October 11: Moon Men, Storytelling, Female Orangutan

The curves were smooth only when seen from a distance.  The people climbing them learned that they were treacherous, jagged things--hot to the touch, often unstable--eager, should certain important rocks be disturbed, to tumble some more, to form lower, more solid curves.

Nobody talked much as the expedition crossed the moon.  There was nothing appropriate to say.  One thing was clear:  Absolutely everybody in the city was supposed to be dead, regardless of what they were, and that anybody that moved in it represented a flaw in the design.  There were to be no moon men at all.

Here we have it.  Vonnegut's science fiction mixing with fiction mixing with historical essay.  All of the elements in Slaughterhouse come together in this little passage.  It seems like something that shouldn't be real, that is beyond fantastic.  Yet, it is the absolute truth.  Vonnegut witnessed it.  He was a moon man in Dresden on February 16, 1945. 

One of the reasons I love Slaughterhouse Five is my inability to fit it into any pigeonhole.  Yes, it's science fiction.  But it's also serious literary fiction.  AND (in some ways) memoir.  Vonnegut pops up a few times in the novel as a character.  AND social criticism.  AND political commentary.  Like I said, it defies normal categories.

I think that's the point, however.  Vonnegut is trying to describe something that he really can't wrap his mind around.  Human devastation at such a level that normal words fail.  So he turns to aliens and flying saucers and time hopping.  That makes more sense than the truth.

I feel like I'm sort of living in a similar situation in the United States right now.  People have compared Trump America to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.  The current season of American Horror Story is grappling with the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, too.  The creators of that show have invented a murderous cult of clowns led by a fear-mongering narcissist.  Sound familiar?

It's a very human reaction to turn to storytelling to try to understand puzzling or troubling experiences, like the election of Donald Trump.  Most everyone can pretty much agree that the current President of the United States is, at best, more than a little unpredictable.  At worst, he's leading the country into nuclear war and the establishment of a Nazi state.  Pick whatever narrative you want.  None of them seem that appealing, unless you are a rich white male or a deluded middle class male (if the middle class even still exists).

I wonder who is going to write the Slaughterhouse Five of the Donald Trump era.  Who is going to make sense of all this insanity, now that Vonnegut has been dead almost ten years?  Certainly, if he were still alive, Vonnegut would have more that a few things to say about the current leader of his country.  Maybe he'd write a novel about Tralfamadorians kidnapping Trump and putting him in a zoo to mate with a female orangutan. 

I am grateful for writers who try to make sense of senseless circumstances through their work.  I am still trying to come up with a narrative that helps me understand how millions of people supported Donald Trump last November.  I still can't quite get there. 

So somebody, please, tell Saint Marty a story--a good one--that explains the country in which he lives.