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★]