Weekender
Thursday, October 4, 1 979 i
Page 4
Vonnegut captures cultural essenc
By DAVID BELSKY
Kurt Vonnegut
jailbird '.
Yes, Kurt Vonnegut is back. In his latest
novel, 7a fard, he serves the reader a
banquet of "exquisite little ironies." The
book again demonstrates Vonnegut's
superlative eye and heart for American
culture, as seen previously in The
Breakfast of Champions.
jailbird is the fictional autobiography of
Walter F. Starbuck, who served time as a
Watergate co-conspirator. Around this
narrator, Vonnegut creates a small-scale
saga with a physically and . spiritually
diminutive hero.
Starbuck seems guiltless and pitiable: a
tool of government, of capitalism and of
fate. His idealism approaches childish
naivety. Immediately, Starbuck endears
the reader through his warmth and his
honesty. But, one senses that his kind is
threatened with extinction; to be
masticated by progress and expelled.
Once out of jail, Starbuck gains a vice
presidency in RAMJAC, a corporation
which seems to buy and devour every
conceivable American company. Its
chairman, the mysterious Mrs. Graham, is
Vonnegut's outrageous parody of
Howard Hughes. As in the karass which
bonds people together in Vonnegut's
Cat's Cradle, quasi-mystical forces draw
Starbuck to Mrs. Graham. The disclosure
of her identity is one of the plot's
rewarding surprises.
The magic and absurdity of Jailbird
almost turns it into a fairy tale or a dream.
Thus, Vonnegut preserves the wild
imaginaton of his science fiction, yet
combines it with a social awareness..
Self-consciously, he defuses the gravity
of the subject matter (the Holocaust, the
oppression of workers, the wretchedness
of shopping bag ladies) through humor. It
is his protective device. .When asked,
"You know what is finally going to kill this
planet?" Starbuck replies, "A total lack of
seriousness." . Despite this disclaimer,
Vonnegut's wit, as always, both stings and
tickles. The reader will laugh and laugh.
Books
Kilgore Trout, the author's imagined
science fiction author from previous
- novels, appears under the pseudonym of
Dr. Robert Fender. Fender was convicted
of treason in the Korean War and is
Starbuck's friend. Through him,
Vonnegut slips in a couple of hilarious
stories. One might feel a nostalgic twinge
for the earlier Sirens of Titan, but
Vonnegut has chosen to mature.
Jailbird recalls the injustice of the Sacco
and Vanzetti case, as well as McCarthyism
and the Depression. Vonnegut forces us
to remember. He compares the suffering
of Sacco and Vanzetti with Christ's
passion. Implicitly, the novel extols the
humble practice of Chritian values, while
it condemns hypocrisy and fanaticism in
Christianity and in Krishna. It begins and
ends with mention of the Sermon on the
Mount.
Vonnegut affirms human decency
through the evident care and
understanding with which he treats
Starbuck and . the other characters,
especially his well-realized women.
Starbuck rarely judges, if ever, without
qualification. All along, Vonnegut
criticizes society without pontificating.
He is a poetic observer; he paints details
tenderly. Starbuck's digressions energize
the narration with greater intimacy and
realism, in a well-channelled stream of
consciousness. Also, one may savor subtle
stylistic adhesives, such as the recurrent
symbol "bird."
Vonnegut straddles hyperbole and
understatement, atrocity and beauty. He
even balances opposites spatially: after
descending to the caverns beneath Grand
Central Station, Vonnegut lifts the reader
to the "stainless steel crown" of a
skyscraper.
The prose is characteristically simple.
Yet, in his masterful moments, Vonnegut
succeeds in transforming vision for
instance, "his eyebrows were an
unbroken thicket," or "brutal bouquet of
radio microphones."
To the book's detriment, Vonnegut
fattens the lean narrative for thematic
effect. Trite expressions, which Starbuck
repeats, such as "strong stuff" and "on
and on," annoy. He also prefaces
statements with "the stor'yjyjgjjTisajTQ
"this was it." One may interpret these
phrases as Starbuck's attempt to withdraw
into a "defensive trance." Evasions
through repetition, as through the use of
mantras, abound. Vonnegut implies that
the barbarity of the age dictates such
reactions.
Jailbird often looks beyond this life, in
its references to heaven. But, according to
one of the stories-within-the-story,
auditors preside at the pearly gates.
Economics has corrupted the last refuge.
The moral of this tale: Goodness is to be
found on the earth among people.
David -Behky.ls.-A Mook-criticJor-lhe
Daily Tar Heel.
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