The Children’s Crusader – Kurt Vonnegut

Cult Fiction Writer, Montage Artist, or plain simple Humanitarian Novelist – it is difficult to pin the dexterous Kurt Vonnegut down to any genre of literary persona. The author of SlaughterHouse – Five or The Children’s Crusade flirts with genre and style with Houdini’s grace, what with beginning his writing career in the realm of science fiction, moving over to the Salinger-Lee domain of coming-of-age novels, and then floating back into the make believe world of futuristic science with a none-too-infrequent dab at felt tip calligraphs. The only common thread to all this versatility is perhaps the subtle yet firm humanitarian voice that comes across each time one flips through Vonnegut’s works. That, and the mantle he carries to protect the innocence of youth, is what distinguishes him from the other writers of his time.

Born on November 11, 1922 in Indianapolis, Kurt Vonnegut studied at the Cornell University and then trained as a chemist. After a brief stint as a journalist he volunteered for the American army in 1943 after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour. Sent to Europe as an advance scout during the Second World War, his military career was short lived, and he was captured during the Battle of The Bulge. Serving as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany, Vonnegut was a witness to the bombing of Dresden. This incident, which led to 1,35,000 deaths, left a deep scar in Vonnegut’s memory and later formed the root of his most famous novel "Slaughterhouse-Five". After the war Vonnegut joined the University of Chicago as a graduate student in Anthropology but his M.A. thesis 'Fluctuations Between Good and Evil in Simple Tales' was not accepted. However, in 1971 his novel Cat’s Cradle (1963) was accepted in lieu of a thesis and he was awarded the degree. After getting his degree, Vonnegut moved on to work as a journalist with the City News Bureau of Chicago. Married in 1945 to his childhood sweetheart, Vonnegut had three children, and adopted the three children of his sister who had died of cancer.

Vonnegut’s first novel "Player Piano" appeared in 1952, when he was twenty nine. A work of the science fiction genre, the novel dealt with the story of a world where machines had replaced human workers. In 1959, The Sirens of Titan was published, another work of science fiction. After this second novel, he began experimenting with a non-linear, unorthodox writing style, and in 1969 he came up with "Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade" – the story of Bill Pilgrim, a prisoner of war who takes shelter in a firehouse during an air raid on Dresden, to find the entire city laid waste when he emerges. Based on his first hand experience in Dresden, the novel seeks to establish an anti-existentialist perspective using existentialism itself as the launching board. The story evolves in a circular structure, moving almost incoherently through the different time periods (pre and post bombing) in Pilgrim’s life, at one point moving out of the solar system into the realm of the Tralfamadorians, a stoic race of aliens.

''When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is 'So it goes'.''

Slaughterhouse-Five, a story where every death is followed by ‘so it goes’ - a seemingly fatalistic phrase which aims to make a mockery of the unfair cruelties of unjustifiable wars - perhaps saw Vonnegut at his best, in terms of style as also substance. Never was the voice of dissent more evident, nor was ever so honest a portrayal of the ever persistent human betrayal of integrity seen in his earlier works. Perhaps the following quote from the novel sums up its mood the best:

"There is nothing intelligent you can say about a massacre."

The bombing of Dresden which led to the novel has forever haunted Vonnegut, his later novels being quite often fashioned on his memory of death as he saw it during the war. Perhaps that explains why death has recurred frequently in his works, though never in a fatalist fashion. As he says:

"To fear either life or death, to be immobilized by fright or horror or grief means to give up living and become a pillar of salt"

Vonnegut followed up on "Slaughterhouse-Five" with "Breakfast of Champions", another narrative which chose not to be bound by form, relying instead on rough illustrations and myriad insequential passages. While the book did not receive much critical accolades owing to its ‘scattered’ approach, it notched up huge sales and was later adapted for filming.

In the seventies, Vonnegut concentrated more on penning critical essays and satirical plays, and produced such gems as Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons (a collection of essays) and Happy Birthday, Wanda June, a play that was later made into film.

During the late seventies and early eighties Vonnegut’s works took on a more and more sombre note; an innate pessimism permeating into his stories. During this period his focus also shifted from penning novels to the finer art of brush-strokes. As he describes it,

"Writing is labor, and the writer's reward arrives when he or she hands the manuscript to the editor and says, "it’s yours.’" The painter, he says, "gets his rocks off while actually doing the painting".

In the same breath he says of literature:

"And what is literature, Rabo," he said, "but an insider's newsletters about affairs relating to molecules, of no importance to anything in the Universe but a few molecules who have the disease called 'thought.'" (from Bluebeard, 1987)

Perhaps a shade too surprising a statement from the man who spent a lifetime writing, but that is Kurt Vonnegut for you. Self contradictory and controversial, the author turned playwright turned artist holds fast only to one philosophy of life, that is to be kind to everyone. Beyond that, as he says, "so it goes".

Selected Bibliography:
• Player Piano 1952
• The Sirens of Titan 1959
• Mother Night 1961
• Cat’s Cradle 1963 - Kissan kehto
• Slaughterhouse-Five: or, The Children’s Crusade: a duty dance with death 1969
• Wampeters, Foma and Grandfaloons 1974
• Jailbird 1979
• DeadEye Dick 1983