.

Really, that's all we need to be. Thank you for pointing it out, again and again and again. Thanks for all the laughs, the sorrow, the catharsis. Thanks for being you. I can't imagine a world without you, but thank god you wrote all you did, because even after your death, you are still in the world with us.

I love you, Kurt Vonnegut. You are greatly missed.