Reading

Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut

/ Benn Bell / 1 Comment

A book review

Timequake is a novel about free will. Vonnegut freely intersperses throughout the novel his own stream of consciousness. Oh, and there is also his alter ego, Kilgore Trout, who exclaims, “Oh Lordy, I am much too old experienced to start playing Russian Roulette with free will again.”

The premise of Timequake is that a Timequake, a sudden glitch in the time-space continuum, made everybody and everything do exactly what they’d done during the past decade a second time. It was déjà vu all over again for 10 years. The timeframe Vonnegut chose was February 13, 2001 – February 17, 1991. The Timequake would zapp everyone back in an instant to 1991. They had to “live” their way forward to 2001. Or you might say, back to the future again. Only when people got back to 2001 did they stop being robots of their past. Kilgore Trout would say, “Only when free will kicked in could they stop running an obstacle course of their own construction.” Free will. That is what the novel is about. Do we have it or not? That is the question. You would think that because the author mentions “when free will kicks back in” some 20-odd times he was arguing for free will. But no! Not so fast!  I’m not so sure.

Other pithy comments by Kilgore Trout would include, “If brains were dynamite, there wouldn’t be enough to blow your hat off!” and “Ting-a-ling, you son of a bitch!” which is the punch line to a variation on a joke having to do with Chinese doorbells.

So, it goes.

Vonnegut goes on to say, in his own peculiar voice, that writers of his generation had reason to be optimistic because of things like the Magna Carter, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, The Emancipation Proclamation, and Article XIX of the Constitution giving women the right to vote. He advocated for two more amendments that he would like to add: Article XXIII: Every newborn shall be sincerely welcomed and cared for until maturity. And Article XXIX: Every adult who needs it shall be given meaningful work to do at a living wage.

Another pithy saying he was fond of throwing around was, “I never asked to be born in the first place!”

Photo by the author.

https://amzn.to/42BZP58

Top 10 Books Read 2019

/ Benn Bell / 4 Comments

I only read 17 books in 2019. Short of my goal, but most of what I read was challenging and on the longish side. I vow to read more this year. My goal is 36. I’ve already read four, so I am on track.

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Here are my top 10 books for 2019:

  1. Look Homeward Angel – Thomas Wolfe
  2. The Big Sleep (Annotated) – Raymond Chandler
  3. The Clown – Heinrich Boll
  4. Ulysses – James Joyce
  5. Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Márquez
  6. Beloved – Toni Morrison
  7. Cities of the Plain – Cormac McCarthy
  8. Dream of Fair to Middling Women – Samuel Beckett
  9. Quichotte – Salman Rushdie
  10. Will in the World – Stephen Greenblatt

Some of these books I have been wanting to read all my life but never got around to, like Look Homeward Angel, which inspired a trip to Aheville NC,and Ulysses which was I must say the most challenging of all. Love in Time of Cholera was a pure pleasure to read. Beloved was Toni Morrison’s masterpiece. So sad we lost her last year. Cities of the Plain completed the Border Trilogy. I try to read at least one Cormac McCarthy book each year. Terrific writer! Quichotte by Salman Rushdie was was a pleasant surprise. First one of his I’ve read in a while. I remember reading Satanic Verses when it first came out and created such a stir. The Big Sleep was pure pleasure. If you have never read anything  Heinrich  Boll, I highly recommend him to you. One of my favorites for a long time. The Clown is a good one! Dream of Fair to Middling Women was Samuel Beckett’s first novel and was not published during his lifetime. It is very instructive to read it and see some of the characters and themes introduced early on that we see later in more mature works.  Highly entertaining. And, finally, Will in the World. I learned so much about William Shakespeare and Elizabethan England reading this book. 

 

 

 

Angels Over America

/ Benn Bell / 3 Comments

The Big Sleep and Look Homeward Angel

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I just finished reading Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe. It was a monumental mountain of beautiful prose. Now I turn my attention to a different sort of angel. A slumming angel. Of course I am speaking of none other than Raymond Chandler. I have read The Big Sleep before, but not the new annotated edition. Chandler’s prose is a bit more hard boiled than Wolfe’s but it is no less poetic. I can’t wait to get started!

 

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Of Cell Phones, Lap Tops, and Books

/ Benn Bell / 13 Comments

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Young Parisian couple, about a generation apart, one reading a book the other a cell phone.

Before there were cell phones there were laptops. Before there were laptops there were TV screens.  Before there were TV screens there were books.  I’m reading a book right now, which is what I am usually doing. You would be surprised  how much trouble I used to get into just for reading books. I have been called anti-social. Bosses didn’t like it.  One of my wives tossed my books out into the backyard into a mud puddle. And my own mother come into my room one day, and tipped my bookcase over, spilling my books out onto the floor. What was a poor boy to do?

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Most of the time nowadays people don’t seem to care much if I am reading a book. They are too busy with their own noses stuck into their cell phones.

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Next time you get a chance, try reading a book. Remember, Mark Twain once said, those who do not read have no advantage over those who can’t read.