No More, Without Less

Vonnegut’s bokononists and the writer O’Brien create purposeful lives for themselves by manipulating subjective meaninglessness through the contrasting methods of believing religious tenets on top of mundane scientific “fact”, and writing into being a proxy which can take on the necessity of query.

The bokononists use science to establish in their minds a mundane level of existence, over which their religion can exalt them. Bokononist’s know that their religion is a set of helpful lies. Their knowledge of this is what enables them to simultaneously hold scientific “fact” in their minds, as well as religious tenets. Bokononists know that many people do not believe in God. Bokononists know that the big bang and evolution are often used to explain our existence, from the very beginning of time. Bokononists understand that many people think humans have no purpose, and no intrinsic meaning. Science renders the world thus, in the base of their minds. Bokononism lifts them above each of these lesser “realities”. There is a God! He created us out of mud, and invited us to look on all of Creation. We have karasses, and we are all significant, and there is nothing higher for us to do than love one another. Boku Maru matters. Bokononists feel higher than the mundane scientific world, the other option in their minds, the “reality” that renders Bokononism a lie, and therefore, they feel fulfilled.

              O’Brien creates characters to whom he can pass on his deep sense of loss. When his characters live through anguish and a sense of meaninglessness, O’Brien is able to feel these things less, because of the inherent power of writing. O’Brien entraps his character Norman Bowker in an endless orbit around a hole in his heart. Norman cannot connect to the peaceful world he has been dislocated to, and therefore he can find no person or means through which to express, objectify, and temporarily release his pain. Essentially, Norman Bowker is O’Brien, if O’Brien could not write. As long as Bowker circles, O’Brien can progress through life, the hole in his heart transplanted, and thus partially assuaged.