CHAPTER 66

KURT VONNEGUT ON FLOUTING THE RULES

BY KELLY NICKELL

Kurt Vonnegut has witnessed the evolution of fiction—and in some ways, propelled it, perhaps. From the decreasing popularity of literary magazines and the increasing price of books, to his own evolving status as a “cult figure” and “popular author,” Vonnegut has been a constant observer of—and a steady contributor to—the literary world for nearly half a century. And the oft-quoted literary giant remains a vocal commentator on the changing publishing industry.

A published author of everything from novels and short stories to essays and plays, Vonnegut says fiction is an art form unto its own. “All of fiction is a practical joke—making people care, laugh, cry, or be nauseated or whatever by something which absolutely is not going on at all. It’s like saying, ‘Hey, your pants are on fire.’”

And with his characteristic biting wit and humor, Vonnegut often combines social satire, autobiographical experiences, and bits of historical fact to create a new form of literary fiction, as in Slaughterhouse-Five, which became a number one New York Times bestseller when it was published in 1969.

Alternating between linear and circular structures and differing points of view, Vonnegut has spent much of his life testing literary boundaries. And it’s become a Vonnegut axiom that writing rules apply only to the extent that they strengthen the effect of the final piece. “You want to involve the reader,” he says. “For example, Mother Night was a first-person confessional—the narrator ruined his life and he needn’t have. But there’s no way you can put together a manual about when to use first person and when to use third person.

“James Joyce broke all the rules. He’s a writer like no other, and he got away with it. You have to get away with it. When I was teaching, if I gave a basic rule, it was ‘whatever works, works.’ I experiment, and my waste baskets are always very full of failed experiments,” he says. “Can I get away with this? No. The trick is getting the reader to buy it.”

It’s fairly safe to assume that readers do indeed “buy it.” Among his numerous honors and awards, Vonnegut has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Institute of Arts and Letters grant, served as the vice president for the PEN American Center, and lectured in creative writing at Harvard University and the University of Iowa.

REMEMBER YOUR READER

“When I teach, what I’m teaching is sociability more than anything else because that’s what most beginning writers, being young, aren’t doing,” Vonnegut says. “I try to teach how to be a good date on a blind date and to keep the reader in mind all the time. Young writers will dump everything they want to say on some poor reader, not caring whether the reader has a good time or not.”

Vonnegut’s early experience in journalism—he was editor of the college newspaper in 1941 while studying biochemistry at Cornell University, and later a police reporter with the Chicago City News Bureau in 1947—clearly has influenced his style. Staying true to the basic elements of journalism, Vonnegut says he tries to give readers as much information as he can, as soon as he can—a writing trait he’s also tried to teach others.

“I hate a story where on page 17 you find out, ‘My God, this person is blind.’ Or that this happened one hundred years ago or one hundred years in the future. I tell students, ‘Don’t withhold information from your readers, for God’s sake. Tell ’em everything that’s going on, so in case you die, the reader can finish the story.’“

Another Vonnegut specialty is weaving bits of factual information into his fiction’s lining, to draw in readers on an emotional level. “The facts are often useful to the reader, if they’re historical events. You can expect the reader to be emotionally involved. And to make the reader believe and say, ‘Oh Jesus, I guess that’s right.’”

Vonnegut used both historical facts and his personal experience as a World War II prisoner of war in Dresden to create Slaughterhouse-Five. He says the latitude used when combining fact with fiction depends on how much the writer is willing to claim as fact: “The viewpoint character in Slaughterhouse-Five was Bill Pilgrim, and he was actually a real guy from Rochester,” Vonnegut says. “He never should have been in the army, and he died in Dresden and was buried over there. He just simply allowed himself to starve to death. You can do that if you’re a prisoner, you can just decide not eat. He decided he didn’t understand any of it, and he was right, ’cause there was nothing to understand, so he died.

“I didn’t have him die in the book, but had him come home and go to optometry school. So I didn’t tell the truth about his life, but I never said it was his life in the first place.”

“WRITE WHAT YOU WRITE”

What’s the best piece of advice Vonnegut’s ever received? “Quit,” he says. “It’s such a relief.” But he didn’t. “No, I didn’t quit—I’m still pooping along.”

Yet there were times early in his career—when he was working as a freelancer, receiving little pay, and trying to raise a family—that the notion of quitting wasn’t unthinkable. Fortunately, the author chose to follow the advice of agent Kenneth Littauer.

“I was working as a freelancer—it’s a harrowing way to make a living—and I would talk to Ken about how to make more money and he said, ‘Don’t trim your sails to every wind, just go ahead and write and see what happens. Don’t look at the market. Don’t look at the best-seller list to see what’s selling.’ That wouldn’t help anyway. You have to write what you write, or get out of the business.”

Vonnegut’s battle with depression following publication of Slaughterhouse-Five almost did get him out of the business. He even vowed never to write again. And not until 1973 did he publish another book, Breakfast of Champions. Subtitled Goodbye Blue Monday, the book certainly didn’t skirt the issue of depression, but Vonnegut says he’s still not sure how the whole experience influenced his work: “There used to be a theory that tuberculosis helped to make someone a genius because they ran higher temperatures. It’s now believed, and I guess it’s a clinical fact, that most writers are troubled by depression. And I don’t know whether it helps or not, but it sure doesn’t feel good.”

Whether it’s his seemingly natural ability to create strong characters or his remarkable modesty (“I certainly didn’t expect to succeed to the extent I have. I didn’t expect to amount to much”), generations of writers continue to attempt to follow in Vonnegut’s legendary footsteps. And to these many aspiring writers, Vonnegut offers some simple advice: “Don’t worry about getting into the profession—write anyway to make your soul grow. That’s what the practice of any art is. It isn’t to make a living, it’s to make your soul grow.”

ON THE CHANGING FICTION MARKET

“Books don’t matter as much as they used to, and they cost too much,” Vonnegut says of the current state of publishing. “But publishers have to sell books to stay in business. Before television, publishers would admit that what paid the freight for everything else they published, all the serious fiction, poetry, and so forth, were cookbooks, garden books, and sex books. They had to publish those or they’d go out of business.”

While many of his recent books, including Bagombo Snuff Box, Fates Worse Than Death: An Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s, and God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian showcase the shorter form—most have been collections of essays, interviews, and speeches—Vonnegut says short stories seem to be losing their allure as fewer and fewer prominent magazines publish high-quality pieces.

“This country used to be crazy about short stories,” he says. “New short stories would appear every week in the Saturday Evening Post or in The New Yorker, and every middle-class literate person would be talking about it: ‘Hey, did you read that story by Salinger?’ or ‘Hey, did you read that story by Ray Bradbury?’

“But that no longer happens. No short story can cause a sensation anymore because there are too many other forms of entertainment. People can still go through old collections of short stories on their own and be absolutely wowed. But it’s a private experience now.”

VONNEGUT IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

At what readers may hope is only a short break during a very prolific writing period, what is Vonnegut planning next? “Well, as I’m sitting around right now, I’m trying to think of what would be a neat idea. Most people do other things with their time. But writers, we’ll sit around and think up neat stuff. Not something just anybody could do.”

  KELLY NICKELL is the former executive editor of Writer’s Digest Books.