On April 11, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. left this world. The famed novelist, essayist, graphic artist, lifelong member of the ACLU and former head of the American Humanist Association died from brain injuries that resulted from a fall at his Manhattan home a couple of weeks before that. I’d like to take a moment now and thank him posthumously for inspiring me to write politically-charged novels. THANK YOU Kurt! Thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas about life, humanity, philosophy, ethics, morality and war with the rest of us. Thanks for teaching us that no good can come from war and that it doesn’t help states or humans as a species. Thanks for giving us insights into the American culture and the plight of the working man and for always showing us the folly of our poorly-conceived ideologies in a humorous and satirical way. Thanks for having the personal honesty to put your fears and concerns and foibles down on paper and for trusting your readers not to judge you. The critics judged you, but as you so eloquently remarked “Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.”
Why am I so grateful to Kurt?
In February 1996 I moved to California. Specifically I moved from Northern New Jersey to Berkeley, a university town in the bay area, not far from San Francisco. I stayed with my sister for a few months in the bottom floor of a house on the north side of the University of California campus. My sister and brother-in-law had rented half of a house right next to a park to live in with their two small kids and giant dog. Buster (R.I.P.) was a half-black Labrador and half Rottweiler, really, more of a horse than a dog – he was the kind of good-natured animal that took you for a walk instead of the other way around. Anyhow, from February to August of ‘96 I lived with my sister. Then I moved out on my own, finding, in one day, on foot, a basement apartment a few blocks from the Cal campus. I moved in a few days later at the end of the summer before I started college.
I didn’t have a job (thanks mom and dad for footing the bills) and I was a 19 year old newcomer from New Jersey. I was also recovering from clinical depression so I didn’t have a lot of motivation to get a job either. I filled up my days writing poetry, getting high, hanging out with friends and listening to music. Once or twice a month I would walk about a mile into the heart of the city (I use the word ‘city’ loosely here, Berkeley is like a suburb that kept sprawling, mostly as a result of the Cal student population increasing) and go to the movies. I loved going to early matinees – the 12-2 pm time slot was ideal. I would have the whole theater to myself – no drunken college students, annoying intellectuals or crying babies. I also loved and still love going to the movies alone. Call it antisocial, call it weird, but I think movies are best experienced by yourself. When you’re alone there’s no one there to ask you “What just happened?” or “What did she say?” or “And that’s the same guy from the beginning?”. Also, you don’t have the distraction of wondering if your friend, date or spouse is enjoying the movie. Call me a film purist, but I love going solo to the movies.
**Warning – this blog contains spoilers, so if you’d like to read Mother Night without knowing the plot, stop reading now**
So, one day in September as the city was cooling down and the wind was blowing in from the Pacific, I walked down to the Act One and Two, one of the art-houses a stone’s throw from the campus. They were running an early showing of Mother Night, which had just been adapted from the Vonnegut novel of the same name – published in 1961. A few years back I read the book and the movie is a very accurate translation of it, including brilliant performances by Nick Nolte and Alan Arkin. Nolte plays Howard W. Campbell, a playwright/director of some note who lives in Berlin in 1933 and aspires to join the ranks of Ibsen and Shakespeare. His wife Helga, played by the very beautiful Sheryl Lee is his primary actor and stars in all of his productions. One day Campbell is approached by Frank Wirtanen, a War Department Intelligence officer played in his characteristically affable and witty way by John Goodman. Wirtanen starts the conversation, using his spy charm to persuade Campbell to become a spy for the O.S.S. Ultimately, Campbell winds up as a disc jockey in Berlin where he excites and inspires the German civilians by launching into charismatic tirades that are all for the glory of Der Fuhrer. Campbell spews his pro-Nazi propaganda to an eager crowd of Statist Germans who eat it up and grow more and more thrilled at the prospect of restoring the glory of the Fatherland. In reality, the U.S. forces are preparing for what they see as an imminent war and Campbell is really broadcasting encrypted messages to American soldiers and spies that have been stationed in Berlin. Goebbels uses Campbell to sell the Third Reich to the U.S. while the U.S. uses Campbell as a human radio relay to transmit vital information to its agents provocateur. Ultimately, since the O.S.S. hadn’t told any of the other bureaus about Campbell’s assignment, the U.S. Army takes him prisoner. Wirtanen convinces the Army to release Campbell and arranges him safe passage to New York City. He moves to New York to start life over, now thinking that his wife Helga had been killed while entertaining German troops on the Eastern Front. He winds up meeting Helga in Manhattan one day and starts his life over again with the love of his life, thinking he’s finally left the madness of war and Nazi ideology behind him. Sadly, the Mossad has other plans and one of their agents finds him. He is taken from his apartment one night and promptly flown to Tel Aviv where he is incarcerated without a real trial and told he will be executed for war crimes. This begins a bleak, if archly humorous chapter in the story because the guy in the cell directly below him is none other than Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the concentration camps. The dialogues between the two of them are worth the read or price of admission, as they chat back and forth about humanity, morality and the absurd notion that the men in charge are running the war for anything but the wrong reasons.
Seeing the movie and reading the book taught me about the educational and humanist power of novels. I was dumbstruck by the story in the movie, in particular, Howard W. Campbell’s admonition to “Be careful what you pretend to be, because in the end you are what you pretend to be.” That concept was so profound that it has stuck with me all of these years. In the face of frustration, impatience and anger at not reaching a point in my professional life where I could pay the bills from creativity alone, I’ve often had destructive and self-destructive moments. But those words always remind me that I’m a creator and that if I feign being a destructor for long enough, I’ll become one permanently. Kurt Vonnegut’s books have taught me that the loudest voice may be the silent one, the one that screams off the page and can not be ignored. I’ve got a couple of novels in the works and they’re not being written as messages or sermons, but the themes in them are largely humanist. I also hope the readers are inspired and empowered to do as Kurt said and “Just be kind.” Thanks again Kurt. I know you’re out there in one form or another watching us and I hope we can someday live up to your ideals. And to you good men and women sitting at your computers, thanks for reading. 
