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CHAPTER-I

IntroductionKurt Vonnegut, Jr. and Bapsi Sidhwa

The religion and nationality, no doubt, have an impact on one’s personality. But

the aggregate of qualities and characteristics that distinguish one person from the other is

one’s individuality. They are also reflected in the works written by the individuals. The

objective of the proposed project is to underline the concepts of artist’s individuality,

racial identity and nationality. The study will be conducted on the major fiction of Kurt

Vonnegut, Jr. and Bapsi Sidhwa. One of the significant advantages of reading many

works by the same author is getting to know the author as a person.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. is an American Jewish writer. He was born to fourth

generation German-American parents on November 11, 1922 in Indianapolis, which is

also the setting of many of his novels. He is the pride of Indianapolis. He is the author of

fourteen novels, a symphony, a Broadway play, a collection of short stories and a

bucketful of essays and speeches. He always takes time to express his thoughts. He has

remarkably contributed to American literature but his reputation is quirky and

controversial. With a writing career spanning more than fifty years, Vonnegut is one of

the most prolific and popular American writers of the 20th century. Also, he has dealt

with his personal hardships throughout his creative career. But those hardships are not his

sole motivation. He has led an interesting life but it does not seem dramatic or romantic.

But what really forces Vonnegut to impose his presence on the text is his inability to

remove himself from it. He is unable to keep himself away from the act of

communication at the core of any work of literature. He reveals in that involvement

which he implies is a universal need of all human beings, for some “soul-deep fun”. He

uses this term as a synonym for greatness. He has used his unique style to effectively

portray his view of the world. He leads the reader into his works, and the reader can feel

Vonnegut with him all the time.

He is noted for his pessimistic and satirical novels. He uses fantasy and science

fiction to highlight the horrors and ironies of 20th century civilisation. His ancestors had

come from Germany in 1855. They were prosperous, originally as brewers and

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merchants, down to Vonnegut’s grandfather and father. They were both architects and

they were prominent in the German Indianapolis society. World War-I left a remainder of

anti-German feeling in the United States and prohibition on the use of the German

language. They dimmed the family’s pride and its cultural heritage.

Prohibition brought an end to the brewing business. The Great Depression of the

1930s left Vonnegut’s father without work for the rest of his life. Vonnegut writes

frequently of the Depression. He repeatedly portrays people who like his father are left to

feel purposeless by loss of occupation. This feeling is noticeable greatly with general

discouragement in the Vonnegut household throughout much of his childhood. After the

Great Depression began, his father became withdrawn and grave. He lost vigour for life.

His mother, too, was deeply affected by the sudden change in their lifestyle. Vonnegut

comments in Timequake that his mother was addicted to being rich. Her depression grew

and she committed suicide in 1944. Vonnegut has noted in several places that a parent’s

suicide has grave effect on the children. In many ways, his continual self-regret and

gloomy outlook can be assigned to these two events.

But Vonnegut is not just writing about sadness. His uncle Alex too had a major

influence on him. One of the things he taught Vonnegut was to appreciate the little

happiness in life. He also advised him to enjoy the finer, simpler things in life. Alex also

introduced him to socialist ideas and the work of Eugene Debs and Upton Sinclair,

among other politically-oriented authors. In essence, he taught Vonnegut to appreciate

life and even in adverse situations he encouraged him to say out loud, “… if this isn’t

nice, I don’t know what is.”1 Vonnegut goes on to explain that uncle Alex was not

concerned with luxuries, but that his phrase should be made to imply a sunny day, a cold

drink and a good conversation. Alex was a valuable counterbalance for the sadness and

depression Vonnegut had been exposed to throughout his life.

He began attending Shortridge High School in 1936. There he became editor of

the school newspaper, Shortridge Daily Echo. Thus, his love for writing began early.

Writing has been an important release for Vonnegut and he could write and work through

many hardships. Throughout his life, he has turned to writing mostly to ease his pain. In

1940, he started a three-year programme at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. His

father encouraged him to study something useful. So, he pursued a double major in

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Chemistry and Biology. He prepared himself to become a biochemist. During his time at

Cornell, he was also a columnist and managing editor of the school daily, The Cornell

Sun. His scholastic career was average until his junior year, when he was hospitalised

with pneumonia. The continuous shortage in school attendance caused him to lose his

draft delay and he was enlisted in the United States Army. In 1943, his army training at

Carnegie Institute of Technology began. There he studied mechanical engineering. In

1944, he returned home to Indianapolis to visit his family on Mother’s Day. It was before

his heading out to England. On that Mother’s Day in 1944 his mother overdosed herself

on sleeping pills and thus committed suicide. It was an event of which he would often

write. Then Vonnegut went off to war.

He joined the 106th Infantry Division in England and soon he was sent to Europe.

A few months later, on December 19, 1944, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was captured by the

Germans at the Battle of Bulge. He was sent as a prisoner of war to Dresden. It was

believed that his role in this war was over. Dresden was not a military target. Instead, the

city was considered to be an architectural and artistic treasure. But on the night of

February 13 and 14, 1945, Dresden was destroyed by the Allied-bombing. This event

forms the basis of his novel Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). He was married on September

1, 1945 to his childhood sweetheart, Jane Cox. From 1946 to 1947 he studied

Anthropology and worked at the Chicago City News Bureau. Vonnegut left Chicago

without a degree. But in 1971 his novel Cat’s Cradle (1963) was accepted in lieu of a

thesis and he was awarded an M.A. Then Vonnegut moved to Schenectady, New York

and took a job as a publicist at a General Electric research lab. Here his brother, Bernard,

was a scientist. But he had a serious moral conflict with the weapons’ development that

General Electric was involved in. He began publishing stories in order to get out of that

job. In October, 1949, his first story, “Report on the Barnhouse Effect,” was accepted by

Collier’s. Encouraged by his success as a short-story writer, he resigned from General

Electric and moved to Provincetown, Massachusetts. He wanted to devote himself full

time to writing. He continued to be published in popular magazines, such as The Saturday

Evening Post, Ladies’ Home Journal, Collier’s and Cosmopolitan. But he also published

stories in science fiction journals, such as Galaxy and Fantasy and Science Fiction

Magazine.

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His first novel, Player Piano (1952), was reissued by Bantam in 1954 with the

title Utopia 14. Largely because of his success with short stories, which often paid well,

Vonnegut did not produce his second novel, The Sirens of Titan (1959), until seven years

after Player Piano. Those first two novels, together with a number of short stories, earned

for Vonnegut identification as a science fiction writer. It was a label with which he was

not always happy, because that genre was disliked in many quarters. He was then forced

to take less preferable jobs, but perhaps none that disturbed him at a moral level. He

witnessed the violence of Dresden during World War-II, which he refers to again and

again as “his” war. Since then, he could not accept the idea of being even tangentially

involved in the creation of future violence. In 1950, his story or stories titled “Report on

the Barnhouse Effect” appeared in Collier’s. But also in The Saturday Evening Post and

The New Yorker some of his stories were published. During the 1950s, the short story

market was booming. That is perhaps why in Timequake Vonnegut notes: “Highly literate

people once talked enthusiastically to one another about a short story by Ray Bradbury or

J.D. Salinger or John Cheever or John Collier or John O’Hara or Shirley Jackson or

Flannery O’Connor whomever, which had appeared in a magazine in the past few days.

No more.”2

The family moved to Cape Cod, where Vonnegut wrote full-time. He was deeply

anti-automation, as he feared that with nothing to do, man would lose his sense of worth.

This comprehension was projected in his first novel, Player Piano, in which America is

run by engineers and managers. But it is warned with the uprising of individuals who feel

that machines are dehumanising. In early 1950s, things were going on well with

Vonnegut and Jane. For a short period of time, he managed a Saab dealership in Cape

Cod and he occasionally taught at high schools for disabled or disturbed children. During

this time, he became the father of three children. Until 1957, every thing was moving

right along for Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. But in 1957, Kurt Vonnegut, Sr., his father, died. He

had moved after his wife’s suicide to live alone in an isolated spot of Indiana. For all

intents and purposes, he had not really lived for a long time. This event left a deep impact

on Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., but the extent to which it troubled him is not really shown for

another dozen years. What really affected him immediately was the death of his sister,

Alice, who died in 1958. She died from cancer, and her husband, Vonnegut’s brother-in-

10

law, had died in a train wreck just days before her death. After this double tragedy,

Vonnegut and Jane adopted three of their four orphaned sons, doubling the size of their

family to six. The death of his sister made him gloomy.

In 1959, The Sirens of Titan was published. Besides, the future of the short story

began to look grim. In 1960s began difficult times for Vonnegut but he also saw then his

gradual emergence to fame. The market dried up as magazines disappeared. The public at

large began looking for more and more novels. Vonnegut decided that he would better

switch to writing novels if he wanted to keep himself afloat. His experiences of the past

few years helped mould his writing. His Canary in a Cathouse, a collection of short

stories, was published in 1961. It was followed by Mother Night in 1962. The 1960s were

the golden age for Vonnegut as a novelist.

He was right at home in the climate of political and social unrest; indeed, he was

himself a leader of political and social upheaval. He reset his direction, leaving behind

science fiction for the most part. Mother Night is a study of personal responsibility, guilt

and pretence, set in Nazi Germany. Cat’s Cradle (1963) is an anthropological study of

religion. Vonnegut himself appears in Breakfast of Champions as the author and

discusses what he will do next with the characters. He uses drawings and mixes history

and fantasy in the same book, Breakfast of Champions. He based the words of the title of

Deadeye Dick on the characters of his previous work, Breakfast of Champions. The

number game ended in Hocus Pocus. In it the reader must resolve a sequence of

numerical puzzles to learn the answer to questions posed by the novel’s narrator. Such

characteristics add up to a highly individualised style. The effect is heightened by the

way in which Vonnegut enters many of his novels directly and personally. Often there is

a character who seems partly autobiographical and stands for some aspect of Vonnegut’s

life. For example, Billy Pilgrim is the soldier and prisoner of war in Slaughterhouse-Five

and Kilgore Trout is the science fiction writer. Frequently, there is also an

autobiographical preface or introduction, in which Vonnegut discusses his life and how it

relates to the present story. Hence, the reader senses an unusually direct connection

between the fiction and the author while reading Vonnegut’s work.

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1964) is a critique of class divisions in the United

States. These types of books were received well by reviewers and, for the first time in his

11

life, Vonnegut began to elicit critical attention. Vonnegut began his two-year residency at

the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1965. He gained an excited fan base in

1960s, during counterculture movements. The re-issues of Player Piano and Mother

Night began to get serious critical attention. At the Writers’ Workshop he taught Gail

Godwin and John Irving, but was regarded as an eccentric. He pasted butter paper over

the walls of his office and graphed out the non-linear plotline of Slaughterhouse-Five in

crayons, in which all the lines pointed to Dresden. Vonnegut had meanwhile won a

Guggenheim Fellowship to revisit Dresden and research the event of bombing by Allies.

He had struggled for years to write about the great air raid he had experienced. It led to

the writing of Slaughterhouse-Five. The novel, and film that followed it, brought

Vonnegut wide popularity and financial security. Success, however, brought with it its

own difficulties. In fiction he faced the event that had motivated much of his writing. But

still Vonnegut struggled. Robert Scholes, a colleague of Vonnegut in lowa, published The

Fabulators (1967), which featured an entire chapter of adverse criticism of Vonnegut.

But it really aroused critical interest in his works, which was further enhanced by the

printing of Welcome to the Monkeyhouse in 1968. It is a collection of all the stories from

Canary in a Cathouse to twelve letter-stories, the bulk of his short story output. In 1967,

Vonnegut went again to Dresden, Germany, to research the dreadful event on a

Guggenheim Fellowship. As a result, Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A

Duty Dance with Death, an anti-war novel, was published in 1969. It changed the world.

In particular, it changed Vonnegut’s world. He was now a full-fledged cult hero.

Slaughterhouse-Five also made him a public spokesman against war and human cruelty.

The novel was a best-seller, and critical arguments raged back and forth. This book really

made Vonnegut a household name.

But his marriage started stumbling, and he attended rehearsals for his Broadway

play, Happy Birthday, Wanda June. On the upper side during this time, the University of

Chicago recognised Cat’s Cradle as a valid contribution to the field of Anthropology and

Vonnegut was awarded his M.A. In 1972, his son Mark suffered a schizophrenic

breakdown and it became the basis for Between Time and Timbuktu, produced for public

television, and Slaughterhouse-Five was released as a major motion picture. Much like

the book, the film triggered much critical debate. 1973 saw the release of Breakfast of

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Champions, in which he reunited many of the characters from his 60s novels. Wampeters,

Foma and Granfalloons (1974) is a collection of essays by Vonnegut. In the same year he

was awarded honorary doctorate of literature by Hobart and William Smith College. In

1976 Slapstick came out, and was condemned by the literary community, causing many

people to write off Vonnegut. Basically, Vonnegut’s novels between 1973 and 1976 are

documents of his progress. It was to come to terms with the massive familial catastrophes

he faced throughout his life. He dropped the “Jr.” from his name while publishing

Slapstick. It was indicative of the ambivalent feeling he had towards his father. These

novels are essentially stories about the disintegration of families, and Vonnegut’s family

was going through disintegration as well. After a prolonged separation, he divorced his

wife Jane in 1979. He married Jill Krementz, a photographer, with whom he had lived in

New York. He published Jailbird in 1980. This decade watched Kurt Vonnegut’s

comeback. Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage came out in 1981 and provided

Vonnegut’s fans new insights and interest in his writing. Palm Sunday is a revealing and

personal work, but retains the trademark innovations and prose style of his novels.

Deadeye Dick (1982) is a Vonnegutian western and Galapagos (1985) is

Vonnegut’s take on Darwin. Bluebeard appeared in 1987. These books, along with a

series of stories from Welcome to the Monkeyhouse on television, made him reappear in a

big way on the entertainment scene. Also, during this time he was a popular speaker and

lecturer. He was teaching at Harvard for a time and speaking at commencements all over

the country. In 1988 his symphony, Requiem, was performed by the Buffalo Symphony.

Also, in 1982, he adopted a girl child Lily. The 80s were also a time during which

Vonnegut re-affirmed his commitment to being an activist writer. Despite his commercial

success, Vonnegut battled depression throughout his life. He joked later about how he

botched the job. Vonnegut once said that of all the ways to die, he would prefer to go out

in an airplane crash on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. He often joked about the

difficulties of old age. He said that his father had gone crazy and was very unhappy late

in life. But he was proud of not committing suicide, so as not to set a bad example for his

children. But in 1984, he did make a suicide attempt with pills and alcohol. He was

unhappy that the critics had accused him of being an incoherent writer, who leaned lazily

on his autobiographical experiences. He felt that they were out to crush him like a gnat.

13

He also vowed that he would not write another novel, according to The Economist’s

obituary dated April 27, 2007.

His novels of the 60s dealt largely with issue of citizenship. He also returns to this

theme in his works of the 80s. He supported his commitment to writing by becoming

active in American Civil Liberties Union and PEN, an International writers’ forum. But

throughout the 90s he had been plagued by another worry, not being remembered. Hocus

Pocus came out in 1990 and Fates Worse than Death: an Autobiography of the Eighties

appeared in 1991. Both novels are “literarily interesting”. But neither of them was

popular. In June, 1991, he filed a petition for divorce against his second wife, Jill

Kremetz, but it was later withdrawn. He made a cameo in Back to School in the late 80s

and a Discover Card Commercial in the mid 90s. Mother Night was finally released as a

movie in 1996. It met with vast critical acclaim, but failed miserably in the market. It was

mostly due to the still sensitive and controversial topics inherent to a World War-II-era

film about an American Nazi living in Germany. Hence, the theatres and studios hesitated

to show it or back it.

The film, Mother Night, was adapted by Robert Weide, a documentary film-

maker and a long-time fan of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. He had been working for over a decade

on a documentary about Vonnegut, which he completed in 2000.Vonnegut was

disappointed because the worst reaction to the film came from the PEN members. They

were given a special advance showing. Many of the writers’ present thought that the film

was a racial public statement of approval of fascism. Vonnegut has said that the moral of

Mother Night is: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we

pretend to be.”3 Almost a year after Mother Night’s release, the editor of The Realist,

Paul Krassner, committed the latest crime in a long series of hoaxes. The most recent one,

which occurred in the fall of 1997, had to do with Kurt Vonnegut. Krassner had gotten

the idea, through his conversation with Vonnegut, that Vonnegut was worried about

young people not reading his work. He decided that an e-mail hoax would be a good way

to get Vonnegut’s name bandied around again. Krassner had sent a friendly e-mail which

was a column written by Mary Smich to a long list of people. It was originally published

in the Chicago Tribune. Two of the people on the list were Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and Mary

Smich. Krassner considered the hoax a rousing success. It was discovered as soon as it

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had been committed. The news of the truth reached print and broadcast media. Thereby

the truth was spread to more people than had known about the lie. The news hit just after

Vonnegut had published Timequake in 1997. Timequake, an interesting novel, created a

major press flurry. Primarily, it was because it had the bold statement by Vonnegut that

he would write no more novels:

Yesterday, November, 11…I turned seventy-four. Seventy-four!

Johannes Brahms quit composing symphonies when he was fifty-five. Enough!

My architect father was sick and tired of architecture when he was fifty- five.

Enough!

American male novelists had done their best work by then. Enough!

Fifty-five is a long time ago for me now. Have pity! 4

Also, Bagombo Snuff Box, a collection of Vonnegut’s early stories, was published

in 1999. Finally, a collection of his memoirs, A Man without a Country, was published in

2005. Also, Robert Wiede wrote a screen adaptation of The Sirens of Titan in the same

year. His documentary promised to be a goldmine of Vonnegutian insight. Vonnegut was

still speaking, touring, and doing his visual art. Also, he felt himself to be special as:

“Accidentally Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s birthday, November 11, becomes a day called

Armistice Day. On this day all the people of all the nations who had fought in the World

War-I observed silence during the eleventh minute of eleventh hour of the eleventh day

of eleventh month (11/11 at 11.11 a.m.). The sudden silence was the voice of God, i.e.,

when God spoke clearly to mankind.5

On January 31, 2000, a fire destroyed the top storey of his home. Vonnegut

suffered smoke inhalation and was hospitalised in a critical condition for four days. He

survived, but his personal documents were destroyed. After leaving the hospital, he

retired to Northampton, Massachusetts. He taught an advanced writing class at Smith

College for a while in 2000. He was recognised as New York State Author from 2001 to

2003. Vonnegut lived with his second wife in his old house in New York City. On April

11, 2007, Kurt Vonnegut died at the age of 84. He died on Wednesday, after suffering

brain injuries following a fall, weeks ago, said Donald Farber. He is Vonnegut’s friend,

lawyer, agent and manager. Like Vonnegut, he is a fourth generation German-American,

born in Indianapolis.

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Vonnegut is survived by his second wife, photographer Jill Krementz, their

adopted daughter and six other children. Two of his children are also writers. His son,

Mark Vonnegut, was named after Mark Twain, whom his father admired and bore a

stunning resemblance too. He wrote The Eden Express: a Memoir of Insanity about his

own descent and eventual recovery from mental illness. He speculated that the illness was

partly hereditary. Daughter Edith Vonnegut, named after his artist mother, wrote

Domestic Goddesses. In it she took up the issue of traditional art imagery in which

women are shown as weak and helpless. Vonnegut’s three adopted children are his

nephews: James, Steven and Kurt Adams. They were adopted after a traumatic twenty-

four-hour period. It was when their father’s exchange train went off an open drawbridge

in New Jersey and their mother, Vonnegut’s sister, Alice, died of cancer. The fourth and

the youngest of the boys, Peter Nice, went to live with a first cousin of their father in

Birmingham.

Having become a major figure on the American literary scene, Vonnegut had

been much in demand as a speaker. He frequently used the title “How to Get a Job like

Mine” to enter upon a long and highly entertaining talk. He had also been much in

demand for articles in magazines and advertisements, an ironic echo of his beginnings as

a public relations writer for General Electric. Kurt Vonnegut’s work reveals a world that

is peopled with politically aware and colourful characters. It firmly places him in the

family of great American writers. They are noted for their unique characters and fully

developed social sensibilities. Their narratives consistently address the human condition

in the midst of great political, scientific and historical changes, involving much difficulty.

His wide range of experiences helped him to utilise an inborn talent for dark humour and

satiric criticism.

Kurt Vonnegut is considered to be one of America’s imaginative, original and

talented writers. He has treated readers to such wonderful works of literature as Mother

Night and Slaughterhouse-Five, centred on World War-II. He repeatedly refers to it as

“his” war. Vonnegut’s work is often humorous and light-hearted, mixing settings of

fantasy with everyday situations of life. But profounder themes concerning the welfare of

society are also clearly evident in his satires. His work is unbelievingly self-reflexive.

Hence, it is useful to look at his writing career in the context of his life. The events that

16

have shaped his life have also helped mould his development as a writer. Vonnegut’s

early life influenced much of his writing. He wrote fourteen novels, four collections of

short stories, four anthologies of essays and five plays, and seven of his works were

adapted for films. The events in his writings are closely parallel to those he actually lived

through. They were filled with pain because of the loss of people dear to him. Vonnegut’s

mother committed suicide on Mother’s Day in 1944 when he was only twenty-two. He

did not express the pain caused by his father’s death in 1957 till the publication of

Breakfast of Champions in 1973. In it he portrayed Hoover’s son as a gay, which broke

down their father-son relationship. It reflected Vonnegut’s break with his father after the

latter’s death.

Vonnegut’s first novel, Player Piano, was published in 1952. It converts the

author’s experience of working as public relations person in General Electric from 1947

to 1951 into a futuristic fantasy in which managers and engineers run a machine-world.

The dystopian story takes place in a near-future society that is almost totally mechanised,

eliminating the need for human labourers. This widespread mechanisation creates conflict

between the wealthy upper class, the engineers and managers, who keep society running,

and the lower class, whose skills and purpose in society have been replaced by machines.

The novel is an example of soft science fiction, with an emphasis on sociological themes

rather than the technology that makes this world possible. The book uses irony and

emotions, which were to become his hallmarks, to be developed further in his later

works. In a 1973 interview, Vonnegut thus discussed his inspiration to write the book:

I was working for General Electric at the time, right after World War-II, and I saw

a milling machine for cutting the rotors on jet engines, gas turbines. This was a

very expensive thing for a machinist to do, to cut what is essentially one of those

Brancusi forms. So, they had a computer-operated milling machine built to cut the

blades, and I was fascinated by that. This was in 1949 and the guys who were

working on it were foreseeing all sorts of machines being run by little boxes and

punched cards. Player Piano was my response to the implications of having

everything run by little boxes. The idea of doing that, you know, made sense, a

perfect sense to have a little clicking box make all the decisions which was not a

17

vicious thing to do. But it was too bad for the human beings who got their dignity

from their jobs.6

A player piano is a modified piano that "plays itself". The piano keys move

according to a pattern of holes punched in an unwinding scroll. Unlike a music

synthesiser, the instrument actually produces the sound itself, the keys moving up and

down, driving hammers that strike the strings. Like its counterpart, a player piano can be

played by hand as well. When a scroll is run through the ghost-operated instrument, the

movement of its keys produces the illusion. It gives the feeling that an invisible

performer is playing the instrument. Vonnegut uses the player piano as a metaphor to

represent how the novel's imaginary society is run by machines, instead of people.

The Sirens of Titan was published in 1959. Written for the paperback science

fiction market, Vonnegut’s second novel tells the story of playboy millionaire Malachi

Constant. He becomes a space traveller, experiencing different societies on various

planets. He is originally of Hollywood, California, and the richest man in 22nd-century

America. He possesses extraordinary luck that he assigns to divine favour. He had used it

to build upon his father's fortune. Apart from this, he has done nothing significant in his

life, leading a rakish existence. He becomes part of a journey that takes him from Earth to

Mars. It is in preparation for an inter-planetary war. Finally, the war is with Saturn's

moon, Titan. The author describes how human beings use religious and ethical systems to

manipulate others. He also describes how human beings allow themselves to be described

by those systems. The novel follows science fiction formula more than any other of

Vonnegut’s novels. But it also addresses his characteristic theme of the struggle of the

individual in the face of the unreasonableness of existence. Many regard the book as

Vonnegut’s finest. The Sirens of Titan is a Hugo Award-nominated novel by Kurt

Vonnegut, Jr. and it depicts issues of free will, omniscience and the overall purpose of

human history.

Mother Night (1961) by Kurt Vonnegut is a tale that probes the difference

between appearances and reality. Mother Night appears to be a rather straightforward,

although quirky, novel at first glance. But as one delves into the heart of Vonnegut’s

prose, one finds in it consideration of some of life’s most serious issues. Kurt Vonnegut

again produced a work of fiction in Mother Night that makes the reader read something

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compelling. It is the fictional account of one man trying to understand who he is. The

story delves deep into the human mind in an effort to understand the essence of human

character. The main character, Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War-II, is

on trial in Israel for war crimes committed during the Nazi regime in Germany. An

American official had approached him, before the war, in an effort to convince him to

work for the Allies. Howard was persuaded to become an important official for the

Nazi’s propaganda ministry. He escaped after the war and lived peacefully in New York.

Years later, he was recognised and brought to Israel to stand trial for war crimes. The

only other person who knew his true motives could not be found. The story is an account

of Campbell’s struggle to understand himself and others. His following quote outlines the

basic principle: “…it is a combination of what we see in ourselves and what others see in

us that defines us.” It is tough for them to believe but it is the truth: “…it is a combination

of what they want and they want others to see in them. However brilliant the quote

maybe, it cannot explain the intricate details that combine to create what we consider

ourselves.”7 Nobody can question one’s own identity. It was the problem faced by

Howard W Campbell.

The tendency to transform in public is already built into certain people. People

compare themselves to others when they are in public. He labours with the dilemma: if it

is insight that defines you, or what every one else sees in you. The idea Campbell was

struggling at is brilliant in its conception and even with the evidence of his true identity

appearing, he decides his life must come to an end. Mother Night uses first person

narration. The author creates a character called Campbell who offers commentary as an

American playwright. He spies in Nazi Germany, under cover of being a pro-Nazi

propagandist. Characteristically, Vonnegut is concerned with the uncertain role of the

artist. “We are what we pretend to be,” Vonnegut declares in his Introduction to the 1966

edition, and he warned: “so we must be careful about what we pretend to be”(Mother

Night, 1).

This novel is the first hand account of Howard Campbell, Jr. He is an American-

born citizen who moved to Germany as a child. He became the English-speaking radio

mouthpiece for Nazi Germany during World War-II. For fifteen years since the end of the

war, he has been living an almost invisible life in a New York City classic apartment. He

19

misses his German wife Helga who disappeared during the war. He sometimes thinks

about his pre-war life as a successful writer of plays and poems. And perhaps he just

waits for history to find him once again. As the novel begins, he has been found. He is

writing his account from a jail cell in Israel, awaiting trial for his crimes against

humanity. He is reviled by almost everyone on earth as an American Nazi traitor. The

truth is that he was actually an agent working for the American government during the

war. It is a truth he cannot prove, though. Thus, in this 1961 novel, the hero is taken to

be a Nazi war criminal.

In Mother Night, Goebbels asked Campbell, the main character, if he missed

America. To this he replied that he missed the mountains, the rivers, the broad plains and

the forests. But he could be never happy there with the Jews in charge of everything.

Campbell lived in New York for a long time before coming to Israel. Mengel, one of the

Jews, asked him about his views about New York City. Campbell told him that people

might love to be there but it was the worst place for him. Then he explained that it was

like “Purgatory” where he lived for fifteen years, in hiding, and wanted to end this

endless game of hide-and-seek. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. openly admits through Campbell that

nationalities do not interest him. Once, Campbell’s wife’s younger sister, Resi, asked him

if he hated America. The answer summarises his views on nationality. He said that that

would be as silly as loving it. He did not believe in the division of people on the basis of

imaginary lines called boundaries. Maybe, he believed in the universal brotherhood of

mankind and in the concept of earth as one nation.

Cat’s Cradle was published in 1963. The title of the book derives from the string

game called “cat’s cradle”. This black comedy of Vonnegut deals with the destructive

capacity of technology. It is shown by the invention of “ice-nine”, a substance capable of

freezing all the water on earth. Vonnegut contrasts science with a religion called

Bokononism, based on the ultimate absurdity of life. Cat's Cradle is a science fiction

novel. It explores issues of science, technology and religion, satirising the arms race and

many other targets along the way. After turning down his original thesis, the University

of Chicago, in 1971, awarded Vonnegut his Master's degree in Anthropology by

accepting Cat's Cradle in lieu of the thesis.

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God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater was published in 1965. Responding to his motto,

“God damn it, you have got to be kind,”8 a shell-shocked philanthropist tries to use his

inherited fortune to help mankind in this satirical novel. He wants to show how money-

obsessed society views willingness to help others as madness. In his novel God Bless

You, Mr. Rosewater or Pearls before Swine, Vonnegut tells that the ancient Rome is

equal to present America. It was paradise for gangsters, perverts and lazy workers. The

forces of law and order were openly attacked by mobs. Children were disobedient and

had no respect for their parents or their country. No decent woman was safe on any street,

even at high noon. Cunning, sharp-trading and bribing foreigners were in the command.

Only money-changers were the honest farmers who were the backbone of the Roman

Army and Roman soul. People were dying in old age. Their children had been turned

against them by liberals. They followed the ways of the uncivilised.

Eliot, perhaps the mouthpiece of Kurt Vonnegut Jr., analysed the reason for

Americans joining Army, Navy or Marine. According to him, the main purpose of the

Army, Navy and Marine Cops was to get poor Americans into clean, pressed, unpatched

clothes, so the rich Americans could stand to look at them. He further added that when he

looked at those people, those Americans, he realised that they could not even care about

themselves any more. Americans did not even need them for war any more. So, Eliot

decided to be an artist. The reason was that he was going to love those rejected

Americans, even though they were useless and unattractive. And “that” was going to be

his work of art. He expressed his views about America by saying: “The truth be told

about this sick, sick society of ours, and that the words for the tally could be found on the

walls of rest rooms” (57). Right from the beginning of the novel, one sees that Eliot is the

lead character and a drunkard. He has very few good things to say about his nation,

America. Maybe Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. has faced many problems himself and has seen

others suffering there. It is expressed through his main character in God Bless You, Mr.

Rosewater. He did not believe in ideal thought or image of ideal society but in

communistic thought. The Americans do not fall over Karl Marx from time to time or just

fall over the Bible, as it is written there. But he accepts that whatever the conditions

maybe in America and however the people are suffering there, it is still possible for an

American to make a fortune on his own. The question in America should be: “Is this guy

21

a good citizen? Is he honest? Does he pull his own weight? Some have had money, and

some have not, but, by God, they have played their parts in history! No more

apologies!”(125).

Welcome to the Monkeyhouse (1968) is referred to in God Bless You, Mr.

Rosewater as one of Kilgore Trout's stories. Welcome to the Monkeyhouse takes place in

a dystopian future, a setting that is very common in Kurt Vonnegut's short stories. In this

one, the world has become very overpopulated, and the government is forced to take

drastic steps to control the population. It involves a two-forked attack. The government

encourages the citizens to painlessly end their lives in "ethical suicide parlors."9 Also,

they are given "ethical birth control pills"(27) which do not do anything to affect

reproduction. But they take out all the pleasure from sex. Someone who refuses to take

the pills is called a “nothinghead”. The story centres around Nancy, a suicide parlour

hostess, who is kidnapped by the infamous “nothinghead”, Billy the poet. She is taken to

his hideout, where he rapes her. Nancy is very angry about this. But Billy says that

eventually she will come to thank him. Actually, he is a good-natured freedom fighter

trying to open the eyes of the citizens who for so long have had their rights taken away.

He then leaves the room but leaves behind a bottle of pills with a note on them saying:

“Welcome to the Monkeyhouse”.

In Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death

(1969), Vonnegut fought in the battle of Bulge as a scout, after which he was taken

prisoner by the Germans. He, along with other American prisoners, was put to work in a

factory and they were made to live in an abandoned slaughterhouse in Dresden,

Germany. The city was almost completely destroyed by fire bombs dropped by the Allied

planes. The survived prisoners, including Vonnegut, were forced to clean up the rubble of

corpses of some one hundred and thirty-five thousand Germans. His service at Dresden

earned him the Purple Cross. His experience of the bombing served as his motivation for

his best-known, semi-autobiographical novel titled Slaughterhouse-Five. Asked for his

thoughts on this book, Vonnegut responded by claiming that only one person on the

entire planet benefited from the bombing. That one person was Vonnegut. He, according

to his own estimate, had received about three dollars for every corpse. Slaughterhouse-

Five is clearly Vonnegut’s masterpiece. The book is remarkable in terms of the artistic

22

display of intelligence and creativity. Accordingly, Charles B. Harris describes the book

as being “…less about Dresden than it is about the impact of Dresden on one man’s

sensibilities.”10

Billy Pilgrim, the main character, is a shell-shocked prisoner of war in Germany

who witnessed the firebombing of Dresden. He also witnessed “time-tripping” to the

distant planet of Tralfamadore. There he is put in a zoo and mated with a movie star.

Blending dark comedy, farce and philosophical reflection, the novel is widely considered

to be Vonnegut’s masterpiece. Slaughterhouse-Five is a post-modern and anti-war

science fiction novel. It deals with Billy Pilgrim’s experiences during World War-II and

his journeys in time.

Happy Birthday, Wanda June was published in 1970. Vonnegut imagines the

afterlife of two American military men who dropped the atom bomb on Nagasaki. Big

game-hunter, Harold Ryan, returns home to America, after having been presumed dead

for several years. He finds that his wife Penelope has developed relationships with men

very much unlike himself. They include a vacuum salesman and a doctor. "Wanda June"

is the name of a young girl who died before she could celebrate her birthday. Her

birthday cake was purchased later by one of Penelope's lovers. It was for a celebration of

Harold's birthday in his absence. Wanda June and deceased relatives of Harold Ryan

speak to the audience from Heaven. There everyone is happily playing shuffleboard.

After the publication of Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut entered a period of depression.

During it he vowed, at one point, to never write another novel. He concentrated, instead,

on lecturing, teaching and finishing a play, Happy Birthday, Wanda June. He had begun

it several years earlier. Vonnegut's dialogue is not only fast moving and funny, with a

palpable taste and crackle, but it also means something. Also, his comic sense is a

superior one. The basic character of the book is a man who used to be considered a hero.

But after an eight-year absence from society, he comes back and sees that he is no longer

seen as he used to be. In this play Vonnegut expresses his protest against the Vietnam

war. Vonnegut does it through the character of Harold Ryan and his family.

Breakfast of Champions or Goodbye Blue Monday was published in 1973. The

novel marks Vonnegut’s return to fiction after several years of experimenting with other

forms. It is also a return to Tralfamadore, the comic imaginary planet he had created in

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Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). The title of the book is a metaphor for the unplanned human

existence. Vonnegut expressed his views about America and said that America is by far

the richest and most powerful country on the planet but colour is everything there. The

sea pirates were white. People already on the continent were copper coloured and the

slaves were black. Nobody else could believe, until it was too late, that the pirates were

heartless and greedy. Being one of the powerful nations in the world, it disciplined other

countries. It threatens them to shoot big rockets at them or to drop bombs on them from

airplanes. He has compared the people of other countries to America. According to him,

most other countries are not rich and powerful. They sold everything good while

everybody in America was supposed to grab whatever he could and hold onto it. Some

Americans are very good at grabbing and holding and hence they are fabulously well-to-

do. He further said: “We Americans require symbols which are richly coloured and three

dimensional and juicy. Most of all, we hunger for symbols which have not been poisoned

by great sins our nation has committed, such as slavery and genocide and criminal

neglect, or by tinhorn commercial greed and cunning” (293).

Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday, set in the imaginary town of

Midland City, is the story of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet

which was dying fast. One of these men, Dwayne Hoover, is normal-looking but unable

to think and behave properly due to mental illness. He is a Pontiac dealer. He becomes

obsessed with the writings of the other man, Kilgore Trout, taking them for literal truth.

Trout, a largely unknown science fiction writer, who has appeared in several other

Vonnegut’s novels, looks like a crazy old man but is in fact relatively sane. In addition to

Kilgore Trout, several more characters like Eliot Rosewater and Rabo Karabekian from

other Vonnegut books also appear in it. Rosewater was the main character in God Bless

You, Mr. Rosewater (1965) and a minor character in Slaughterhouse-Five, while

Karabekian later became the main character in Bluebeard (1988). Hoover's secretary,

Francine Pefko, previously appeared in Cat's Cradle (1963). There she performed

secretarial duties at General Forge and Foundry in Ilium, New York. Vonnegut reuses the

name Khashdrahr Miasma for a minor character, earlier the name of a major character in

Player Piano. The guard dog, Kazak, who could hurt anyone badly, was Winston Niles

Rumfoord's pet in The Sirens of Titan (1959). It was also Selena MacIntosh's guide dog

24

in Galápagos (1985). Many of Midland City's inhabitants reappear in Deadeye Dick

(1982). Breakfast of Champions was made into a 1999 film, starring Bruce Willis, Albert

Finney, Nick Nolte and Omar Epps.

Slapstick or Lonesome no more was published in 1976. It is Vonnegut’s absurd

fantasy about a former United States President. He suffers from Tourette’s syndrome and

lives on the Island of Death with his twin sister. The novel is in the form of an

autobiography of Dr. Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain. Dr. Swain tells that he lives in the ruins

of the Empire State Building. He lives with his pregnant granddaughter, Melody Oriole-2

von Peterswald, and her lover, Isadore Raspberry-19 Cohen. Dr. Swain is a frightful

seven feet-tall man whose ugliness, and that of his twin sister Eliza, caused his parents to

cut them off from modern society. The siblings came to realise that, when in close

physical contact, they form a vastly powerful and creative intelligence. Through reading

and philosophising together, Wilbur and Eliza controlled the feelings of loneliness and

isolation that would otherwise have ruined their childhood.

Throughout the book, Wilbur claims that his sister Eliza is more intelligent of the

two but no one realises it because she cannot write. Wilbur and Eliza are like two halves

of a brain, Wilbur the left brain -- logical, rational and able to communicate -- and Eliza

the right brain, which is creative and emotional, but unable to communicate effectively.

The siblings created, among other things, a plan to end loneliness in America through

vast extended families. Under the plan, all citizens would be provided with new middle

names. They were made of the name of a random organism or element paired with a

random number between one and twenty. Everyone with the same name would be

cousins. And everyone with the same name and number would be siblings. Their parents

and the staff of the mansion believe that the children are retarded. The children play it up,

when in the company of others, so as not to be interfered with what they think about a

perfect childhood. But after hearing their mother’s wish that they were normal, the

children reveal their intelligence to their parents. Eliza is still deemed retarded because

she cannot read or write. She is sent to a mental institution. Wilbur, however, is sent to a

prep school and eventually goes to Harvard University and earns a doctorate. The

Americans constantly risk their time and lives to selflessly help their fellow cousins and

siblings. They ensure that people may live their life "lonesome no more." The novel has a

25

typical Vonnegut pattern of short stories, often ending with a punch line of sorts. These

are separated by the words "hi ho", which Dr. Swain describes as a sort of verbal hiccup

that has developed in his old age.

Jailbird was published in 1979. Vonnegut covers the Watergate scandal in this

satirical novel about a fictional conspirator trying to rebuild his life. Its plot concerns a

man recently released from a low-security prison. He served time for a minor role in the

Watergate scandal. The novel uses a standard memoir format. It reveals Walter F.

Starbuck's current situation and then goes back to tell the story of his first two days after

being released from prison. Through Walter F. Starbuck and near-rambling biographical

sketches of the various characters referred to in the novel, Jailbird concerns itself with

the history of the American labour movement. In this manner, it points out flaws in

corporate America and the American political system. It also describes the American red

scare of the late 1950s, and both the capitalist and the communist theories. Jailbird also

features a brief reappearance of Kilgore Trout, a recurring Vonnegut character who

writes science fiction novels and stories. However, in this appearance, Kilgore Trout is

revealed to be the pseudonym of a character in prison. He deliberately contradicts the

autobiographical details of Trout's life, as described in both earlier and later novels of

Vonnegut.

Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage was published in 1981. This

collection of Vonnegut’s speeches, letters, short fiction and retrospection forms a kind of

record of his life and imagination. In this self-portrait, Vonnegut writes with interesting

wit and sharp feeling about his favourite comedians, country music, a dead friend and a

dead marriage. He also writes about various ridiculous aspects of his all-too-human

journey through life. Also, this volume provides the most important pieces of information

about Vonnegut's life, as revealed by Vonnegut himself. Moreover, it is a source of

insight into the nature of the world he lived in. Anyone who is not already familiar with

the Allies’ fire-bombing of Dresden should read this book to get a fuller understanding of

the consequences of warfare. It also has serious implications for the United States’

current war efforts. However, it is hard to call this book anything but average. In fact, it is

hard to call it even a book. It is merely a collection of speeches and various types of

writings that have been compiled and thrown together between two covers. Nevertheless,

26

there is also some new material, mainly commentary, thrown in-between these speeches

and essays. That commentary is probably the most entertaining part of the book.

In this book Vonnegut touches on all sorts of things. But, as many seasoned Kurt

Vonnegut’s readers know, it would not be a vintage Vonnegut without mentioning

Dresden, Indianapolis, and his son Mark's insanity. Hence, all these three make numerous

appearances in the book. It could perhaps be argued that the name of this book should be

exactly that: Dresden, Indianapolis and Mark's Insanity. But it is not. It is called Palm

Sunday, for whatever reason. In it, he rates all of his works to date and he does a fine job

doing so. For this one, he gives himself a C+, which is fair enough. Palm Sunday is

exactly what it is advertised as -- an autobiographical collage. Kurt Vonnegut tells his life

story through bits and pieces of short stories, interviews and writings. It provides insight

into his motivations from various points of view. Beside, the origins of the plots of all his

novels are revealed through his recounting of his experiences. They also reveal people he

knew and the things he had seen.

Vonnegut’s novel Deadeye Dick was published in 1982. It is set mostly within the

fictional Midland City, Ohio, the setting of one of Vonnegut's other influential works,

Breakfast of Champions. Besides, several characters, locations and concepts from that

novel are mentioned in passing or have an active role in the story. For instance, Rabo

Karabekian, Dwayne, Celia Hoover, the Mildred Barry Memorial Center for the Arts and

Berryton Ltd., amongst others, are from his earlier novel. It is quirky, strange, thought-

provoking, and a little bit depressing. The story of Deadeye Dick and his family is not a

happy one. The novel's main character is Rudy Waltz, nicknamed Deadeye Dick. He

acquires his unusual nickname at the age of twelve by accidentally killing a woman in his

home town. But the whole story starts well before Rudy was even born. His father was

supposedly a promising artist, or at least his own mother thought so. But he and his

painting tutor did little more than travel around getting drunk and enjoying with women

of ill repute. Then the tutor was exposed as a fraud.

Otto Waltz went to Austria to study in the years before the Great War. His lack of

talent forbade him entry to the Academy. So, he developed a friendship with another

failed artist who later became Chancellor of the Third Reich. This association with Hitler

and some of his ideas comes back to haunt Otto in the 1940s. Rudy was Otto's second

27

son. On the day his father bestowed upon him the key to the gun room, Rudy took a rifle.

He went to the top of the cupola at his family's most unusual residence. He fired it

randomly, and unknowingly shot a pregnant woman right between the eyes while she was

vomitting. Thus did Rudy receive the nickname Deadeye Dick. He committed accidental

manslaughter. He lived his whole life seeking forgiveness for it. He was so traumatised

by the events directly after the murder that he lived life as a "neuter."

At the end of the novel, it appears that Rudy may not have fully come to terms

with his actions but he has at least come to live with them. At the conclusion, Vonnegut

provides his most direct commentary on society, although there are hints of it here and

there throughout the novel. There is a lot of symbolism in the novel. Vonnegut's

discussion of what certain symbols mean in its introduction is particularly helpful in

understanding the novel. One experiences a definite lack of conclusion upon completing

this novel. It inevitably disappoints some readers to some degree. But nobody can deny

the fact that Deadeye Dick offers a typically Vonnegut-like interpretation of life. It offers

much food for thought to the serious reader.

Galapagos was published in 1985. In it, Vonnegut turns to the world of a million

years ago and the creation of the human race. The witty commentary in it is on Charles

Darwin’s theory of evolution. The novel includes a cruise to the Galapagos Islands. It

weaves a fantasy that defies chronology, shifting from the past to the future and back

again. It presents fascinating alternative views of humanity’s origin. The novel represents

Kurt Vonnegut's look at evolution. Galapagos is the story of a small band of mismatched

human beings. They get shipwrecked on the fictional island of Santa Rosalia in the

Galapagos Islands. The wreck took place after a global financial crisis had crippled the

world's economy. Shortly thereafter, a disease renders all human beings on earth infertile,

with the exception of the people on Santa Rosalia. It makes them the last specimens of

mankind. Over the next million years, their descendants are the only fertile human beings

left on the planet. They eventually evolve into a species resembling seals. Though,

possibly, they are still able to walk upright, yet it is stated that they occasionally catch

land animals. They have a snout with teeth adapted for catching fish, a streamlined skull

and flipper-like hands with undeveloped fingers.

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The story's narrator is a spirit who has been watching over human beings for the

last million years. This particular ghost is the immortal spirit of Leon Trotsky Trout. He

is the son of Vonnegut's recurring character, Kilgore Trout. Leon is a Vietnam War

veteran. He is affected by the massacres in Vietnam. He settles in Sweden, where he

works as a ship-builder and dies during the construction of the ship named the Bahía de

Darwin. This ship is used for the Nature Cruise of the Century and it helps the human

race to survive on Galapagos. Kilgore Trout urges his son to enter the "blue tunnel" that

leads to the afterlife. When Leon refuses the fourth time, Kilgore decides that he, and the

blue tunnel, will not return for one million years. It leaves Leon to observe the slow

process of evolution that transforms the human race into aquatic mammals. The process

begins when a Japanese woman on the island, the granddaughter of a Hiroshima survivor,

gives birth to a fur-covered daughter.

Bluebeard was published in 1987. In it, Vonnegut brings back the painter Rabo

Karabekian from Breakfast of Champions (1973). In this meditation on art and war, Rabo

composes both his autobiography and his daily diary. Both Bluebeard, the novel, and

Bluebeard, the Autobiography of Rabo Karabekian (1916-1988), have a first person

narrator. He describes the late years of fictional Abstract Expressionist painter Rabo

Karabekian. He first appeared, rather briefly, in Breakfast of Champions. Circumstances

of the novel bear a rough resemblance to the fairy tale of Bluebeard, popularised by

Charles Perrault. Karabekian mentions this relationship once in the novel. At the opening

of the book, the narrator, Rabo Karabekian, apologises to the arriving guests. He

promised them an autobiography, but something went wrong in the kitchen. He describes

himself as a museum guard who answers questions from visitors coming to see his

priceless art. He shares his lonely home with his live-in cook and her daughter, Celeste.

One afternoon, Circe Berman wanders onto Karabekian's private beach. When he

reaches out to greet her, she catches him by surprise with her query as to how his parents

died. He tells her the story and proceeds to invite her back to his home for a drink. After a

drink and supper, Karabekian invites her to stay with him. After a while, he begins to find

her charm "manipulative", as she gets away in a typical manner. Mrs. Berman does not

respect his abstract art collection, including works by Jackson Pollock. She explores

every inch of Karabekian's home, constantly asking him questions. The only place that is

29

off-limits to her is the potato barn. The potato barn is the home of Karabekian's studio

and holds his "secret". The barn has no windows, and Karabekian has gone through the

trouble of nailing one end shut and immobilising the other with six padlocks. The secret

of the potato barn has allured collectors to make enormous offers and to raise suspicions

of stolen masterpieces. It is to remain locked until Karabekian passes away.

Hocus Pocus is a 1990 novel by Kurt Vonnegut. In it, the main character is

Eugene Debs Hartke, a Vietnam War veteran and college professor. He realises that he

has killed exactly as many people as the number of women he has had sex with. Through

the name of this character, Vonnegut intends to pay homage to American labour and

political leader Eugene V. Debs and anti-war senator Vance Hartke. Both of them were

from Vonnegut's home state, Indiana. Eugene V. Debs is a five-time Socialist Party of

America candidate for the Presidentship of the United States. One of his candidacies

occurred while he was in prison. He is explicitly discussed in the book. Also, the

following quote from Eugene V. Debs appears several times in the book: "While there is

a lower class I am in it. While there is a criminal element I am of it. While there is a soul

in prison I am not free."11 In an editor's note at the beginning of the book, Vonnegut

claims to have found hundreds of scraps of paper of varying sizes. They are from

wrapping paper to business cards, sequentially numbered by their author (Hartke). They

are in order to form a narrative of some kind. The breaks between pieces of paper often

signal a sort of ironic "punchline". This technique of an episodic narrative, with throwing

in of scraps of information, is a recurring feature of the novel.

Eugene is fired from his job as a college professor. He is fired as several of his

witticisms are secretly recorded by the daughter of a popular conservative commentator.

Eugene then becomes a teacher at a nearby overcrowded prison run by a Japanese

corporation. His employer, and occasional acquaintance, Hiroshi Matsumoto is the

prison's warden. After a massive prison-break, Eugene's former college is occupied by

escapees from the prison. They take the staff hostage. Eventually, the college is turned

into a prison, since the old prison was destroyed in the breakout. Ironically, Eugene is

ordered to be the warden of the prison, but he becomes an inmate, presumably via the

same type of "hocus pocus" that led to his dismissal from his professorship. The entire

30

narrative is laced with Eugene's thoughts and observations. They are about the Vietnam

War, history, and social conditions—especially different classes and their prejudices.

Like almost all of Vonnegut's books, it is an account told in the past tense by a

character. He shares his background with Vonnegut. It is also suggested that it mirrors

some parts of the Attica Prison riots. Matsumoto, a survivor of the bombing of

Hiroshima, is the warden of the prison. He hires Hartke as a prison teacher who manages

to escape during the prison uprising. Later, feeling that he has dishonourably failed, he

commits a ritual suicide. He, desperately wishing freedom for himself and others, said:

"We could have saved it, but we were too doggone cheap" (118).

Timequake was published in 1997. The writer’s self-proclaimed final novel

depicts a burst in the space-time. It forces everyone on earth to relive the 1990s. It

presents Vonnegut’s adieu to the state of Western civilisation at the close of the twentieth

century. Critics note the author’s “familiar tone of weary bemusement,” and the reviewer

Brad Stone calls the book Vonnegut’s “funniest since Breakfast of Champions.”12

Timequake is a semi-autobiographical work by Vonnegut, Jr. He described the novel as a

"stew", in which he alternates between summarising a novel that he had been struggling

with for a number of years and waxing nostalgic about various events in his life.

Vonnegut uses the premise of a timequake, the repetition of actions, in which there is no

free will. Thus, the idea of determinism is explored -- as it is in many of his previous

works. It is to assert that people really have no free will. Kilgore Trout serves again as the

main character. Vonnegut explains in the beginning of the book that he was not satisfied

with the original version of Timequake or Timequake One. So, he took parts of

Timequake One and combined it with personal thoughts and anecdotes to make the

finished product. It was called Timequake Two. Many of the anecdotes deal with

Vonnegut's family, the death of loved ones and the people's last words.

The plot revolves around Trout. There is also a sort of ramble in which Vonnegut

goes off on complete tangents to the plot. He comes back again dozens of pages later.

The Timequake has thrust citizens of the year 2001 back in time to 1991. They repeat

every action they undertook during that time. Most of the small stories in the book

expound on depression and sadness. People watch their parents die again, drive drunk or

cause accidents that severely injure others. At the end of the Timequake, when people

31

resume control, they are depressed and gripped by boredom. Kilgore Trout is the only

one who is not affected by the dullness. He helps revive others by telling them that they

were sick, and they were better and there was work to be done. Vonnegut inserts himself

into the text, something he did in Breakfast of Champions too. At the conclusion of the

book, he meets other authors for a celebration of Trout. The Art Brut song, "Late Sunday

Evening", uses Trout's belief that they were sick, now they were better and there was

work to be done as its refrain.

Bagombo Snuff Box was published in 1999. It is a collection of short fiction. Most

of the stories in Bagombo Snuff Box were previously uncollected in a book-form. So, the

arrival of this collection was a treat for all Vonnegutian scholars. Vonnegut was a writer

of "slick fiction" for the magazine market of the 1950s and early 1960s. So, he tailored

his stories for a general readership. The stories in the Bagombo Snuff Box are also

interesting as snapshots from a by-gone era, particularly in their treatment of women.

One of the strongest characters in the collection is Sheila White of "Lovers Anonymous."

She is a talented, ambitious woman, whose talent places a strain on her marriage.

However, the impact of the story is lessened by a careless final sentence. Nevertheless,

Vonnegut should be credited for sneaking a potentially weak theme into a mainstream

publication. A reader's reaction to Bagombo Snuff Box will probably mirror his or her

expectations. Anyone expecting cutting-edge Vonnegut will be disappointed. But who

like to read everything a scholarly author has written will be thrilled to add it to the

collection of his work. The arrival of Bagombo Snuff Box is like a Christmas present in

July, thoroughly unexpected, and completely enjoyable.

A Man without a Country is the last book by Kurt Vonnegut, published in 2005.

When Kurt Vonnegut finally finished Timequake one decade ago, the offended writer

declared that he would never write another book. Technically, he still has not. In 1999’s

Bagombo Snuff Box, Vonnegut merely collected several short stories he had previously

written. Like its two most recent predecessors, A Man without a Country is largely a

collection of previously-published work. It is edited by Daniel Simon. Vonnegut broke

his promise that he would never write another book. But this book is like sitting down on

the couch for a long chat with an old friend. It is a memoir of life in George W. Bush’s

America. He touches upon diverse subjects like American history, science and the craft

32

of fiction. He also emphasises the paramount importance of creative work in maintaining

the little happiness there is in the world. A Man without a Country is Kurt Vonnegut’s

hilariously funny and razor-sharp look at life, art, politics, himself and the condition of

the soul of America then. It is written in the form of a loose memoir, with the examples

of Mark Twain, Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln and a saintly doctor named Ignaz

Semmelweis powerfully in mind A Man without a Country is an intimate and tender

communication from one individual to his fellow human beings -- some times kidding, at

other times despairing, but always searching. It is illustrated throughout with Vonnegut’s

trade mark art work.

Vonnegut pulls the reader along as he tramps down all the well-trod liberal

critiques of the contemporary American political stage. The punch line is: “…the three

most powerful men on the planet are named Bush, Dick, and Colon” (40). Of course, he

gives the frequency of President Bush’s political faux pas. The President recently used

the term “Islamic fascist” in place of “militant Islamic fundamentalist”. He used it while

describing the suspects in August’s London airport scare, for instance. But Vonnegut’s

readers expect more from the author of Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat’s Cradle than the

simple repetition of criticisms. Indeed, his comments on George W. Bush were not as

thoughtfully delivered as those he made on Karl Marx. They are regarding Karl Marx’s

oft-quoted: “religion is the opium of the people”(12). A casual truism rather than a strict

statement, however, would be a reason to praise Vonnegut’s political message.

Fortunately, A Man without a Country is not limited to the author’s trite, though

impassioned, political commentary. The collection opens with Vonnegut’s earliest

memories of joke-telling. As the youngest child, he tells, humour enabled him “to break

into an adult conversation”(2). Humour, Vonnegut goes on to say, helped ease the heavy

hearts suffering through the Great Depression. It also helped him and his fellow prisoners

of war survive the firebombing of Dresden. Identifying laughter as the cathartic release

human beings need to overcome tragedy and fear, Vonnegut differentiates between the

safe and “superficial sort of laughter” Bob Hope induced and the deep belly-laughs

inspired by Laurel and Hardy. The former made a living “never mentioning anything

troubling”, but the latter duo embodied terrible tragedy, as they were “too sweet to

survive in this world ...they could so easily be killed” (4). Ultimately, it is the union of

33

genuine laughter and terrible tragedy that interests Vonnegut most in A Man without a

Country. In fact, Vonnegut clearly informs that, for him, “humour does not work

anymore” as “a way of holding off how awful life can be”(129). It is clear that

Vonnegut’s real message behind the anti-Bush ranting was simply to notice happiness on

those rare occasions. It crept through all the pollution, hatred, ignorance and terror,

slowly killing our planet.

The message may not be profound, but it need not be. What Vonnegut does in A

Man without a Country is to simply reaffirm what he has been writing for years. He

concludes that wisdom lies in common sense and basic human decency, but human

beings keep ignoring it. A Man without a Country is exactly what the readers expect of

the author. It is silly hand-drawn pictures, deceptively simple prose, and a whole lot of

kindness guised in wit.

Despite battles with severe depression, Vonnegut was known for his witticisms. “I

have had a hell of a good time,” Vonnegut once wrote. “I tell you, we are here on Earth to

fart around, and do not let any body tell you any different” (62). He retired from novel-

writing in his later years, but continued to publish short articles. He had a best-seller in

2005: A Man without a Country. It is a collection of his non-fiction. It includes jabs at the

Bush administration like “upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography”(99)

make the uncertain future of the planet. He called the book’s success a nice glass of

champagne at the end of his life. Vonnegut’s journey is from rural Indiana to Dresden,

Germany, as a soldier, and to New York City as an author. His life and writings have

certainly made him an interesting character in the history of American literature. His

speech in the Lee Chapel on February 4, 2003, entitled “How to Get a Job like Mine,”

merely reinforced that fact. Well known: “At eighty, Vonnegut still smokes unfiltered

cigarettes, and speaks with quick wit and great bravado. He also speaks without fear….

More noticeably, he is unapologetic about his notions or his candid presentation, and that

is what makes him so unique…. Vonnegut decided not to publish anything new for the

remainder of his life. Despite this retreat from the spotlight, Vonnegut remains a

recognisable face in American culture… even a forty-five minute speech by Vonnegut

demands a price of $ 25,000! Certainly, his popularity is not waning.”13

34

A Vonnegut book is not cute or precious. It is literally awful, for Vonnegut is one

of the few writers who are able to lift the lid of the garbage can, and calmly examine its

contents. The difficulty with Vonnegut is precisely that he refuses to say who is wrong

while other writers generally follow the simplest way to say that everything is wrong but

the author. His comment on the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther

King is the same as his comment on all other deaths: “So it goes,”14 he says and nothing

more. Soon after Vonnegut’s death, NY 1 in New York City aired in April 2007, a 2005

interview that Budd-Mishkin had with Vonnegut. Mishkin had been then requested that

the station would not run it because of Vonnegut’s anxiety over part of the conversation.

During it he had called President George W. Bush “dumb”. Upon his death, the station

chose to run the entire interview. Dan Barker of the “Freedom from Religion

Foundation”, however, heard on the April 12, 2007 NPR news: “Kurt Vonnegut was a

self-described religious skeptic and freethinking humanist.” He used protagonists such as

Billy Pilgrim (Slaughterhouse-Five) and Eliot Rosewater (God Bless You, Mr.

Rosewater) as transparent vehicles for his points of view. Despite his commercial

success, he battled depression throughout his life. In 1984, he attempted suicide with pills

and alcohol, joking later about how he botched his job.

The last lines that Vonnegut wrote, in his last book, go thus:

…When the last living thing

Has died on account of us,

How poetical it would be

If Earth could say,

In voice floating up

Perhaps

From the floor

Of the Grand Canyon

“It is done”

People did not like it here (A Man without a Country, 137).

Vonnegut had planned a speech to deliver in Indianapolis at Butler University.

But, following his death, it was broadcast on April 27, 2007 by his son Mark. “He [Kurt

Vonnegut] was really serious about being funny,” Mark said of his father. Then he read

35

from the speech which noted that he achieved the same military rank as Napoleon and

Hitler. He also intended to sue a cigarette manufacturer for breach of promise and said:

“Their product did not kill me….” The final words of a condemned man ought to be:

“…this will certainly teach me a lesson.”15 And the last sentence of the speech was, “I

thank you for your attention, and I am outta here.”16 The author’s website is updated after

his death. It displays a simple black-and-white image of a bird cage, a symbolic element

in his writing, empty with an open door. “Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 1922-2007,”17 the page

reads.

Ali-Asghar Bahrami, an Iranian author, is translating a collection of essays by the

modern American novelist and short story writer Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. He has started the

translation of A Man without a Country, Vonnegut‘s last work. He is the first translator to

introduce the prominent American author’s works to Iranians. Slaughterhouse-Five,

Mother Night, Cat’s Cradle and Galapagos have already been rendered by Bahrami into

Persian.

Bapsi Sidhwa is one of the most distinguished novelists of Pakistan. She attempts,

above all, to bring women’s issues of the Indian subcontinent to public discussion. Born

on August 11, 1938 in Karachi, she is Pakistan’s diaspora writer. She has written five

novels and one collection of short stories in English. They reflect her personal

experiences of living in India, Pakistan and America. In Pakistan, she came across abuse

against women, immigration to the United States and the lot of the Parsee community

living in Pakistan. Sidhwa claims to have had a rather boring childhood. She has the

experience of the years of strife surrounding the partition of India. A bout with polio kept

her home-schooled. She spent her time daydreaming and listening to stories told by the

servants. She tells that the book Little Women by Louisa May Alcott was given to her by

her private tutor on her eleventh birthday. It was the first book she read and it turned out

to be the most influential reading of her childhood. About it, she remarked: “It introduced

me to a world of fantasy and reading, because extra reading was the only life I had.”18

The book made her fall in love with books and reading.

She told in an interview in 1992 that she received a great deal of affection and

care as a child. Primarily, it was because she had polio. She had to undergo several

operations and she could not go to school. To a large extent, it deprived her of the

36

company of other children. Consequently, it made her a lonely and introspective child,

given to fancy. When asked about her family, she told that her father was orphaned when

he was very young. He grew up in a very poor household. Her mother came from a

wealthy family. Her family could be described as a middle-class one. But her father did

very well in his business and became a wealthy man later in life. He had a wine shop and

later became the owner of the only brewery in Pakistan. Her mother never worked on a

job but she did a lot of voluntary social work. Sidhwa has two brothers.

According to her, she was brought up in a very strict Parsee family. She knew that

the women of her class had still a long way to go to gain full possession of their rights.

Sidhwa did not like the restrictions imposed on girls and through Zareen, the mother of

Feroza, expressed her resentment in her novel An American Brat. Her worry about the

freedom of the Parsee girls is also expressed by Zareen when she remarks that her

daughter, Feroza, cannot wear frocks, even fifteen years after partition. There were

restrictions clamped on girls by mullahs. She worried that the things she could do in 1950

and 1960, her daughter could not do in 1978. Therefore, the Parsee children in Lahore

would not know how to mix with the Parsee kids in Karachi or Bombay. Zareen is weary

of her daughter’s growing conservatism. She considers it a curse to the Parsee values

which are, in her opinion, modern and progressive. There was a great emphasis on truth

in Sidhwa’s family. Truth was always rewarded, so that it was easier to speak the truth

than to lie. Also, they were taught to be careful and economical.

Her first marriage at the age of nineteen, which had taken her to Bombay for six

years, ended in divorce. In 1963 she married Noshir Sidhwa, who was very supportive

when she started to write. She continued to live in Lahore. She did social work there, and

in 1975 attended The Asian Women Congress in Russia. Once she disclosed in an

interview: “I wrote it as a sort of exercise to please myself. I didn’t have the courage to

talk about it to anybody. It was not as if I was in the milieu of the scholarly mind. I was a

businessman’s wife and a businessman’s daughter. It seemed very pretentious to say ‘I

am writing a book’. But writing was such pleasure for me. It was something I wanted to

do, like an addiction. I would steal away and write whenever I could.”19 The

responsibilities of her family led her to conceal her literary inclinations. Whenever there

was a bridge game at her place, she would steal off and write. Now when her work has

37

been published, a whole world has opened up for her. She began her writing career at the

age of twenty-six, after visiting the Karakoram mountain area of Pakistan with her

husband.

Sidhwa took four years to complete her first novel, The Bride or The Pakistani

Bride. It is based on the events in a tribal girl’s life. She enjoyed writing it so much that

soon after completing it, she started working on her second novel, The Crow Eaters.

Rightly does Aamer Hussein write in its introduction:

The Bride has the feel of a first novel; it is a far quieter performance than the

carnivalesque The Crow Eaters was to become her first published novel. Sidhwa

had no real English literary ancestor in Pakistan. Also, the Pakistani English

writing did not offer any literary precedent to the bawdy humour of her next novel

The Crow Eaters. It is ribaldry too which was rare for South Asian English fiction

at the time. The tradition of publishing English fiction in Pakistan was very

limited. Sidhwa, with the help of her friend, managed to place The Bride with an

American agent. For years she could not find a publisher because Pakistan was

too remote in time and place for the Americans or British to identify with. The

focus on Parsee community was most unusual. She preceded the work of other

major South Asian English writers of Parsee origin. Moreover, she thought that

people would make fun of her for writing ‘cheap romances’.

Similarly, Sara Suleri Goodyear writes about Sidhwa in Bapsi Sidhwa Omnibus

Edition by OUP (2001): “… that this welcome and significant collection brings together

for the first time five novels by one of Pakistan’s most distinguished authors, Bapsi

Sidhwa.” On a sociological level, Sidhwa’s work is crucial to an understanding of the

cultural complexities. They are of post-independence Pakistani culture, and the diaspora

they have occasioned. On the literary level, Sidhwa’s novels are constructed with grace

and written with perfect sense of humour. So, the ordinary ironies totally dispense with

bombast or praising to attract claims about “post colonial history”. Instead, their

characters are wrought with an understated delicacy. The reader is charmed by the

writer’s ability to convey some social messages effortlessly. For example, the appeal of

Ayah in Ice-Candy-Man or the comic warmth of Freddy Junglewalla in The Crow Eaters

is remarkable. No writer has equalled Sidhwa’s capacity to address grim historical

38

realities with both precision and affection. The passion of her prose remains its most

startling and original quality. Sidhwa is certainly one of the finest Anglophone novelists

of South Asia. The brilliance of her writing deserves to be honoured by the widest

possible readership. There are certain issues which can be better tackled by women as she

has done in her novels. That is perhaps why once Sidhwa said: “Certain books can be

written by women only. A woman’s experiences can only be translated by a woman….

Women can deal more easily with emotions and their writing is more intuitive and

compassionate.”20

Sidhwa travels frequently to Pakistan as a women’s rights activist. She works

with women to help promote in them an awareness of their rights. She also works for the

organisation of large scale awareness-raising public protests. She also utilises her position

as an acclaimed writer to make numerous public statements in the Pakistani media. They

are aimed against supressive measures that harm women and minority communities. She

has worked as the voluntary secretary in the Destitute Women and Children’s home in

Lahore for years. She was appointed to the advisory committee to Pakistani Prime

Minister Benazir Bhutto on women’s development. She has taught at a number of

American Universities, including Princeton, Rice, Brandeis and Mt. Holyoke. She thus

reflects on the partition’s victims of rape: “What legacy have these women left us? I

believe that their spirit animate all those women that have bloomed into judges,

journalists, NGO-officials, film makers, doctors and writers – women who today are

shaping opinions and challenging stereotypes.”21 Once, when she was asked if not writing

in her mother language has compromised her original point of view, she said: “Parsees

speak Gujarati, which is my first language. I also speak Urdu and Punjabi. Since nobody

could teach me to read and write Gujarati, the only language I can read and write in is

English. English is very commonly spoken in the subcontinent, and I consider it an Indian

language. I have no problems describing the cultures I am familiar with in English. I do

not think I lose anything by writing in English.”22

Success did not come to Bapsi without a lot of hard work. After receiving

countless rejections for her first and second novels, The Bride and The Crow Eaters, she

decided to publish them privately. This process was so discouraging that Sidhwa stopped

writing for about five years. Before she became a writer, she spent about six years in

39

India. Here, she came after her first marriage at the age of nineteen. Though that marriage

resulted in divorce, after which she returned to Pakistan, she felt that the experience of

having lived in India became crucial to her writing both The Crow Eaters and Ice-Candy-

Man. The latter is also known as Cracking India and it brought her popularity. She tells

that her writings are based on her own experiences. “Living in Bombay, that big city,

then visiting it very frequently after my divorce, was very important to my writing… The

interaction with the larger Parsee community really opened my eyes, the interaction with

a big city also opened my eyes,”23 she remembers. Most of her friends in Lahore were

Muslims. It brought about a different feeling of community in her. It helped her know

about her religion in a better way. She has given her community an international voice. In

the preface to The Crow Eaters, she writes about her “deep-rooted admiration” for her

diminishing community and “an enormous affection for its few eccentricities”. However,

her individuality is reflected when she makes her heroines behave in an identifiably

unique manner. They behave in a manner that is somewhat different from the typical

behaviour of women of the Parsee community. Generally, the Parsee women are modern

and advanced but Feroza in An American Brat has a conservative attitude. Also, most of

the Parsees know very little about their religion but: “Feroza had a comfortable

relationship with the faith she was born into; she accepted it as she did the colour of her

eyes or the length of her limbs” (40).

Sidhwa describes the Parsee prayers and customs through Feroza. Before leaving

her own country, Pakistan, to go to a foreign country, America, she prayed to God in a

typically Parsee manner. She requested the Almighty to protect her during her long

journey overseas. She also prayed to Him to make her visit to America happy and

successful. For it, she covered her head with a scarf and made her eyes wet with water.

She performed her Kusti and unwound the sacred thread binding around her waist, tying

the knots in the front and the back. She asked Ahura Mazda to forgive her for any impure

thought that came to her mind. She prayed to have the good thoughts. She also wanted

the decent language and the strength to complete His Divine Plan. She lit an oil lamp and

saluted the huge portraits of departed Lahori Parsees. She removed her shoes and knelt

before the marble threshold of the hall.

40

By performing all those rituals she felt as if she had shed all impure thoughts. She

recited her prayers and looked at the flames. Suddenly she felt that some spiritual power

of the fire came to her. She felt fearless and secure. She felt herself in the presence of

God and that He was speaking to her. She chanted the happy little Jasa-me-avanghe

Mazda prayer in Avestan language of Gathas, which meant:

Come to my help, O Ahura-Mazda!

Give me victory, power and the joy of life (An American Brat, 42).

Bapsi Sidhwa has done much to put Pakistan on the map of English-speaking

literary world. Hence, she is a Pakistani writer, belonging to Parsee community, and

maintaining her unique identity as an artist. She has written five novels for which she has

received five awards. Her work is steeped in romanticism. She compiled poems, stories,

essays and extracts from the novels of other authors to describe her city of joy in her

book, City of Sin and Splendour: Writings on Lahore. Lahore is known as the “Paris of

the East”. She describes its real beauty by saying: “It is more than the grandeur of

Mughal forts and gardens, mosques and Mausoleums and the jewel colours of everlasting

spring. It is also the city of poets, the city of love, longing, sin and splendour”(front flap).

She further says: “…City of Sin and Splendour is a marriage of the sacred and the

profane…. it is a sumptuous collection that reflects the city it celebrates” (back flap). It is

a collection which is unfailing, interesting and makes a pleasant reading.

She considers herself a Punjabi-Pakistani-Parsee woman. She tells that all this

combination of Punjabi culture, Pakistani milieu and Parsee religion influenced her. To

her, it was wonderful because the combination made her the writer she is. Once, when

she was asked if her Parsee religion had any impact on her career aspirations when she

was in Pakistan, she remarked that she felt marginalised as a Parsee in a Muslim-

dominated society. Some people were confused about her nationality and racial identity

and would often ask her, “Can you be Pakistani if you are a Parsee?”24 To Indians, she

was a Pakistani. She believes if she had been a Parsee in India, she would not have felt so

marginalised. It is simply because there are so many Parsees here. They are generally

Anglicised and well-educated.

Some of Bapsi Sidhwa’s novels depict the incidents before the partition of India.

They tell about the status of the Parsee race in India before it was partitioned. They

41

particularly portray the lifestyle and culture, including beliefs and disbeliefs of the

Parsees. The major concepts of the Zoroastrians related to death and marriage. Dakhma

Nashini is the only method accepted by them for disposing of the dead body. “Fire” has

great meaning in the life of the Parsees. It symbolises not only His Cosmic Creation but

also the spiritual nature of His Eternal Truth.

In all her novels, one can find direct reflections of the Parsee culture and lifestyle.

She also rightly believes that all her work has some degree of autobiographical element.

The parents in The Crow Eaters are modelled after her own parents. In Ice-Candy-Man,

the child protagonist, Lenny, reminds one of Sidhwa’s childhood. Like Lenny, she too

suffered from polio as a child, due to which she was not sent to school. She had to make

frequent visits to the hospital. The Crow Eaters, her first published novel, is a lively and

humorous story about the Parsee community of Pakistan. The title of the book is a literal

translation of a derogatory term used for the Parsees. They are stereotyped as being

excessively loud and talkative. In The Crow Eaters, she explains the typical ways in

which the Parsee ladies and gentlemen dress themselves. For instance, ladies wear kurty

and sari and cover their foreheads with white mathabanas. The gentlemen wear V-

necked sudrehs. Her most controversial novel, The Crow Eaters, expresses her racial

identity as a Parsee and her being a Pakistani national. She stops in the middle of some

stories to lecture the reader on a historical or cultural truth. Doing so, she seems to

explain her multiple culture to a foreign and often non-comprehending audience.

Sidhwa’s and her family’s experiences and observations in America are expressed

in her novel An American Brat. It is largely about young Feroza Ginwalla, a descendant

of the Junglewalla clan, portrayed in her earlier novel, The Crow Eaters. The latter novel

is a comic romp chronicling the rags-to-riches life of Faredoon Junglewalla and his

family in pre-partition Pakistan while An American Brat is a coming-of-age story. It is a

sensitive portrait of how modern America appears to a new arrival. It is also about an

examination of the impact it has on her. Feroza, a 16-year-old Parsee from Lahore,

attends a college in Denver. There she falls in love with David, a fellow student, who is

an American Jew. The battles fought by mother, daughter and boyfriend are handled

skilfuly and cleverly. They illuminate the difficulties that arise when culture takes a back

seat to the search for self-definition. But that is brushed up permanently and reset by her

42

mother. She emphasises her Parsee culture so much that David also realises that he is

ignoring his Jewish culture and tradition. Consequently, his realisation of this racial

disparity brings an end to their love. Sidhwa could not express Feroza’s experiences so

authentically if she herself had not gone through them. Rightly does she put it: “The

geographical location of my writing changed after I moved to the United States, and I

wrote the book after I moved. I wrote my experiences of my encounter with

Americans.”25

Sidhwa, as a young girl, witnessed the bloody partition of India in 1947. She

remembered that seven million Muslims and five million Hindus were uprooted in it. It

was the largest, most terrible exchange of population that history had known. The

partition was brought about by a complex set of social and political factors that included

religious differences and the end of colonialism in India. Sensitively does Sidhwa write

about this phase of her childhood: “The ominous roar of distant mobs was a constant of

my awareness, alerting me, even at age eight, to a palpable sense of the evil that was

taking place in various parts of Lahore.”26 Sidhwa was a witness to those evils. They

included an incident in which she found the body of a dead man in a gunny sack at the

side of a road. Her reaction of pity is obvious from her comment upon the event: “I felt

more of sadness than horror.”27

Her home city Lahore became a border city in Pakistan. It was soon flooded by

hundreds of thousands of refugees. Many thousands of these were women, the victims of

rape and torture. Due to shame and their husbands’ damaged pride, many such victims

were not permitted entry into their homes after being “recovered”. There was a re-

establishment camp with many of these women adjacent to Sidhwa’s house. She stated

that she was strangely fascinated with “fallen women”, as they were described to her at

the time. She realised from her young age that: “…victory is celebrated on a woman’s

body; vengeance is taken on a woman’s body. That’s very much the way things are,

particularly in my part of the world.”28 It appears as if realisation, such as this, inspired

Sidhwa’s later activism for the cause of women’s rights. Sidhwa had observed injustice

done to women so much that her women characters, in almost all her novels, suffer in the

male-dominated society. Zaitoon, Tanya, Feroza, Ayah and other Hindu and Muslim

women around Lenny, Chuhiya and the other widows of the widow-house are all

43

presented in such a way that the readers have a feel of their unbearable physical and

mental tortures. Hence, in an interview in Massachusetts Review, 1990, she said: “I feel

if there is one little thing I could do, it’s to make people realise: we are not worthless

because we inhabit a country which is seen by Western eyes as a primitive,

fundamentalist country only…. I mean, we are a rich mixture of all sorts of forces as

well, and our lives are very much worth living.”29 She did not like women being ill-

treated by anyone and wanted to emphasise that women are not inferior to men.

Sidhwa clarifies about the impact of her visit to America: “One’s values do not

change because of travel, but perceptions do. One becomes more tolerant of other

cultures. In America I miss my dear friends and the sights, sounds and smells I have

grown up with. When I am in Pakistan, I miss the energy and the events connected with

writing that are a part of my life in America.”30 An American Brat is more useful for a

comparative study of the two races. The main characters of the novel are Feroza, a

Pakistani Parsee, and David, her boyfriend, who is an American Jew. The two authors

selected for the research are, incidentally, also a Parsee (Bapsi Sidhwa) and an American

Jew (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.). But the main Parsee characters of An American Brat are the

descendants of the characters in The Crow Eaters. Hence, the latter novel is also useful

for the present study.

She speaks four languages. She made a conscious decision to write in English. It

was partly due to the probability of worldwide exposure to the issues that had assumed

ominous significance in the subcontinent. At that time, there was no English language

novels published in Pakistan. So, after Sidhwa finished writing her two novels, she had to

publish them herself. The Bride was critically acclaimed for its forceful style. It was also

praised for its undeniable ability to speak persuasively of human warmth amidst horrible

circumstances. She received the Pakistan National Honour of the Patras Bokhri award for

it in 1985.

Sidhwa wrote five novels and a collection of short stories. Her first written novel,

The Bride, describes many different migrations within the country. It also highlights the

vast cultural differences between the urban and the tribal people in Pakistan. For writing

it, Sidhwa draws upon her knowledge of the Punjab and her close observation of migrant

labourers from the hills. She tells the story of Zaitoon, the adopted daughter of Qasim, a

44

watchman. He belongs to Kohistan, a mountainous tribal area, and has come to the cities

in the plains to find work. He brings up Zaitoon in Lahore, but filled with a migrant’s

longing for his home land, he marries her into a tribal family in the mountains. The city-

bred Zaitoon cannot adjust to tribal customs and tries to run away. She thus defies her

husband and his tribal code of honour. The novel links up, and draws parallels between,

Zaitoon and Carol, an American woman married to a rich Pakistani in Lahore. Despite

differences in income, education and background, both discover their lives in Pakistan. In

Pakistan’s patriarchal society, they are but secondary beings, the objects of desire and

suspicion. Though writing The Bride took Sidhwa four years, it was an experience which

she says she enjoyed.

The fast moving and humorous story of The Crow Eaters revolves around

Faredoon Junglewalla. He is popularly known as Freddy and is a Parsee businessman. He

migrates with Putli, his wife, and Jerbanoo, his mother-in-law, to Lahore. Freddy does

not like Jarbanoo’s interference in his life. It is interesting to read about the various ways

in which Freddy attempts to murder her but fails. Within the first few pages Freddy

provides his recipe for survival during the British regime in India: by “buttering and

marmalading” British officials. His relationship with the British remains one of

expediency and affection. The novel is full of lively, full-blooded characters. There is a

gradual change in Freddy’s life as he prospers. His children marry, multiply and

increasingly adopt English ways. They also embrace new loyalties as new nationalist

leaders stake their claim to the corridors of power and the British rule in India begins to

wane. The Crow Eaters was praised for its luxuriance and freshness and it changed

Sidhwa’s life.

Bapsi Sidhwa’s third novel brought her international fame. Cracking India was

published in several other countries in 1988 with the title Ice-Candy-Man. The novel is

considered by many critics to be the most moving one on the partition of India. About the

child’s perspective in it, Bapsi Sidhwa rightly said in an interview: “I have chosen the

point of view of a child because a child sees the world through the eyes of innocence. A

child has not yet learned the prejudice of the elders, or how to hate other people or

communities. But Lenny’s voice is informed by the adult, sophisticated presence, so the

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adult is always there. A child’s voice by itself is very tedious.”31 The story is told by the

awakening consciousness of an observant eight-year-old Parsee girl.

The violence of partition threatens to shatter her extremely pleasant and peaceful

world. The issues dealt in the book are as numerous as they are horrifying. But the

thousands of instances of rape that occurred during the partition are the foremost. The

hatred has fuelled the political relations between Pakistan and India since then. These

women’s stories were practically forgotten. In one of her unusual bursts of poetic licence,

Sidhwa writes: “Despite the residue of passion and regret, and loss of those who have in

panic fled… the fire could not have burned for…. Despite all the ruptured dreams, broken

lives, buried gold, bricked-in-rupees, secret jewelry, lingering hopes… the fire could not

have burned for months….”32 Sidhwa repeatedly condemns the dehumanising impact that

religious fanaticism played in promoting mob mentality, separation and revenge during

the partition. The narrator, Lenny, is keen beyond her years, but the questioning nature of

the child is portrayed skilfuly. It allows the author to effectively deal with serious

subjects both firmly and artfully. In reference to a Hindu man’s caste mark, Lenny

proclaims: “Just because his grandfathers shaved their heads and grew stupid tails is no

reason why Hari should. ‘Not as stupid as you think,’ says her cousin. It keeps his head

cool and his brain fresh” (Cracking India, 95). Whenever Lenny finds anything

inappropriate, she immediately comments on it.

Sidhwa has memories of fires, flames and people chanting and roaring. She

recalls her Muslim cook charging out of the kitchen, swearing and cursing at a group of

men, until they went away sheepishly. They had come to loot the house, presuming it to

be a Hindu home. Lenny became aware of a changing, charged atmosphere. Therefore,

she comments: “Gandhi, Jinnah, Nehru, Iqbal, Tara Singh, Mountbatten are names I hear.

And I become aware of religious differences. It is sudden. One day everybody is

themselves -- and the next day they are Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian. People shrink,

dwindling into symbols. Ayah is no longer just my all-encompassing Ayah -- she is also a

token. A Hindu” (Ice-Candy-Man, 93). She writes about servants’ lives with sympathy

because she came to know about their world. As a child, Sidhwa knew servants’ lives

better than the society her parents moved in. A governess taught her to read and write and

Sidhwa spent her teenage reading voraciously.

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Her fourth novel, An American Brat, explores issues of migration to the west and

differences between the Pakistani and the American cultures. The plot revolves around

the misadventures and transformation of a young Parsee girl, Feroza. She arrives in

America as an unsophisticated, over-protected and privileged young girl from Lahore.

She is entrusted to the care of her young maternal uncle, a student at MIT. But Feroza

soon starts to find her own identity. Although shy, Feroza is temperamental, strong-

willed and eager to learn. She joins college, falls in love, develops new interests and

acquires a new sense of self as an American. When Feroza falls in love and wants to

marry an American Jew, she realises the extent of her break with Pakistan and her family

values. She also realises that she alone can heal herself and she has begun to love her new

country, despite its flaws. Sidhwa’s portrayal of American culture through a Third World

student’s eyes is humorous and affecting. Her depiction of Pakistani culture being

infiltrated by religious fundamentalism is also very effective.

City of Sin and Splendour: Writings on Lahore is a superb collection that reflects

the city it celebrates. According to a popular myth, Lahore or Loh-awar is derived from

the Sanskrit word awar meaning fort. It was founded by Luv, one of the sons of Lord

Ram. But Lahore, “Paris of the East”, as it is known today, has its glory due to the

Mughal emperors. Emperor Akbar moved his capital to Lahore in 1584 and built its

massive fort. Emperor Jehangir and his son Shah Jehan extended it. Bapsi Sidhwa spent

most of her life in Lahore. It is a city of eighty million people and it provides the

geographical location of most of her novels. About it, she aptly remarks: “The city’s

ambience has moulded my sensibility and also my emotional responses. To belong to

Lahore is to be steeped in its romance, to inhale with each breath an intensity of feeling

that demands expression.”33 All this is sufficiently illustrated by the bouquet of essays,

verses, chronicles and memories that this anthology comprises. They are written by

various gifted literary writers in English, Hindi, Urdu, Parsee and Punjabi. Currently

residing in the United States with her husband, Sidhwa returns to Pakistan often and to

her city that inspires her: “I can write a lot more in Lahore than I can write anywhere

else…Lahore does have a very romantic atmosphere and it does release some type of

creative energy.”34

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Novelisations of film scripts tend to be assembly-line risky projects, meant to

capitalise on successful or high-profile movies. The authors usually do not have much

artistic control and rarely do such books have a second print, let alone make for literature

of notable quality. However, Bapsi Sidhwa’s Water, based on the script of Deepa

Mehta’s controversial film about the lives of widows in 1930’s Banaras, is an exception.

It is a powerful, moving book that not only complements the film but also holds up well

as an independent work, with quite a few passages that are more compelling than their

cinematic equivalents.

It could not have been easy for a writer of Sidhwa’s stature to work on such a

project: “I was hesitant because I had never written within the confines of a structured

story before”, admits Sidhwa in her acknowledgements (200). Nevertheless, Deepa

Mehta should also be given co-credit, because the story and the dialogue are mainly by

her and not by Bapsi Sidhwa. However, Mehta herself has been influenced by Sidhwa’s

Ice-Candy-Man, which was the basis for her film, Earth. Maybe the two women’s styles

and thematic concerns are similar. But, somehow, Water has the marks of Sidhwa’s finest

writing. Those marks include nuanced but economical characterisation and the

introduction of gentle humour into even cheerless situations.

The story begins with Chuyia, a six-year-old girl, who lives with her parents in a

village on the Bihar-Bengal border. Her carefree life of wandering through woods in

search of gooseberries and lychees changes abruptly. Her marriage to Hira Lal, a forty-

four-year old widower, brings an upheaval in her life. But Somnath, Chuyia’s father, a

poor Brahmin priest, had dismissed his wife’s concerns about Chuyia’s age. He silenced

her with the following authoritative quote from the shastras: “In the Brahmanical

tradition, a woman is recognised as a person only when she is one with her husband. Only

then does she become a sumangali, an auspicious woman, and a saubhagyavati, a

fortunate woman.”35

With a quietude that’s unsettling, Water introduces us to six-year-old Chuyia. She

is transported from a child’s carefree life and a loving family to a widows’ ashram on the

borders of society. Still years away from a proper understanding of the ways of the world,

she is told that she no longer exists as a person. It is all because of the sudden death of

her husband whom she had barely even met. She has to patiently accept: “Her only useful

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role, that of wife and producer of sons, was gone forever” (149). She was also held

responsible for her husband’s death.

Slowly, Chuyia overcomes her sense of dislocation. She makes friends with other

women in the ashram and stirs a few hackles with her directness in situations where

others simply follow the dictates of the ancient texts. For instance, “Where is the house

for the men widows?” (Water,81), she innocently asks at a gathering, producing instant

shouts of outrage. In its response, she heard a statement: “God protect our men from such

a fate!” (ibid). However, the child’s words have an effect on the middle-aged Shakuntala.

She tries to conquer her own inherent conservatism by questioning the scriptures.

Meanwhile, a progressive-minded young idealist named Narayan falls in love with

Chuyia’s friend Kalyani. She is a beautiful widow whose earnings as a sex worker help in

running the ashram.

One of Sidhwa’s strengths is her ability to make a point without underlining it.

However, she does overstress the irony in a couple of places. For instance, when

Madhumati, the ashram head, who has forced Kalyani into prostitution, says, “We must

live in purity, to die in purity”(144). But the overall restraint with which the story is told

helps strengthen the impact of the more disturbing moments. By moving almost

unnoticeably from the commonplace to the horrific, Water tells the reader that great

wrong was done to widows. When the widows celebrate Holi, for instance, one is

temporarily lulled into thinking that they have their own self-sustaining little community.

One may think that their lives are not so bad after all. But then something happens to

demonstrate the falsity of this thinking. It reminds one that the circumstances have forced

them into a life of compromise.

It is a fact that the ashram has its own internal politics, and one may be constantly

rooting for some characters (Chuyia, Kalyani, Shakuntala) against others. But one is

never allowed to forget that all these women are victims of a cruel, unthinking tradition.

This tradition exists for no better reason than that: “it has always been so”(157). Even

Madhumati, variously compared to a “beached whale” and a “satiated sea-lion” and

worthless in her treatment of Kalyani, has a human side. She too was once a young girl

with dreams and only the adverse situation has changed her. One can see how one evil

causes another. Elsewhere too, Sidhwa does a fine job of detailing the contradictions and

49

layers of intolerance in society. On hearing the news that Mohandas Gandhi has declared

the untouchables to be children of God, a eunuch wonders aloud: “… if hijras can be

considered God’s step-children”(104).

The rest of the novel revolves around the lives of the widows in the ashram. It

primarily revolves around the beautiful young Kalyani, the only widow whose head is

unshorn. It also revolves around Shakuntala whose belief in the scriptures is initially

absolute and, of course, around Chuyia. There are several comical accounts of the

interactions in the story. They are between the eunuch Gulabi and Madhumati. Also,

Bua’s obstinate fixation with the forbidden laddoos is depicted hilariously. They provide

the reader momentary relief from the shocking and painful description of the social mores

that govern the daily lives of the abandoned widows. The widows have to face the fear,

disregard and contempt with which the outside world views them. A young, progressive,

nationalist son of a rich zamindar, Nayaran, falls in love with Kalyani. This affair

changes the lives of Kalyani, Shakuntala and Chuyia. Indeed, the ashram itself undergoes

change to some extent. Narayan and Kalyani’s forbidden love ends in a tragedy for both.

But it has far-reaching and positive consequences in the way it slowly transforms

Shakuntala. She for the first time begins to question her unshakeable faith in the laws and

traditions of the stri-dharma. Shakunatala’s search for meaning in the age-old traditions

in her conversations with the priest Sadananda is interesting, which perhaps should have

been expounded upon further. The growing influence of Gandhiji does in fact seem to

indicate a better future for the tradition’s victims. Water ends on a small note of hope.

The violent protests that nearly aborted Mehta’s film are a reminder of how unthinking

devotion to tradition can lord over reason and humanity.

Bapsi Sidhwa’s works have been translated into Russian, French and German. A

cinematic adaptation of Cracking India with the title Earth is directed by Pakistani-

Canadian director, Deepa Mehta. Sidhwa is a member of a religious minority that had

enjoyed a “special” position in the sub-continent. She could also learn more from the

experiences of minority writers: Jews, blacks or slaves in America who wrote of ghettoes

and sheitels and apparent racial discrimination. Both Vonnegut and Sidhwa gained

popularity after facing problems and rejections at the initial stage. However, these

sufferings made them strong and resolute. Their experiences are reflected in their works

50

and their works reveal their personalities. But their views regarding nationality and racial

identity can be better comprehended through an in-depth study of their selected works,

that follows.

51

REFERENCES

1Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., A Man without a Country (New York: Bloomsbury, 2006) 132.All the subsequent references to the text are from the same edition and page numbers inall such cases have been given within parentheses immediately following the quotations.2Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Timequake ( New York: Putnam Publishing Group, 1997) 15.3Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Mother Night (London: Vintage, 1992) vii.

All the subsequent references to the text are from the same edition and page numbers inall such cases have been given within parentheses immediately following the quotations.4Shawn Rider, “Writings, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: A Paper for American Literature, So it

Goes” June 10, 2009 <http://www.wdog.com/rider/writings/kvj_soitgoes.htm>5Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Breakfast of Champions (London: Vintage, 1992) 6.

All the subsequent references to the text are from the same edition and page numbers inall such cases have been given within parentheses immediately following the quotations.6Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., “The Free Encyclopedia” Oct. 5, 2005. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/player-piano>

7“Mother Night Essay”, June 10, 2009.

<http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/viewpaper/67130.html>8Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (London: Vintage, 1967) 79.

All the subsequent references to the text are from the same edition and page numbers inall such cases have been given within parentheses immediately following the quotations.9Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Welcome to the Monkeyhouse (London: Vintage, 1994) 30.10“Vonnegut the Man and His Work” Zak Danks, June 10, 2009.

<http://www.loganatele.com/lchs/lchs/independent/Vonnegut_The_Man_and_ His_Work-Zak_Danks.html>

11Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Hocus Pocus (London: Vintage, 1991) 1.

All the subsequent references to the text are from the same edition and page numbers inall such cases have been given within parentheses immediately following the quotations.12“Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. writer”, June 10, 2009, <http://www.answer.com/topic/kurt-

vonnegut-jr.writer>13Ryan Anderson, Law News. June 10, 2009, <http://contact.wlu.edu/history/2003-b-

vonnegut.html>14Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five (London: Vintage, 1991) 1,5,16, et al.

All the subsequent references to the text are from the same edition and page numbers inall such cases have been given within parentheses immediately following the quotations.15“Novelist Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84.” June 10, 2009,

< http://www.answer.com/topic/kurt-vonnegut-Jr.writer>

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16Ibid.17Ibid.18Julie Rajan, “Cracking Sidhwa,” Monsoon Magazine, 2000, June 9, 2009, <http:// www.monsoon.com/interview/i3 inter_sidhwa.html>

19Muneeza Shamsie, “Bapsi Sidhwa,” The Literary Encyclopedia, July 18, 2002.Dec. 24, 2007, <http://www.litencyc.com>

20Valentina. A. Mmaka, “Bapsi Sidhwa” Dec. 24, 2007

<http://www.valentinammaka.net/sidhwa2.english.htm>

21Sidhwa’s Essay for Time, “New Neighbors,” August 11, 1997. Dec. 24, 2007, <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1997/int/970811/spl.neighbors.html>

22Valentina. A. Mmaka, “Bapsi Sidhwa” Dec. 24, 2007

<http://www.valentinammaka.net/sidhwa2.english.htm>23David Montenegro, “Bapsi Sidhwa: An Interview,” Massachusetts Review 31,no.4

(1990). Dec. 24, 2007, <http://www.bapsisidhwa.com/interview>24Ibid.25Ibid.26Sidhwa’s Essay for Time, “New Neighbors,” August 11,1997. Dec. 24, 2007,

<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1997/int/970811/spl.neighbors.html>

27Julie Rajan, “Cracking Sidhwa,” Monsoon Magazine, 2000. June 9, 2009, <http:// www.monsoon.com/interview/i3 inter_sidhwa.html>

28Jay Wilder, “Bapsi Sidhwa: Biography”. June 9, 2009.

<http://english.emory.edu/bahri/Sidhwa.html>

29Valentina, A. Mmaka, “Bapsi Sidhwa” Dec. 24, 2007

<http://www.valentinammaka.net/sidhwa2.english.htm>30Ibid.31Ibid.32Bapsi Sidhwa, Ice-Candy-Man (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1989) 139.

All the subsequent references to the text are from the same edition and page numbers inall such cases have been given within parentheses immediately following the quotations.

53

33Bapsi Sidhwa, City of Sin and Splendour: Writings on Lahore (New Delhi: Penguin

Books, 2005) xi.

All the subsequent references to the text are from the same edition and page numbers inall such cases have been given within parentheses immediately following the quotations.34David Montenegro, “Bapsi Sidhwa: An Interview,” Massachusetts Review 31,no.4

(1990). Dec. 24, 2007, <http://www.bapsisidhwa.com/interview>35Bapsi Sidhwa, Water (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2006) 8.

All the subsequent references to the text are from the same edition and page numbers inall such cases have been given within parentheses immediately following the quotations.