"Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."
-Kurt Vonnegut
After finishing Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five, two books books I've always wanted to read, I figured I'd blog about some of my favorite things from each. There's not much, but as soon as I read some of these sentences or paragraphs, I wrote them down instantly so I wouldn't forget them. Vonnegut has a way of making his characters so real and so personable, but almost in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. He has a way of writing so that his stories seem so real, but as the same time almost dreams. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim's journeys through space and time really made me sit and think, between chapters, about the fabric of our minds and the fabric of the world around us. Pilgrim has a tendency to get "un-stuck" in time: a moment where he travels to various memories and relives them, or a moment where he travels to a dream he once had, or even a moment where he travels to the planet Tralfamadore and is a Zoo exhibit for the Tralfamadorians. I can't say I've quite traveled through time, but there have definitely been moments for me where I look around and everything is moving in slow motion. I look forward to reading some more of his work like The Sirens of Titan and Breakfast of Champions. So it goes...
Now on to the quotes:
During one part in Slaughterhouse-Five, a pendant hangs between the breasts of Billy Pilgrim's lover. It reads:
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference."
Now a few from Cat's Cradle that I felt particularly connected to.
"Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God." -Bokonon
"Not one pair of eyes was clear. The women's breasts were bare and paltry. The men wore loose loincloths that did little to conceal penes like pendulums on grandfather clocks. There were many dogs but not one barked. There were many infants, but not one cried. Here and there someone coughed-and that was all. A military band stood at attention before the crowd. It did not play."
"I asked Stanley, the major-domo, if there happened to be a copy of The Books of Bokonon about the house. Stanley pretended not to know what I was talking about. And then he grumbled that The Books of Bokonon were filth. And then he insisted that anyone who read them should die on the hook. And then he brought me a copy from Frank's bedside table."
Bokononist Words I Need To Remember:
Boko-maru = spiritual touching of the soles of the feet, connected two beings, the "mingling of awareness" and making them feel much better and more comfortable in the process.
The Boko-maru Calypso from the Books of Bokonon reads:
We will touch our feet, yes,
Yes, for all we're worth,
And we will love each other, yes,
Yes, like we love our mother Earth.
Karass = a group of people eternally tied together by the fabric of the universe with a mission from God to do.
Wampeter = the pivot of a karass, around which the souls of the members of the karass revolve ex. Ice Nine
Granfalloon = a fake karass, like "Hoosiers" in the book
Zah-mah-ki-bo = fate, inevitable destiny
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