Slapstick

I have read several of Kurt Vonnegut’s books, but my latest read, Slapstick, may be my favorite.

The book opens in an interesting way as Vonnegut presents some of his own life experience, including divulging personal family issues such as the “distant” closeness between he and his brother and the death of his sister, Alice, who suffered from cancer.  In a very strange twist of life, Alice’s husband dies in a well-publicized train accident, two days before her death.  Vonnegut adopts her boys and raises them as his own. 

It is with this personal backdrop that Vonnegut begins the story of Dr. Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain, who is writing his autobiography.  Clearly there are references made in the opening to have the reader interpret the main characters in his story as Vonnegut and his sister, who in the story are twins (Eliza and Wilbur).  Their strange upbringing included being isolated from the rest of the world, except for their private doctor, housekeepers, and other servants in the mansion.  The two pretended to be mentally-challenged, speaking in gibberish and throwing feed at each other.  When people left them alone, they read, studied, and learned about everything they could get their hands on.  Finally they “come-clean” and note their intelligence, though it doesn’t work for Eliza, she is institutionalized, Wilbur goes to prep school and eventually receives a PhD from Harvard.

The siblings’ hope while growing up is to end loneliness, a noble charge considering their situations.   Wilbur uses the “loneliness campaign” for a run at the Presidency, which he wins.  But this is the least of his problems, as the world faces two devastating plagues that cause destruction and devastate humans on earth.  As a result, the world nearly runs out of oil and the Chinese people work to get smaller and smaller (so as to use less of the world’s resources), but in the process get so small that they become extinct!  In between all of the challenges facing society, Wilbur proposes to give everyone a new middle name, his sister is killed in an avalanche, and all the while, Wilbur still wants to rid society of loneliness.  Isn’t that in the end what we strive for? 

If you don’t get the book, you may need to familiarize yourself with the comedy of Laurel and Hardy, which he refers to at the beginning of the book; between the “hi-ho’s” at the end most passages and the yearning to connect to others.  In the end, Vonnegut’s social commentary on our time seems like a comedy.  Well, it is more sad (death, destruction, illness, the absurd) than we choose to believe but if we don’t laugh we would have to cry…. more often than we would like.   From the story:  “Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go looking for it, and I think it can often be poisonous.”  And it can also be the opposite, which is the comedy of it all.  Nothing is what we want it to be, as Shakespeare said, “all the world is a stage”… we are the actors, so let’s enjoy what we can as there are too many things that force the reality of our eventual demise.  Vonnegut’s work is complex, but with simple meanings, and always making fun of the absurdity that life can be.  Worth the read!