Mark Vonnegut
Armageddon in Retrospect Presentation & Discussion
Brattle Theatre
6 p.m.
$5
Full Details

If we have to explain who Kurt Vonnegut is, you’re probably not interested in attending this event, or maybe you’ve just beamed down from Tralfamadore or something like that. Whatever your situation may be, the late legend Kurt Vonnegut is obviously best known for a little war book called Slaughterhouse-Five, but the rest of his works deserve even more attention than they usually get.

Described as everything from a genius to a black humorist to enabling “divine stupidity,” Kurt Vonnegut was at heart an Indiana man who believed in the possibility of sending a message and providing entertainment through stories. His classic combinations—of madness and malaise, of evil deeds and good ones, of genius and befuddlement, of god(s) and aliens, of used cars and scientists, of ice-nine and oubliettes and pressing your souls/soles together—have created many memorable tales that often boil down to an essential truth: “God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”

Modern society is, often, anything but. Whether you examine our troubled economy, the war in Iraq, rising unemployment, or something as seemingly trivial as the rash of ridiculous reality television shows, you can find some pretty extreme examples of unkindness—wrought by both society in general and by individual people. It’s the kind of stuff that would have disturbed—did disturb—Vonnegut greatly, and motivated him to write alternately charming, absurd, and intelligent—but always subtly biting—denouncements of the extremes to which humans are willing to go.

Armageddon in Retrospect, a posthumous collection of pieces written at various points in Vonnegut’s life, couldn’t be more relevant to the present day if Vonnegut had planned it that way. Each piece almost eerily relates to exactly where our society’s at now, leading one to wonder if Kurt isn’t somehow still connected with what’s going on from whatever planet or space he might be residing in now. Read more about
Armageddon in Retrospect after the jump, and be sure to visit the Brattle tonight if the book piques your interest.

Like Vonnegut’s most famous work, Armageddon in Retrospect focuses heavily on the absurdity of war and the incomprehensible actions that extreme situations require. From trading wedding rings for cigarettes to wishing one could wear horse blankets to skinning pet rabbits, the characters in Armageddon in Retrospect all participate in acts we all think we would never stoop to—but we’ll never know until we’re there beside them.

The book opens with a May 1945 letter written from Vonnegut (then on the front lines in WWII) to his father in Indiana. It explains Vonnegut’s POW status in typically understated, Vonnegutian terms: “Bayonets aren’t much good against tanks.” After describing his capture and mistreatment in detail, he observes dryly that “Many men died from shock... after ten days of starvation, thirst, and exposure. But I didn’t.” His simple assertion of existence is not defeatist nor triumphant. It’s all anything can be in the face of war: it just is. The letter ends with Kurt saying, “I’ve too damned much to say, the rest will have to wait.” And wait it did—but not for long; Vonnegut’s first story was published in 1950, and he went on to produce more than a dozen novels and several short story collections after launching his career.

As noted, most of Armageddon in Retrospect deals with the same themes Vonnegut explored in his other work, but the stories are told in such a beguilingly simple-clever way that they’re worth studying just as much for their form as their content. “Guns Before Butter” turns the old economics lesson into a reality as prisoners of war discuss and keep notebooks of their favorite dishes, classifying foods in the order they’ll eat them when they’re released. The corporal assigns to guard them pokes fun at the men’s concern with something so trivial—but a surprising turn of events changes everyone’s perspective on prosperity and power.

Many Armageddon stories have surprising, neat, O. Henry-esque turns at the end, not necessarily typical of Vonnegut’s more multilayered style, but enjoyable nonetheless. “Happy Birthday, 1951” ends with a bang after exposing the sad truth that children raised in wartime may grow to prefer familiar war over unknown peace. The “Unicorn Trap” doesn’t quite capture what it was intended to, but its prize expands the hopes of a family wherein the father asked his wife, “Is that the best dream you’ve got?”

Vonnegut never stopped dreaming, and he never stopped writing. We’re lucky to have even more of his words added to our collection with the release of this collection. Though he wrote this long before Armageddon in Retrospect was published, critic John R. May’s words perhaps best sum up the point of Vonnegut’s work:

We may not be able, Vonnegut is saying, to undo the harm that has been done, but we can certainly love, simply because they are people, those who have been made useless by our past stupidity and greed, our previous crimes against our brothers. And if that seems insane, then better the world for such folly.

Find someone and put your feet together. See what happens.