Meeting Vonnegut

I knew I was going to spend a lot of time driving through south central Wyoming over the weekend so I got a couple of books on CD, or as they are formally called, audiobooks. I got A Man Without A Country, Kurt Vonnegut’s last book, and Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid by Jimmy Carter.

There is plenty to be said about Carter’s book. It was amazing and I guess it is sort of considered controversial, but that is probably because Carter wisely dissects and points out where the Israeli government has failed over and over again in their policy decisions regarding Palestine. When people find out the suicide bomber isn’t the only bad guy things get controversial.

This post is about the other book though.

I listened to the audiobook twice. I bought the real book yesterday. There is a pull quote from the Los Angeles Times on the cover. “[This] may be as close as Vonnegut ever comes to a memoir.”

This book does read like a memoir at times, but it is a melting pot of Vonnegut’s thoughts on the state of this world, seasoned with his dry, witty humor. I surprised myself a few times when I was nodding in agreement with Vonnegut. And when I didn’t agree, it was a respectful disagreement. Listening to Vonnegut’s words on Karl Marx’s famous quote, “religion is the opium of the people,” was eye opening to me. As a follower of Jesus this quote always sort of bothered me, but Vonnegut says this about Marx, “He was simply noticing, and surely not condemning, the fact that religions could also be comforting to those in economic or social distress. It was a casual truism, not a dictum.” This observation is so simple, and yet in the past I got all too fired up with Marx whenever I came across that immortal line, so I was unable to digest it even enough to realize that religion does bring comfort to the masses in “economic and social distress.” Vonnegut continues with another neat little observation: When Marx wrote those words, by the way, we hadn’t even freed our slaves yet. Who do you imagine was more pleasing in the eyes of a merciful God back then, Karl Marx or the United States of America?” Vonnegut neatly disassembles the American dream once again.

I will post more thoughts and quotes on here within the next couple of weeks. There is just so much to think about. I leave you with a great section of this really small book.

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.