Vonnegut’s gone but his words will remain
I was going to confine this column to the literary-related events being offered in Spokane and Cheney this week that aren’t associated with Get Lit! – Eastern Washington University’s annual literary festival, which runs through next Sunday.
But then late Wednesday night word came that Kurt Vonnegut had died. So it goes.
And everything changed. Since Vonnegut appeared at Get Lit! 2004, managing to pack what was then called The Met in the process, talking about him seems not just appropriate but obligatory.
Vonnegut wasn’t the greatest novelist the world has ever seen. He wasn’t even the greatest novelist the United States has produced. But to many of us who came into our young adulthoods during the Vietnam years, he was the consummate wordsmith of our age.
In a prose style that sometimes seems as simple as a kindergarten primer, Vonnegut, though of our parents’ generation, managed to capture the mixed feelings that a violent era – which included the Civil Rights movement, the deaths of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King Jr., not to mention the conflict in Vietnam – branded into our brains. So it goes.
Those feelings involved a strange blend of hope and horror that led many of us to feel an ongoing and pervasive sense of helplessness and, ultimately, cynicism.
Vonnegut could be as cynical as Mark Twain was in his final years (just read “God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian”). But I could never read the guy – especially novels such as “Mother Night,” “Cat’s Cradle,” “Breakfast of Champions” and, most of all, “Slaughterhouse-Five” – without feeling that there was at least a ray of hope for humanity.
It might not be much more than a mere ray, 10 watts or less. But it was there.
Take this passage from Vonnegut’s masterpiece, “Slaughterhouse-Five,” his novel about a World War II veteran named Billy Pilgrim who gets kidnapped by aliens called Tralfamadorians and, thus, becomes “unstuck in time”:
“When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is ‘So it goes.’ “
Kurt Vonnegut is dead at age 84, and the world is a lesser place without him. So it goes.
But his books, most of them anyway, are still in print. And that’s just fine.
Sherman returns
The final act of Get Lit! 2007 will perform one week from today, on April 22 at the Bing Crosby Theater. And it marks a first: Sherman Alexie will make his Get Lit! debut.
Alexie, on the road to promote his latest novel, “Flight,” is being sponsored in his appearance by Auntie’s Bookstore. To get tickets to the event, you need to drop by the store – or send your request through the mail with a self-addressed, stamped envelope.
According to one store employee, Auntie’s is giving out the tickets in sets of two only. But as of the middle of last week, there were still plenty of tickets left, so that could change.
It wouldn’t hurt to ask for more.
The mailing address for Auntie’s is 402 W. Main Ave., Spokane, WA 99201. Call (509) 838-0206.
Prizes galore
•The Idaho Library Association Book Award Committee is looking for the 2006 Idaho Book of the Year.
The award, which the association hands out annually, applies to books published in 2006 that were written by an Idaho writer (or feature a subject somehow related to Idaho). Nominees may be in any genre and can be aimed at adult and/or juvenile readers.
Deadline for nominations is May 18. Send nominations and/or review copies to: Ruth Funabiki, ILA Book Award Committee, UI Law Library, P.O. Box 442324, Moscow, ID 83844-2324.
For further information, call (208) 885-2158 or e-mail funabiki@uidaho.edu.
•Spokane writer Cindy Hval’s story “I’m a Mess” has been included in the story collection “Chicken Soup for the New Mom’s Soul: Touching Stories about Miracles of Motherhood” (HCI, 350 pages, $14.95). Hval is a Spokesman-Review correspondent.
•”Different Drummers,” a screenplay by Spokane writers Lyle Hatcher and Don Caron, won the top screenplay award at the 2007 San Fernando Valley International Film Festival. The award was announced March 25.
•Deer Park resident Patti Richardson has been chosen as Lilac Poet of 2007 by the Poetry Scribes of Spokane. Richardson will read her Lilac Poem at the Lilac Luncheon May 14 at the Davenport Hotel. For information on Poetry Scribes, call (509) 534-2489.
Book talk
•Dark City Mystery Book Group (“Grave Sight,” by Charlaine Harris), 7 p.m. Monday, Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington. Call (509) 838-0206.
•Hastings Inspirational Readers Group (“A Sacred Sorrow Experience Guide: Reaching Out to God in the Lost Language of Lament,” by Michael Card), 7 p.m. Monday, Valley Hastings, 15312 E. Sprague Ave. Call (509) 924-0667.
•Hastings Sci-Fi Fantasy Group (“Dies the Fire,” by S.M. Stirling), 7 p.m. Friday, Valley Hastings.
The reader board
•Fred Crowell (“Meet My Head Coach”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
•Robert Michael Pyle (“Sky Time in Gray’s River: Living for Keeps in a Forgotten Place”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
•Linda Lael Miller (“McKettrick’s Heart”), signing, 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Barnes & Noble, 4750 N. Division St. Call (509) 482-4235. Note: Signing is in support of the Spokane Humane Society’s Pets for Life Program.