The Braindead Megaphone (9 page)

Vonnegut seemed to have been in a place where all the comforting verities had been stripped away, and was now cautiously trying to reconstruct a meaningful language out of what scraps of certainty he had left. Better to say too little, he seemed to feel, than too much, if, in saying too much, you might say something false. He’d been rendered a minimalist by aversion to bullshit and, if anything, was more of a purist than Hemingway in this regard.

Early in the book, Vonnegut is confronted by Mary, the angry wife of his old war buddy, Bernard V. O’Hare. She knows the kind of war novel he’s going to write. “You’ll pretend you were men instead of babies,” she says, “and you’ll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we’ll have a lot more of them. And they’ll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs.”

He makes her a promise: in the movie of his book, there won’t be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne. In fact, he’ll call his book
The Children’s Crusade.
It will be, really be, an antiwar book.

And it is.

It didn’t, of course, stop any wars. As Vonnegut reminds us early on, war will not be stopped. When a director friend asks if his book is an antiwar book, Vonnegut replies that he guesses it is.

“You know what I say to people when I hear they’re writing antiwar books?” the friend says. “‘Why don’t you write an anti
glacier
book instead?’”

No, war will not be stopped. But it is a comfort, in the midst of a war, to read an antiwar book this good, and be reminded that just because something keeps happening, doesn’t mean we get to stop regretting it. Massacres are bad, the death of innocents is bad, hate is bad, and there’s something cleansing about hearing it said so purely.

What good the prophet in the wilderness may do is incremental and personal. It’s good for us to hear someone speak the irrational truth. It’s good for us when, in spite of all of the sober, pragmatic, and even correct arguments that war is sometimes necessary, someone says: war is large-scale murder, us at our worst, the stupidest guy doing the cruelest thing to the weakest being.

It’s not as if the world will ever live by the extreme truth this prophet is speaking. War will never vanish from the face of the earth. Neither will sickness, but it’s good to hear someone praising the blessing of health.

Earlier today, almost forty years after it was written, and in the middle of another war, I sat in my kitchen reading
Slaughterhouse Five.
The book didn’t stop the current war, and won’t stop the next one, or the one after that. But something in me rose to the truth in it, and I was put in proper relation to the war going on now. I was, if you will, forbidden to misunderstand it. It is what it is: massacre and screaming and confusion and blood and death. It is the mammoth projection outward of the confused inner life of a handful of men. When someone says war is inevitable, or unavoidable, or unfortunate but necessary, they may be right. Vonnegut’s war was necessary. And yet it was massacre and screaming and confusion and blood and death. It was the mammoth projection outward of the confused inner life of men. In war, the sad tidy constructs we make to help us believe life is orderly and controllable are roughly thrown aside like the delusions they are. In war, love is outed as an insane, insupportable emotion, a kind of luxury emotion, because everywhere you look, someone beloved to someone is being slaughtered, by someone whose own beloved has been slaughtered, or will be, or could be.

There’s something sacred about reading a book like
Slaughterhouse Five
, even if nothing changes but what’s going on inside our minds. We leave such a book restored, if only briefly, to a proper relation with the truth, reminded of what is what, temporarily undeluded, our better nature set back on its feet.

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

I had heard about the British all my life. As a child, I had crushes on a series of Britons, including Hayley Mills, Julie Andrews, and, somewhat problematically, Davy Jones. But for various reasons, including working for a living and not having enough money, I had never been to Britain.

It is my belief that we Americans, geographically isolated as we are, tend to be perhaps not as knowledgeable about other cultures as we might be. This is regrettable. Since we are the sole remaining superpower, it is desirable that we know something about the rest of the world, because otherwise, when we take over different parts of the world, how will we know how good we did?

Accordingly, I decided to undertake a visit to Britain, and study the land and its peoples.

A WORD ABOUT NOMENCLATURE

Britain is often said to be part of “the United Kingdom,” along with several other countries, including England. Ireland is also nearby, and is considered part of Scotland, which, in turn, is adjacent to, and included in, a small country called Wales. To first-time visitors, this can be confusing, especially when one learns that—paradoxically—France is considered by the British to be its very own nation! One finds oneself longing for the simplicity of America, where, for example, everyone understands that New York City is a city, that Cleveland is a state in either Ohio or Indiana, and that the Mississippi River, I’m pretty sure, does not run in any other state than Mississippi. Or city. I can’t remember if Mississippi is a city or a—anyway, the point is, the American visitor to Britain can avoid all confusion by simply referring to his hosts and hostesses as “you guys.”

UP, UP, AND AWAY!

To get to Britain, you fly over several oceans, including the Atlantic. I think also Missouri? I did not see very much of the Atlantic or Missouri or whatever because, as we passed over, I was watching a movie on our airplane called
Dumb and Dumber.
It was funny. It is about these two guys who are dumb. Then we were served dinner. I was next to a guy from Spain! All he did was sleep. The Spanish, I concluded, are a lazy people, prone to sleep, who do not enjoy movies. When he finally woke up, I gave him a cookie I had saved for him, because I did not like it. He enjoyed that cookie, that’s for sure! That’s one thing one can conclude about the Spanish: they certainly love to feed their faces. Then it turned out, he wasn’t Spanish at all, but a fellow American, from Montana! I guess I learned a valuable lesson about generalizing: people from Montana are lazy and love to feed their faces.

HAY, TOWN OF BOOKS

The first thing I did in England was travel to a town called Hay, the site of a big literary festival. Hay is known as The Town of Books, because it has approximately fourteen thousand used bookshops. The cars are all shaped like books and all their food is book-shaped and the women wear a special perfume that smells like old musty books and all of the dogs are named Baudelaire.

One of the principles of science is that one can, by the careful study of a small data set, form generalized conclusions about a larger population. Based on my observation of the British at Hay, I concluded that the British (1) are all from London, (2) are extremely literate, and (3) are almost always drunk. It was hard to find a Briton at Hay who was not from London and was not either reading or drunk, or both—i.e., reading while drunk. Also, the British in Hay are extremely smart. Based on the quality of my conversations with the British at the Hay Festival, I was forced to conclude that the British are even more intelligent, literary, and articulate than us Americans! I know my American readers will find this hard to believe, if they have even made it this far, due to all my big words I have been using. However, my fellow Americans, do not feel bad about our relative stupidity; I have concluded that the British are more intelligent, literary, and articulate than us simply because they spend more time reading and studying and reflecting on the world than we do. No doubt, if we Americans spent as much time reading, studying, and thoughtfully reflecting as the British, we would be every bit as intelligent, literary, and articulate as them. But we have better things to do, such as getting more money, and calling in our votes for
America’s Sexiest Food-Obsessed Midgets
, and keeping the world safe from democracy. Or, should I say, safe
for
democracy. Whatever. What am I, some kind of language scientist or wordologist or what-not?

IN WHICH I, HUNGOVER, AM RESCUED

After Hay, it was off to Salisbury, for the Salisbury Book Festival. As part of my study, I decided to embark on this trip after staying up drinking until 4 a.m. for two consecutive nights. I wanted to see how the famous “English countryside” would appear to an American author endeavoring not to be sick in front of one of his idols, the famous Canadian author Margaret Atwood. Turns out, I was unable to observe much of the countryside, because instead of gazing out of the window, I was gazing down at my feet muttering, “Why, you idiot, why? How old are you anyway, you freaking moron?” This portion of the study was further complicated by the fact that our driver was a sadistic former race-car driver who, upon learning of my condition, attempted to come to my aid by telling me lengthy anecdotes about all the places he had historically thrown up while drunk, and enumerating all the exotic, grotesque foods he had eaten just prior to throwing up, and taking corners faster than necessary, sometimes even going up on two wheels while glancing playfully over to see if I’d thrown up yet.

LATER THAT NIGHT, FEELING SOMEWHAT BETTER

That night I read with Margaret Atwood, to a crowd of Salisburians, who seemed as intelligent and apt to read and/or discuss literature as the Hayites, albeit considerably less constantly drunk.

Margaret Atwood is a famous Canadian genius. Our crowd consisted of approximately three hundred Margaret Atwood fans, with the remainder of the crowd being my fan. After the reading, Margaret and I were overrun by our fans, crowding around her to get her to sign our books. It was at this point that my fan (Larry) changed his mind and became Margaret’s fan, and, in a fury of conversion, scribbled out my autograph and thrust my book at Margaret, while unfavorably comparing my work to Margaret’s, leaving me with zero (0) fans! (Thanks, Larry! To hell with you, Larry! I may not be as talented as Margaret Atwood, but I am less funny, and it has taken me a lot longer to write a lot fewer books! So there! Do I come to your work and disavow you, Larry?)

After the reading, we ate dinner at a restaurant built in the 1320s. I was amazed by this. In America, anything even circa-1980s is considered Historical and in fact, several of my fortysomething friends have recently had National Historical Landmark plaques surgically mounted, against their will, into their foreheads. The ceiling in that ancient restaurant was literally sagging with age, and I found it strangely moving to imagine Sir Winston Churchill under that saggy ceiling, having dinner with some other British old-timer, such as, say, Shakespeare, or Humphrey Bogart, or even the ancient English band Scorpions. Upon entering the bathroom, which the British do not call “the bathroom,” or “the washroom,” or “the crapper” but, quaintly, “the loo,” (short, I believe, for “Waterloo,” the famous place where the British defeated the Russians during something called “The Reformation”), I was astonished to find that the “loos” in those ancient times were very much like ours, and even had urinals! I just stood awhile in that “loo,” imagining Abraham Lincoln standing at that very same urinal, relieving himself while mentally writing the Declaration of Independence. What a moment! Then Larry came in, and tossed my book into an adjacent ancient urinal, after first, of course, tearing out the valuable title page, which had Margaret Atwood’s autograph on it.

DEAD BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

After dinner we walked over to the Salisbury Cathedral, also built long ago. I began to wonder if anything in Britain is new and, if not, do the British feel bad about this? Maybe that is why they read so much? It was very beautiful in the Cathedral, although also a little creepy, as the British apparently bury people right in their churches. In America we do not bury anyone in our churches, no matter how holy they are. Even a famous religious figure like Oprah cannot be buried in an American church. A high school friend of mine tried to be buried in his church, but when the priest found out, my friend was dug up and put in a distant suburban graveyard, as is our tradition. My friend’s case was complicated by the fact that he wasn’t actually dead. I have sent him a letter, advising him that if he still wants to be buried in a church when dead, he should move to England.

When the British bury you in the church in England, they put you in this kind of mummy case, with your face and body carved in wood! That would be good for my friend, who is very handsome; however, he also has a huge potbelly, and his sarcophagus would literally extend upward about five feet, which might make it difficult for people in certain parts of the church to see the altar.

In summary, things in England are very old and people seem to know a lot about history. A Briton, for no apparent reason, will start cursing somebody named Cromwell or mumbling about a bunch of Whigs, which are, as I understand it, a soccer team, or, as they call soccer teams over here, “a pitch.” I left with many questions, such as: Just who is this Magna Carta fellow? And: How is it that such intelligent people think King Arthur was an actual guy? At least in my country everyone knows that King Arthur was invented by Monty Python. I did not have the heart to break this news, and just played along. OK, OK, I would find myself saying, Sir Lancelot, right, sure, you bet.

When a Briton goes off on one of these historical tangents, it is sometimes best to simply change the subject. For example, one Briton at Hay began talking about some Irish writer, Henry James, or Henry Johns, or Jaspar James, or Roald Joyce, or something like that, and I, starting to doze off, quickly dropped a reference to the popular American television show
Spike Through the Head
, in which five childhood friends compete to see which of them will get the Spike Through the Head at the end of the show. The way they do this is, they all have sex with each other and rate the sex on a scale from Ten (“Super!”) to Zero (“Very Bad, Why Did I Even Do That, Ugh!”). My British friend fell silent, perhaps depressed by his lack of knowledge of American pop culture. He wouldn’t have felt so bad had he known I totally invented that show! Thomas, if you are reading this—sorry! But I had to get you off that James guy; you were boring me to tears.

(A musical note: The British listen to many American bands here, including the Beatles. In that way, they are very much like us.)

LONDON, THE “CITY OF LIGHT”

London is the largest city in Britain and is, consequently, full of British. The Londoners are an admirable race, ruddy and friendly. Several differences were immediately observed between the Londoners and the Hayites. First, the Londoners did not appear to be so constantly drunk. Although isolated instances of being totally sloshed were observed, most Londoners appeared to be sober and, for example, walking to work (although this observation may have been biased by the fact that I arrived in London very early in the morning). Several Londoners appeared to be in love. At least two Hare Krishnas were observed. Hare Krishna Londoners, it was observed, also speak with accents. Overweight Britons tend to walk with the upper thighs rubbing slightly together. British children tend to be smaller than fully realized Britons, with redder cheeks and smaller hands.

British trees, like American trees, grow upward, toward the sun. Interestingly, British dogs do not appear to bark with discernible accents.

The Londonites are a polite people. In fact, being around Londoners all day made me feel like a rude slob. All my life I have talked like I talk, and now suddenly I sounded to myself like I was the one with the accent, and was dumber and cruder than everyone around me! Even the cab drivers are polite. In America, it is not unusual for your cab driver, after dropping you at your destination, to kill and eat you. That is, if you can even find a cab! In many of the smaller American cities, if you want to be driven somewhere, then killed and eaten, you have to hire a limo service. But in London, not only are there plenty of cabs, and the drivers do not kill and eat you, but the drivers are given a special test, in which they are quizzed on all sorts of difficult things, such as London streets and world history and even calculus. So it is really something—you jump in a cab, say, “Briefly explain the theory of the calculus,” and next thing you know you are in Soho, and the driver is wrapping up his explanation of calculus on a small chalkboard supplied in every single cab.

BRITISH WOMEN

A word about British women. They are extremely beautiful. If you have ever heard the expression “pale lilies” or “wild English roses” or “pale wild English lilies of the field,” that about sums it up. Being in England, I began to understand why so many Americans married British girls during the Second World War. What became less clear, however, was why the British girls married the Americans. Maybe American guys back then were less loud and fat than we are now? Or maybe the British women were less attractive? Or had poorer eyesight? Perhaps they were shell-shocked? It is hard to say. In any event, British women, or at least the women in the British publishing industry, are extremely beautiful and bright and kind, and in fact I would have to say that in the rankings of World’s Most Beautiful Women, British Literary Women should be moved up the list, past the Swedish and right up there with the Russians. And, since the British Literary Women speak the same language as us Americans, and with a variety of entrancing accents, I would have to put them even above the Russians—no offense to the Russians, who, speaking Russian, can’t read this anyway, so no big deal.