|
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Vonnegut
10 comments:
-
Anonymous said...
-
"cost the World the possibility of Germany becoming a peaceful and intellectually fruitful nation in anything but the most remote future."
Being around 10 years after WWII.
Libtard. -
4/8/08, 11:58 AM
-
titan saturnae said...
-
The movie was essentially incomprehensible. The book nearly so.
Perrine had impressive hooters though.
Well, I suppose she may still 'em (I haven't seen 'em lately so as to opine from a position of knowledge). -
4/8/08, 12:18 PM
-
LGD said...
-
At the time of the Dresden bombing, the Allied armies were still only on the borders of Germany in most places. Dresden was the principle remaining rail center for troop transfers between fronts and the movement of reinforcements to either.
After his defeat in the Ardennes, Hitler ordered a redeployment of troops to push the red Army back in Hungary.
That made Dresden a valid military target. -
4/8/08, 12:30 PM
-
Anonymous said...
-
Vonnegut did some awesome stuff. He also did some really awful stuff.
I've read his entire body of work and find that like many noisy people he throws a lotta shit at the wall. Some of it sticks, some doesn't. I'd put his ratio of salient, comprehensible, useable, meaningful bon mots, aphorisms, insights, and predictions at around one in ten. Not too bad, actually, for a liberal kook.
Often I plagiarize something he's done or paraphrase or parody or whatever. One of my profs in my MA studies was a great fan of Hemingway, whom I found pretty formulaic and self-repetitive. Ran across a Vonnegut assessment of "Papa" one time: "He tried his entire life to drown something within him but finally gave up and just shot it." Perfect!
The other is a neat capsule or thumbnail of human myth, belief systems, politics, religion, science, and so on:
(Imagine it being recited by an old Jamaican guy in a hammock under a mango tree)
Tiger got to hunt
Bird got to fly
Man got to ask himself
“Why?” “Why?” “Why?”
Tiger got to sleep
Bird got to land
Man got to tell himself
He understand
From *Cat's Cradle*, probably his most prophetic work, but I won't defend that opinion with any more specifics. -
4/8/08, 12:58 PM
-
Anonymous said...
-
>>>
I too, have read all of his stuff. Slaughterhouse was one I just didn't like. I tried to watch the movie years after came out. Same thing. Went back to the book and after a couple chapters, just said "F*ck it! It not like I'm missing a history lesson or something."
Stick with "Breakfast of Champions". Weird in itself, but still my favorite.
And to plagerize THAT book, myself:
Just call me "stumpy"....
(anyone who has read it will get the reference....)
;-]
>>> -
4/8/08, 5:48 PM
-
Desert Cat said...
-
LGD, then why firebombing? Did that "valid military target" include not only the rail yards then, but the city center, the residential areas, hospitals, churches, schools and anything else combustible, including refugee camps full with a surge of refugees that had just arrived in the city days before?
My mother was caught in that bombing. She was a four year old girl, a German refugee from Poland, fleeing the advancing Red Army. Her family members were staunchly opposed to Hitler. And yet she was caught in this horrific event and survived only by a miraculous turn of events. The hospital orderlies were unable to get her on her stretcher into the bomb shelter. They were stuck on the stairs because the bomb shelter was packed full of people. This turned out to be a providential thing, as the building sustained a direct bomb hit. The orderlies fled the building as it collapsed in upon itself, trapping and killing all who had sought refuge in the basement...except my mother, the hospital orderlies, and a very few others. Her memory is seared with the vision of the entire world on fire.
The purpose of the Dresden firebombing was to break the will of the German people, by terror if necessary. -
4/8/08, 9:10 PM
-
LGD said...
-
"The purpose of the Dresden firebombing was to break the will of the German people, by terror if necessary."
Exactly, Desert Cat. Just like the terror bombing and mass murdering and Gestapo tortures that the Nazis did. And they started it. We finished it.
In middle school, my best teacher of all was a Yugoslav-born German national. She fled Croat terrorists, Serb terrorists, Tito terrorists and was chased by Allied bombing missions all over central Europe as she tried to find permanent shelter.
And she blamed Hitler and the Nazis for all of it. Never America. Americans rescued her from all of it. -
4/9/08, 12:22 AM
-
rico567 said...
-
It's said that everyone has one good story in them, and Vonnegut is no exception (as he aged, his prose tended more toward pure babble). His masterpiece would not even fill a decent chapter. Oh, hell, it's on the Internet...in fact, here it is:
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html
I have seen few more predictive works of literature. It encapsulates the wall we've hit with our mindless push toward egalitarianism. If you still can't stand to read a few hundred words, Walt Kelly exercised more brevity: "We have met the enemy, and they is us." - Pogo -
4/9/08, 8:24 AM
-
Anonymous said...
-
And everyone always ignores the fact that it was the British, not the Americans, whose bombing caused the firestorm.
Steve -
4/9/08, 8:32 AM
-
Anonymous said...
-
True, we saved ours for the nippers. Now Tokyo, THERE was a firestorm.
Casca -
4/9/08, 10:04 AM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)