KURT REFUSES TO QUIT
Written by D. Grant Black - Saskatchewan freelance writer

Why aren't there more humorists in print these days?

While recent books on globalism's failings (The Collapse of Globalism), misguided biblical interpretation (The Da Vinci Code) and humanity's fallen civilizations (Collapse) abound on bestseller lists, it's more difficult for a social satirist to be heard above all this serious hullabaloo.

We've reached an age where satire isn't welcome. A few years back, before things really became unhinged, Bare Naked Ladies' earnest frontman, Stephen Page, trilled: "Is there room for music after September 11th?"

Why would anybody even say such a dumb thing? Of course there's space for music. And now, even more, there's a big gaping hole that should be filled with ripping social satire.

So the granddaddy of disaffected American liberals is back. Since the 1980s, I've read everything that Kurt Vonnegut has produced. From such brilliant, subtle novels as Breakfast of Champions and Hocus Pocus to boisterous short stories, I've happily absorbed them all.

Vonnegut always has a different spin on the world than whatever take might be in vogue. That's why he never goes out of style. With a twinkle in his eye, he easily delivers social criticisms on such weighty subjects as environmental fatalism, nuclear war and genocide.

Vonnegut, the pragmatic Midwesterner from Indianapolis, is never caught up in the recent fascism of political correctness or his own country's fervent patriotism. Listen: He was a prisoner of war in Dresden in February 1945, when the city was firebombed by Allied aircraft. The man has lived through that war, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and the current Oil War. At 82, his voice is still clear from his adopted home in New York City.

Vonnegut's A Man Without a Country is his 25th entry into the American literary canon. It's a short book based on a long commentary about where he thinks we're headed. This could be Vonnegut's last rant.

Vonnegut's breezy confessional style and satiric wit is still evident. He doesn't take himself as seriously as many of those brand-building hacks that shill 15-second sound bites in hefty tome form these days. Vonnegut's subtle, convincing social commentary leaves the reader reflecting for days and years afterward.

In A Man Without a Country, 12 short chapters reflect on contemporary subjects as diverse as the loss of the extended family in North American culture to Vonnegut's reasons for being a secular-humanist (he's honorary president of the American Humanist Association).

Other chapters ruminate on the fact that no matter how much the world implodes, there's always wonderful music, and his five-year struggle to complete his next "last" novel, If God Were Alive Today. Even that out-of-print character of yore, Kilgore Trout, makes an appearance.

Vonnegut was considered edgy when he first appeared in the 1950s. In 2006, he's often holding forth on the same subjects as many other American secular-humanist liberals: war, right-wing governments and evangelical Christians.

Vonnegut finds many things to ponder: "In case you haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazis once were." And, "Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler."

Vonnegut's thoughts on addiction include his own filter-less Pall Mall habit, through which he has been committing slow suicide most of his life. "A fire at one end and a fool at the other end." He says that he once had a high that not even crack cocaine could match. That was when he got his first driver's licence.

Back then, as today, he says, the industrialized world was already using the most abused, addictive and destructive dope of all: fossil fuels. "Very soon now there won't be any left. Cold turkey ... We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we're hooked on."

Vonnegut is either a harbinger for change or a career cynic who is losing steam in a world gone mad on the pursuit of technology and lifestyle.

I think he's both.

One of Vonnegut's most often touched-upon subjects in his numerous books has been environmental degradation.

"The biggest truth to face now - what is probably making me unfunny now for the remainder of my life - is that I don't think people give a damn whether the planet goes on or not. It seems to me as if everyone is living as members of Alcoholics Anonymous do, day-by-day. And a few more days will be enough. I know of very few people who are dreaming of a world for their grandchildren."

Vonnegut is still one of North America's funniest people. He often sees so plainly what others tend to miss.

In his chapter, "I have been called a Luddite," Vonnegut says he prefers to leave his home office to buy a single envelope to mail his typewritten pages to his typist in upstate New York, instead of buying a computer and printer himself. His wife would prefer he buy a thousand envelopes and have them delivered. Vonnegut is a true writer; he would rather go out in the world and fart around.

"Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We are dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go out and do something. We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different."