This is too long. So it goes.
A Saturday morning--in August, I think--more than twenty years ago--I was awakened about quarter to seven--he phone ringing. I answered. I suppose it was good I was already in a semi-prone posture as the voice on the other end said simply, "Hi Tom, this is Kurt Vonnegut."
The writer of a New York Time article on Mr. Vonnegut's death makes the point:
To Mr. Vonnegut, the only possible redemption for the madness and apparent meaninglessness of existence was human kindness.
I can only testify to one encounter on one August Saturday morning many years ago, but I can say that Mr. Vonnegut treated me with kindness and patience and no small touch of generosity as he responded to my rather amateurish and over eager hounding as I relentlessly pursued the object of an interview with him for a local literary and social justice magazine. He was in our town for a conference. He had the previous night addressed a conference of the Unitarian Universalist Church as its keynote speaker. I had finagled a press pass to the event at the very last minute on the rash promise that I would secure an interview. I had pursued him after his address and had left numerous messages at his hotel. He could have simply left town having successfully evaded me the night before.
Instead, he called before leaving for the airport. He made an apology because he really did not have time to meet with me. He offered this instead. He would, he said, leave a full copy of his remarks from the previous night in an envelope with the hotel desk. I could collect it at my convenience and, he said, could use it to construct the interview we otherwise might have had, had he had the time.
I went straight to the hotel. And claimed my package. I have the text here with me still, somewhere. It is a photocopy of his working draft typescript complete with final handwritten edits. I never did what he suggested to create the interview. I told the editor, "sorry." And that was that.
Until today.
As I was walking home from an appointment in midtown, I was thinking about my encounter with Mr. Vonnegut. I was feeling the sadness of the news of his death. I was thinking about why I felt so much sadness.
One of the first things that jumped into the front of my mind was that he was, for the best and perhaps even for the worst, an honest person, a writer who's work was honest and direct, even as it used science fiction and fantasy. But I was and am uncomfortable with that easy pigeon hole. What constitutes honesty, like what constitutes "good or "justice," turns out on close inspection to be at best elusive and at worst slippery and clouded.
No, honesty was not what drove my admiration for Mr. Vonnegut's work. Nor was kindness.
It was, I think now, his willingness to be truly critical. To be critical is, I think, a very specific form of honesty perhaps. That same New York Times article made reference to his widely recognized pessimism. I think a truly critical person has to be a pessimist, too. Looking at the world critically means taking it, meeting it, as much as is humanly possible, exactly as it presents itself. Without comforting glosses. Without making up intricate excuses or pretty fantasies to smooth the edges.
The critical person questions, probes. To be critical is not simply about what one rejects. It is also about how one decides to accept what one will accept. Accept only conditionally. Only as long as we can find verifiable reasons to accept. It is about finding the world worthy of inspection, worthy of being seen as clearly and directly as possible, worthy of challenging back for all the challenges it presents us. Worthy of being uncomfortable. Worthy of being about something that is not us. Or, at least, not just us. Us--the very small, very fragile, very young, and very dangerous species we are. But only one out of we don't even know how many billions--and that's just on this planet. Out there somewhere there may yet be a Tralfamadore. Or there just may be other planets with billions more viruses, bacteria, and insects--arguably the three most successful sorts of species right here.
Kurt Vonnegut was delightfully critical. The truly critical person, the pessimist, has to laugh. The alternative is some sort of madness. Its nearest metaphor for me just now is staring into the sun. All that light will make one blind, of course.
Critically confronting the world opens one to the perception of genuine tragedy--and tragedy always leads us, paradoxically, to humor. The greatest pessimists always bring us to laughter. It's a mirror image phenomenon.
I never wrote up the interview as Mr. Vonnegut suggested. In my navet, I shied away from what I saw as a dishonest thing. I was wrong.
Now I look at it very differently. The interview could have happened. The only reason it didn't is because I, uncritically, accepted a definition, a label. I see now that the interview was right there all along. Mr. Vonnegut and I had, indeed, spoken. I had already told him about what I was intending to ask. He had responded by saying, essentially, "it's all her. Come pick it up." He was kind. I was not behaving critically.
I am sad because Kurt Vonnegut is dead. I am sad because there is tragedy in the loss of a person who has given so many works of both substance and humor. I am sad because I , like every one else, will never have even the remotest possibility of talking with him again.
But what I don't have to miss, even now, is that Kurt Vonnegut has left the opportunity, think about things again--even remember a couple of days in August a long time ago and a Saturday morning when my phone rang, and that raspy, gravelly voice could still be heard.
A Saturday morning--in August, I think--more than twenty years ago--I was awakened about quarter to seven--he phone ringing. I answered. I suppose it was good I was already in a semi-prone posture as the voice on the other end said simply, "Hi Tom, this is Kurt Vonnegut."
The writer of a New York Time article on Mr. Vonnegut's death makes the point:
To Mr. Vonnegut, the only possible redemption for the madness and apparent meaninglessness of existence was human kindness.
I can only testify to one encounter on one August Saturday morning many years ago, but I can say that Mr. Vonnegut treated me with kindness and patience and no small touch of generosity as he responded to my rather amateurish and over eager hounding as I relentlessly pursued the object of an interview with him for a local literary and social justice magazine. He was in our town for a conference. He had the previous night addressed a conference of the Unitarian Universalist Church as its keynote speaker. I had finagled a press pass to the event at the very last minute on the rash promise that I would secure an interview. I had pursued him after his address and had left numerous messages at his hotel. He could have simply left town having successfully evaded me the night before.
Instead, he called before leaving for the airport. He made an apology because he really did not have time to meet with me. He offered this instead. He would, he said, leave a full copy of his remarks from the previous night in an envelope with the hotel desk. I could collect it at my convenience and, he said, could use it to construct the interview we otherwise might have had, had he had the time.
I went straight to the hotel. And claimed my package. I have the text here with me still, somewhere. It is a photocopy of his working draft typescript complete with final handwritten edits. I never did what he suggested to create the interview. I told the editor, "sorry." And that was that.
Until today.
As I was walking home from an appointment in midtown, I was thinking about my encounter with Mr. Vonnegut. I was feeling the sadness of the news of his death. I was thinking about why I felt so much sadness.
One of the first things that jumped into the front of my mind was that he was, for the best and perhaps even for the worst, an honest person, a writer who's work was honest and direct, even as it used science fiction and fantasy. But I was and am uncomfortable with that easy pigeon hole. What constitutes honesty, like what constitutes "good or "justice," turns out on close inspection to be at best elusive and at worst slippery and clouded.
No, honesty was not what drove my admiration for Mr. Vonnegut's work. Nor was kindness.
It was, I think now, his willingness to be truly critical. To be critical is, I think, a very specific form of honesty perhaps. That same New York Times article made reference to his widely recognized pessimism. I think a truly critical person has to be a pessimist, too. Looking at the world critically means taking it, meeting it, as much as is humanly possible, exactly as it presents itself. Without comforting glosses. Without making up intricate excuses or pretty fantasies to smooth the edges.
The critical person questions, probes. To be critical is not simply about what one rejects. It is also about how one decides to accept what one will accept. Accept only conditionally. Only as long as we can find verifiable reasons to accept. It is about finding the world worthy of inspection, worthy of being seen as clearly and directly as possible, worthy of challenging back for all the challenges it presents us. Worthy of being uncomfortable. Worthy of being about something that is not us. Or, at least, not just us. Us--the very small, very fragile, very young, and very dangerous species we are. But only one out of we don't even know how many billions--and that's just on this planet. Out there somewhere there may yet be a Tralfamadore. Or there just may be other planets with billions more viruses, bacteria, and insects--arguably the three most successful sorts of species right here.
Kurt Vonnegut was delightfully critical. The truly critical person, the pessimist, has to laugh. The alternative is some sort of madness. Its nearest metaphor for me just now is staring into the sun. All that light will make one blind, of course.
Critically confronting the world opens one to the perception of genuine tragedy--and tragedy always leads us, paradoxically, to humor. The greatest pessimists always bring us to laughter. It's a mirror image phenomenon.
I never wrote up the interview as Mr. Vonnegut suggested. In my navet, I shied away from what I saw as a dishonest thing. I was wrong.
Now I look at it very differently. The interview could have happened. The only reason it didn't is because I, uncritically, accepted a definition, a label. I see now that the interview was right there all along. Mr. Vonnegut and I had, indeed, spoken. I had already told him about what I was intending to ask. He had responded by saying, essentially, "it's all her. Come pick it up." He was kind. I was not behaving critically.
I am sad because Kurt Vonnegut is dead. I am sad because there is tragedy in the loss of a person who has given so many works of both substance and humor. I am sad because I , like every one else, will never have even the remotest possibility of talking with him again.
But what I don't have to miss, even now, is that Kurt Vonnegut has left the opportunity, think about things again--even remember a couple of days in August a long time ago and a Saturday morning when my phone rang, and that raspy, gravelly voice could still be heard.