Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut (1976)

After the Green Death civilization has fallen apart, and maybe that's a good thing.

Book Review: Slapstick has a negligible plot, the structure haphazard, as a novel it seems an amateur attempt. The story-line shifts wildly, the action veers and twists, the thread becomes tangled. Everything is a frolic and a detour. But in Slapstick Vonnegut wasn't trying to write a novel. Affected by the deaths of his sister (years before) and an uncle, he was trying to engage in a (rather one-sided) conversation with the reader. He employs his own style of writing, a voice that's purely idiosyncratic, that of a cynical old man with a dark sense of humor and a need to speak more bluntly than polite society would encourage and to share his thoughts which may verge on philosophy though sometimes they just sound like advice. The minimal plot here is merely the framework which he upholsters with his ideas, feelings, and as he says "the closest I will ever come to writing an autobiography." Most notably the half-idiot monster twins Eliza and Wilbur stand in for Vonnegut and his sister. He writes: "It is about what life feels like to me." I wonder why he put in the plot at all, the miniature Chinese, the King of Michigan, the Turkey Farm. But that's what readers expect from Vonnegut, that he spin some sort of odd sci-fi imagining. Maybe he felt he couldn't sustain his meandering conversation for a whole book. Perhaps emotions are better revealed through stories than bullet points. Sometimes he needs to be absurdist. I know Slapstick isn't for everybody. Not everyone wants to listen to the crazy guy on the bus, smelling of cigarettes, whose words only half make sense. But fortunately for me, all Vonnegut's words make sense. His unique voice speaks directly to me. And what he's speaking of is humanity, that everyone be a little kinder than they need to be, that we all need some connection with others if we can only find it. He's an old cynic, but he's caring, comforting, and above all honest. He fights the horrible existential aloneness of our time (Slapstick is alternately titled "Lonesome No More!" The villain of the piece is an Ayn Rand-like expert in psychological testing who believes that in America "nobody has a right to rely on anybody else." Her rule for life is "Paddle your own canoe." Depending how you feel about that will tell you whether Vonnegut is your cup of tea. He works in some big ideas here, and I'll mention just one more. Many of us have been hurt by love at some point, and many have hurt others in the selfishness and the cruelty of love. I'm not even talking about all the murders, suicides, and other grotesque violences of people who say they love each other. Vonnegut says, "Please--a little less love, and a little more common decency." There's a certain maturity in realizing that genuine love, romantic, familial, or otherwise, requires common decency. Enough. Slapstick may not be his best, but for the right readers it's a happy conjunction of humor and humanity.  [4★]

Red Wind by Raymond Chandler (1946)

An early collection of Raymond Chandler short stories.

Mystery Review: Red Wind: A Collection of Short Stories is a seemingly random selection of five of Raymond Chandler's short detective stories. None feature Philip Marlowe. The two best stories, "Goldfish" (1936) and "Red Wind" (1938), later reappeared in Trouble is My Business with their protagonists (Ted Carmady and John Dalmas, respectively) magically transformed into Philip Marlowe. They're also the only two written in the first person, as were all the Marlowe stories. Two others, "Guns at Cyrano's" (1936) and "I'll Be Waiting" (1939) were subsequently collected in The Simple Art of Murder. The fifth story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot" (1933) can be found in Collected Stories. The elegiac "I'll Be Waiting" is the only piece in Red Wind that has the feel and tone of a short story, and appropriately it was first published in the Saturday Evening Post. The other four originally appeared in Black Mask or Dime Detective and read more like short novels. The reader can easily envision Chandler adding subplots, red herrings, and encounters with colorful characters to make them full length books. "Blackmailers Don't Shoot" was Chandler's first published work, which took him six months to write. The plot is is somewhat chaotic as the author focuses on mean streets verisimilitude and creating a rounded and compelling main character. Tellingly, it features a detective named "Mallory," who is tougher than tough and oft-surrounded by bullet-riddled bodies. It also has some of the Chandler verve: after being shot Mallory's "right leg felt like the plagues of Egypt." I don't know if this collection can still be found (my copy is from 1946), but Red Wind: A Collection of Short Stories contains five entertaining tales as well as a bit of history.  [4★]