Cat's Cradle

Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle

Betyg: 5

Var tvungen att läsa om lite Vonnegut. Fuck you, Fox News.

This is a re-read. I first read it about 15 years ago, and it still holds up. On the one hand, this is a hilarious satire on the cold war and the atom bomb; the weapon everyone wants, but whose use can only mean everybody loses. It certainly has "Dr Strangelove Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb" - the idea of a doomsday weapon that can't NOT be set off - for a cousin. The Cuba crisis looms large.

At the same time, it's a bit more than that. Despite the fact that it's obviously more than 40 years old, Cat's Cradle still feels quite relevant; both in its discussions on American foreign policy

	The highest possible form of treason (...) is to say that Americans aren't loved wherever they go, whatever they do.

and on the whole debate of rationality vs irrationality, science vs religion. People on both sides could do well to read this. As dismissive as Vonnegut is of the idea that science will always make the world perfect - the main target of the satire - his wish isn't a return to superstitoin but an advance to humanism. A large part of the narrative is carried by the fictional religion of Bokononism, a religion that claims as its first gospel that all religions are lies, especially Bokononism, and that the only thing holy is man. Of course it's a crackpot religion, but then again, it's a crackpot mankind.

It wouldn't be Vonnegut if all this wasn't delivered as an absolute farce, where everything goes to hell and nothing's as bleakly funny as the end of the world. The image that has always stuck with me is the one for which the book is named:

	Newt remained curled in the chair. He held out his painty hands as though a cat's cradle were strung between them. "No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's . . ." "And?" "No damn cat, and no damn cradle."

In a world where the alternatives seem to be either blind faith or blind progress, Cat's Cradle is a pratfall of a novel saying HEY! It's just a piece of string! LOOK at it! Look at how the world is made up of PEOPLE, and we've in our infinite wisdom arrived at a point where we need to recognize each other for the fuck-ups we are or we'll be laughing ourselves into an early grave. 44 years on, I see no reason to pronounce him wrong.

Hemsöborna

August Strindberg - Hemsöborna

Betyg: 4

Ja, alltså, fanken vet om det inte är dags att så smått erkänna för sig själv att Strindberg minsann hade en del att komma med ändå. "Hemsöborna" är kortare och mer to the point än "Röda Rummet", mer av ett tidlöst karaktärsdrama samtidigt som det är ett tidsdokument från ett Sverige som (väl?) inte finns längre. Det är triangeln Carlsson - Madam Flod - Gusten som driver handlingen, men det är Strindbergs språk som håller liv i det; herregud, karln hade STIL. En konstant kanoneld av dialekt och högspråk, bibelcitat och grov drängtunga som sprudlar på sidan.

Samtidigt, visst, man märker att 130 år gått. Mitt ex är väl troligen upprättat till modern stavning, men grammatiken är fortfarande en tydlig markering. Fan, jag saknar konjunktiven i svenskan, men jag saknar INTE pluralformerna av verb.

"Hemsöborna" rockar så smått. På dragspel och brännevin.

See the cat? See the cradle?

Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead.

Kurt Vonnegut är död. Han ramlade omkull, 84 år gammal, och slog i huvudet. Så kan det gå.På något vis känns det där både fel och rätt. Att någon som överlevt en av världshistoriens största uppvisningar av människans förmåga att ta livet av sig själv skulle dö av en sån alldaglig grej... samtidigt också helt naturligt. En ironi värdig en ironiker.

All persons living and dead are purely coincidental, and should not be construed. No names have been changed in order to protect the innocent. Angels protect the innocent as a matter of Heavenly routine.

Det där är taget ur förordet till den sista skönlitterära bok han gav ut, novellsamlingen "Bagombo Snuff Box" från 1999. Den svarta humorn skiner igenom; om det finns något som aldrig händer i Vonneguts böcker så är det att änglar beskyddar de oskyldiga. I "Slaughterhouse-Five" (med undertiteln "The children's crusade") kommenterar han torrt varje meningslöst, idiotiskt dödsfall med "så kan det gå". Vonnegut trodde inte på någon god Gud som kunde kliva in när vi gjorde bort oss; han visade vad som hände när vi gjorde det, fallet på svanskotan när vi halkar på våra metaforiska bananskal, och fick oss att skratta åt eländet.

Vonnegut beskrivs oftast – lite felaktigt – som science fiction-författare, med det lilla underförstådda avfärdande som "genreförfattare" det innebär. Men som alla bra författare använde han genre som verktyg, inte mål. Vonnegut var en humanist, en misantrop som älskade människor, och hans böcker illa men snyggt förklädda debattinlägg som sprudlade av fantasi; få författare hade samma förmåga att klä ut sina åsikter till fiktion, klä upp de viktigaste frågor till slapstick, dra av kejsaren i oss alla kläderna och peka på hur fåfängt och idiotiskt och förbannat vackert allting ändå kan vara. Världen i hans böcker är ett enda stort kosmiskt skämt där allting går åt helvete och goda människor förlorar, där vi alla är slumpens kasperdockor, där alla drömmar om utopia eller ett himmelrike vare sig här eller i livet efter bara är snömos; där vi bara kan försöka göra så gott vi kan. Där livet är meningslöst och just därför viktigare än någonting annat. Han var en humorist som aldrig tappade allvaret, en idealist som kunde skratta åt idealismen.

Läs "Harrison Bergeron". Läs "Slaughterhouse-Five". Läs "Mother Night". Läs "Cat's Cradle". Läs "Galapagos". Läs "Slapstick". Skratta. Gråt. Fundera. Räck upp ett långfinger åt dem som säger sig ha säkra svar.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

I sin sista roman, "Timequake", tog Vonnegut livet av sitt alter ego Kilgore Trout. Kilgore Trout blev 84 år gammal. Så kan det gå. På Kilgore Trouts gravsten står det: "Life is no way to treat an animal."

Han fattas mig.

(Korspostat från dagensbok.com)

EDIT: En väldigt bra krönika av Ola Larsmo i DN.

You Don't Love Me Yet

Jonathan Lethem - You Don't Love Me Yet

Betyg: 3 (OK, 3 1/2 då)

At the beginning of this book, two of the main characters go to an art exhibit consisting of a large white cube entitled "Chamber Containing The Volumetric Representation of the Number of Hours It Took Me to Arrive At This Idea". They sneak inside it and have sex. And I can't quite shake the idea that Lethem is aware that that's a pretty good summation of his new novel; clever, ironic, funny, occasionally sexy (Woody Allen sex, not Penthouse sex)... but as if the sum total of it is no more than "Book Containing 224 Pages Filled With What Happens To The Main Characters In The Time It Took To Write It".

Sure, it's hilarious sometimes. He's come up with a cast that is just slightly too quirky, a just slightly too-good-natured-to-be-vicious attack on the whole hipster music scene that makes the book come across as a little bit of a novelization of Questionable Content, and a satire on the whole idea of owning - whether it be things, persons or ideas; stealing kangaroos is right, stealing songs are wrong. He lands some pretty good punches at the whole immaterial rights debate (and what is more immaterial yet essential than love?). (Incidentally, I paid US $36 for this immaterial fun. I'm just saying.)

But yet there's something missing. I think Lethem would appreciate a pop culture reference, so I'm going to quote Neil Young:

Well, the artist looked at the producer, the producer sat back
He said "What we have got here is a pretty good track
But we don't have a vocal and we don't have a song
If we could get this thing accomplished nothin' else could go wrong"
So he balanced the ashtray and he picked up the phone
And said "Send me a songwriter who's drifted far from home
And make sure that he's hungry and make sure he's alone
And send me a cheeseburger and a new Rolling Stone"

In his attempt to satirize man's obsession with what he doesn't have, what he can't own, what he can't do by himself (there's a lot of masturbation going on here too, both physically by the characters and mentally by the writer) Lethem has a pretty good track but seems to have forgotten to make it all into a song, something with a hook, something cohesive, something with substance. Apparently, some smart Hollywood producer has bought the rights to this and is presumably going to try and turn it into something palatable for the mass market. The irony of that isn't half as funny as the book is at its best, but it's hard to overlook.

I'm rambling. A book should of course stand on its own, without my prejudice about its later use. But it helps if it CAN, and Lethem's recurring mantra of "you can't be deep without a surface" seems to miss out on the fact that even the ocean's depths are actually filled with LIFE as well - not just quirkiness, verbal jousting and the odd satirical bit. That sounds harsh. Sorry. But he got my hopes up with his previous stuff, and I'll accept nothing less than genius from Mr Lethem. This is funny, cute, occasionally somewhat poignant (though it's nothing he hasn't covered before) and I really DO like it - I just don't love it.

This Wheel's On Fire

Levon Helm - This Wheel's On Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of The Band

Betyg: 4

I've been in love with The Band's music - or, to be more precise, their first few albums before the tension in the band sapped the magic - since I first heard it, which must have been at a very young age considering the state of my dad's copy of their second album. So reading Levon Helm's observations from what he calls "the best seat in the house" - the drummer's chair - is never less than fascinating. The Band grew out of the The Hawks, a hard-travelling rockabilly band backing singer Ronnie Hawkins (who hired 15-year-old Robbie Robertson with the phrase "I can't pay you much, but I'll promise you more pussy than you can eat") in the late 50s and limped across the finish line 40 years later minus a few members. They managed to turn from one of the toughest, meanest backing bands ever for both Hawkins and Bob Dylan into one of rock'n'roll's few true ensembles - listen to their first two albums as The Band (which, incidentally, is the coolest band name ever - and the record company made it up!), and you'll notice that there's no front figure. There's no soloist, just the occasional short solo spot for guitar, organ or sax as part of the tune. There's not even ONE lead singer - the piano player, the bass player and the drummer share vocal duties; the guitar player's mic was switched off. There's just five people playing a dozen instruments and MAKING music, harvesting everything in American music from field hollers to rock'n'roll, from dixieland to funk and consolidating it all into what Gram Parsons called "cosmic American music".

Levon Helm's autobiography is a lot of fun. The guy has an amazing memory - hell, if I'd lived through all of that, I'd be surprised to be alive, much less remember it - and as the Arkansas farmboy he is, a very workmanlike attitude towards the whole thing: the job of a musician is to play music. It even makes the occasionally somewhat pathetic post-The Last Waltz* formations come out logical; hell, why shouldn't he play in Ringo Starr's all-star band? He's a drummer, drummers play in bands!

* The Last Waltz: The Band's 1976 farewell performance, filmed by Martin Scorsese and featuring dozens of guest performers - all Robertson's idea; the others wanted to keep going.

At the same time, as much fun as it can be, there's a very bitter undertone that grows as it goes along; Helm and guitarist Robbie Robertson were best friends for years, and I don't think Helm is ever going to forgive him for breaking up The Band and, in his opinion, screwing the other members out of a hell of a lot of money. Bassist Rick Danko died of heart failure in 1999, and Helm's account of his funeral borders on character assassination - whether it's justified or not is up to Helm and Robertson to duke out:

My beef is that he didn't have to be there yet - not at only fifty-six years old. Rick worked (...) himself to death. And the reason Rick had to work all the time was because he'd been fucked out of his money. People ask me about The Last Waltz all the time. Rick Danko dying at fifty-six is what I think about The Last Waltz. (...) [At the funeral] Robertson (...) got up and spouted off a lot of self-serving tripe about how great Rick had sung the songs that he - Robertson - had written. It made me sick to hear. Then he worked the press a little, like a good Hollywood boy, and went back to Los Angeles. He knows he's got Rick Danko's money in his pocket. He knows that.

But all that aside, it's refreshing to read a biography - auto- or not - on a musician that for the most part actually focuses on the music, not the sex and drugs (though it's inevitably some of that too) but the actual music, how it came together, how it still does. The closing lines of the 1993 edition (the one I read has an extra chapter added in 2000) are:

Hell, all I know is that I haven't had to cultivate cotton since I was seventeen.

This Wheel's On Fire might be a little self-serving, occasionally in need of some editing, but for the most part it's brutally honest and funny at the same time. Now go listen to The Band, possibly the best album of 1969 (and that's saying something), and then try to tell me there are limits to what the human spirit can do.

The People's Act of Love

James Meek - The People's Act of Love

5/5

It's 1919, in the middle of the Russian civil war. A bunch of Czechoslovak soldiers who have been marching since 1914 (hence have never even been to the free republic of Czechoslovakia) have taken over a small village in Siberia, chiefly populated by a weird Christian sect who have surgically removed their... um... instruments for sinning. But the Czechs want to go home, the Reds want to take the town, and in the middle of this, an escaped convict turns up with a tall tale of marching for hundreds of miles from a gulag way above the arctic circle, pursued by a man who he says wants to eat him. What follows is both a drama between the people who meet up in the little town - Russians, Siberians, communists, bourgeois, Czechs, men, women and a very lonely Jew - and a novel that aims for the Big Questions...

OK, this was indeed a fantastic book. Meek's intentions of writing a Great Russian Novel certainly shine through - it has scope, multiple-character plot, ethical quandaries and satire that wouldn't be unworthy of ol' Fyodor D himself - while still modern (and postmodern) enough to make it a novel for today's age.

But the similarities I keep finding aren't as much to writers as to movies; Col mentioned Ravenous, the praising of which I would like to join, but I also found myself thinking of two others:
- Andrei Konchalovsky's Runaway Train - somewhat ironically an American movie made by a Russian, and in a sense the mirror image of Meek's book, tackling some of the same existential questions; that would be Samarin (not the Mohican) in Jon Voight's role.
- Werner Herzog's Aguirre - that's Klaus Kinski as Matula, leading his men on a hopeless quest, far beyond what is defensible or even sane. I kept expecting him to call himself the wrath of God, but of course the wrath of God - if indeed there is such a thing here - is much sneakier in Meek's world.

Yet for all its genre nods (it's something of a Wild East novel, isn't it? I'm sure we could find a role for a young Eastwood too) it's also something entirely its own. Meek's language is beautifully descriptive (I guess the fact that I keep seeing it as a movie is a testament to that) and the way he uses his realistic characters (of course, the Czechoslovak raids through Siberia is an actual historical event - and one I've always meant to read more about) to create a very personal drama out of the questions of what is right, what is possible, etc is... again, the unwieldy adjective "Dostoevskyan" springs to mind. Or is it Dostoevskyesque? The book is just self-conscious enough to pull it off, despite - or perhaps thanks to - lines like this:

SAMARIN: I don't serve. You know that. I'm a manifestation. Of the present anger and the future love.

How much can we be expected to sacrifice, and for what? How much can we demand that others sacrifice? The Czechoslovaks are, officially, fighting for a homeland they've never even set foot in. The Reds are fighting for a homeland they have barely even begun to imagine. Samarin has gone so far beyond idealism that he's passed into psychosis, and yet keeps going in the same direction. Balashov, the 19th century enlightened soldier, has stepped off the arena and the big industrial train comes down the track too fast to stop, dropping men and horses along the way as humanity eats itself to survive.

If this sounds disjointed, it's probably because I just finished the book half an hour ago and it's still got my head spinning a bit. I think it'll take me a while to digest it. I may revisit this. For now, it's five cold and distant stars over Siberia.