In Tim O'Brien's novel, he says "They were afraid of dying but they were even more afraid to show it. They found jokes to tell .... It wasn't cruelty, just stage presence. They were actors." When I first read this, I immediately thought of Vonnegut's fictitious religion Bokonon in Cat's Cradle. They are living by foma, harmless untruths, in order to survive the war. Also, each soldier feels the same way, yet they all pretend as if they don't to seem like a man, like a soldier. This reminded me of the people of San Lorenzo, all of whom practice Bokonon and know this, yet still pretend as if no one does. The soldiers act as if they are brave to be brave, to fight for their country, but mostly to stay alive. The jokes they tell and the "stage presence" they put on keep them sane, and those are the lies, or untruths, that are necessary in life.

In Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, I believe that Vonnegut compares Bokononism to Christianity. The books of Bokonon are related to the books of the Bible. In this novel the idea of Bokononism is never thoroughly defined but we gain a definition by watching Jonah convert from a Christian to a Bokononist. Bokononism is a religion based on lies.

The "Calypsos" say:

I wanted all things

To seem to make some sense,

So we all could be happy, yes,

Instead of tense.

And I made up lies

So that they fit nice,

And I made this sad world

A par-a-dise.

Bokononist are always in the right place at the right time and whatever happens is how it's meant to be. You just live life and follow wherever your path may lead you and that's the right way. Bokononism has no point! So, to say that Bokononism is "like" Christianity is untrue. Christianity has a point, either you follow the Lord and go to heaven for eternity or you go to hell. This may seem completely absurd to some people but it's my opinion, you're all entitled to your own.

Religion, Smiligion.

Is it just me, or did anyone else feel as if Vonnegut entirely destroyed any credibility religion had? Throughout the book He emphasizes that the main purpose of religon is to make the people who believe "feel" that their lives have meaning and purpose. "Truth" plays no real part in religion, but it is the illusion of truth and meaning that religion actually provides. There is parallelism throughout the book between the books of Bokonon and the books of the bible. The books of Bokonon are based on lies, and dare I say that Vonnegut was trying to insinuate that the books of the bible were based on lies as well. I personally believe that the bible was never meant to be taken seriously. God didnt really create all of this in 6 days and if you were to look up the meaning of the names Adam and Eve you would find out that Adam-- is hebrew for "man" and Eva-- is hebrew for "mother of the race." It was human's dire need for substance and the search for "truth" that made them take the bible into literal terms.

pootee-phweet?

I may be a bit of a Vonnegut junkie (and I say a bit because I know there are some serious Vonnegut fans compared to whom I am barely considered an avid reader). Needless to say I have read numerous of Vonngeut's works (9 to be more or less exact) including Slaughterhouse-Five, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and now Cat's Cradle.

In Cat's Cradle, the protagonist is in utter shock after seeing the effect of ice-nine and "dreams for a moment of dropping to the platform, of springin up from it in a breath-taking swan dive, of folding my arms, of knifing downward into a blood-warm eternity with never a splash" (260). The call of a bird-"pootee-phweet?" recalls him to reality. This questioning bird shows up in other Vonnegut books. In God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, the bird calling "Poo-tee-weet" to Eliot has a similar recalling effect. The bird call snaps Eliot out of his year long 'day dream' of sorts. In Slaughterhouse-Five, the bird calls "Poo-tee-weet?" to Billy Pilgrim as he discovers World War II in Europe is over and he stood in the abandoned silence.

This bird's call appears in all 3 books which were published within 6 years of each other. Cat's Cradle came first which is why I think the bird's call is spelled a bit differently than in the other two. Which ever way you spell it, the bird's questioning call comes during a major shift in the story, calling its attention to both the reader and the protagonist.

One of the best parts of Vonnegut is that the more of him you read, the more you pick up on in and from each book... now if only Kilgore Trout had been in the protagonist's karass...

See the cat? See the cradle?

After finishing Cat's Cradle I couldn't stop thinking about the quote above that appeared more than once in the novel. Newt said this phrase several times referring to situations in which the truth would've been evidently clear but due to human nature was ignored. One of the first times was when we heard of an unhappy marriage. A man was a drunk, came home with lipstick on every night and his wife was very upset. John expressed surprise that the marriage was unhappy and Newt said the phrase above. It was said again when Newt was devaluing the institution of religion. The entire rest of the novel this phrase couldn't leave my mind, all I could think was how can we not see what is so true right in front of us? Newt could see it, twice, and some how most humans either chose or are subconsciously unaware of the lies we incorporate into our lives every day. A wife tells herself she's happy, a million people pray to God. Are we all insane? Do we all see the lie, the cat and the cradle? I think I see it everyday, but being human I ignore it, as I'm sure most people do. As we grow older we realize that it's much easier to be happy believing a lie than depressed believing the truth. This bring me to another part of the novel I can't forget. When Newt is explaining is painting to John/Jonah. Cat's cradle has been a game for hundreds of years, and Newt goes on to say children must go insane because there's no cat or cradle. Being a psych major I tend to focus a lot on perception and child versus adult interpretation, the mention of a child's view point really began to interest me. Do children see the lies? Is it because they are innocent and don't know that the truth is sometimes "wrong?" In this way should adults try to revert back to childhood? I can't answer any of these questions but they stayed through me the rest of the book and I hope some day I understand why we don't all "see the cat or the cradle."

Mayonaise

My favorite chapter in this book has to be the one with the title stated above. I've only read one other Kurt Vonnegut novel (Slaughterhouse Five) and am really intrigued by the complete randomness that he incorporates into his books, whether it be the afore mentioned chapter title named in honor of one of America's favorite condiments, the creation of a fictitious religion in "Cat's Cradle", or the alien abduction and subsequent human-testing on the main character Billy Pilgrim in "Slaughterhouse Five". I have to wonder what was going on in Vonnegut's head when he sat down and mapped out his novels, but at the same time give the man all the credit in the world for being a literary genius. If any of us were to remotely attempt to try and pull the things he did, we would just look beyond stupid. But somehow, for Vonnegut, it just works.

Live by the foma..

When I first read the quote "Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy" before starting "Cat's Cradle", it resonated in my head not only to the book itself, but to life in general. Our perceptions make up our own realities, and yet our perceptions cannot always be seen as "truth" since no one views the same situation exactly as you do. Does this mean that the situation in your eyes is any more or less truthful than another person's viewpoint? I started thinking about what the word "truth" really means, and I could not find a clear definition. If everything is perception, what is truth? Is "truth" different for everyone? Does that mean anything is true? Is everything a lie? Are the any real facts? Is belief all that matters? I also thought of the mantra "Fake it until you make it" and how many people I know, myself included, have used that mantra in many situations. All these questions and thoughts popped into my mind, and as I read "Cat's Cradle" I wondered what inspired Vonnegut to write this novel. Perhaps he also was wondering about truth and lies as I was when I began reading. But does that really matter? I enjoyed the book mostly because I finished the book wondering about life.

Thoughts on Discussion

The discussion of Supernatural and the beginning of Cat's Cradle got me thinking on how differently I can view things now. Usually when reading or watching something I just see what is on the surface and not read so much more into it. Listening to everyone talk about their thoughts on the show and the book made me realize I have the same thoughts but it would just take me a little while more to figure them out. I can tell this class and future books we will be reading will lead me to become more of a mindful reader.

research

Today for the first time I decided to look through the posts on this blog. I came across one post that expressed concern about "cheating" when looking up words that are unique to Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. Yet, I was more shocked that we hadn't received prior warning about the terminology in this book that would be unfamiliar to us. Clearly we are all old enough to look up what a word means without the assistance of a teacher, but the experience reminded me of my reading of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. For those of you who have read this work, you know that much of the vocabulary is unique to the book, as the author created a new dialect that can kind of be described as a mix between English and Russian. Before reading this book for my senior year English class, our teacher advised us to look up a nadsat (the name of the dialect) dictionary. Me being lazy, I decided that this was unnecessary and that I could figure out the meaning of the unfamiliar words from the context. Well, I couldn't get through the first page without resorting to google to get a copy of the nadsat glossary.
While the unique language in A Clockwork Orange is much more extreme than that in Cat's Cradle, it makes one wonder, if the author is injecting words that he/she made up the definition for, how much of the language is up to us to interpret, and how much is the author shoving his/her point of view directly into your head without you having any say in how to process it? In a way, this is an act of the author manipulating your idea of the "truth" of the text.

Old reading/New reading

So, I feel as if writing another blog about Owl Creek Bridge will be redundant to our classroom discussion and everyone else's response on here. At this point, comments are the only thing that make sense. That way it can turn into a discussion instead of "he tricked us" and "it made the story more interesting because it wasn't what we expected".

Cat's Cradle, on the other hand, seems like it will be an easy ready as far as the font and the small chapters, but the whole new religion concept is going to be something to wrap my brain around. The quote in chapter 4 "all of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies" really interests me. I haven't read far enough yet, but maybe this could mean things in our life that we take as truth really have an underlying/deeper meaning that we do not question? We'll see. I'm interested to hear what everyone else thinks of these oxymoronic quotes also. :)

Reading class Materials

I started reading 'Cat's Cradle' today, and the first thing I did was look up a word I was unfamiliar with. Now, I feel as if I did something wrong because the only description of the word was a summary of the book itself. Has this happened to anyone else? And if it has, do you feel like you cheated at all?

The Art of Trickery

It's been a number of years since I've read this story by Bierce, yet it still fascinates and dumbfounds me. For his time, his use of mystery and tricking the reader was generally unheard of. When one starts reading the story, it appears to the common eye as just another boring account of war-trials around the time of the American Civil War. However, at the climax and initial descent, it's much more than that: it's a reflection on life and how quickly it goes, and how unexpected events (such as your own hanging) can fool us into thinking we are experiencing something else. It's safe to say that most of us have had at least one "out of body" experience, where we are outsiders looking in at a particular situation that is going on at that time. For Peyton Farquhar, he was looking at both his life and death in retrospect, unaware that life as he knew it had been literally snapped away.

Mislead Intentionally?

Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a short novel about a man named Peyton Farquhar who is basically tricked into his own death. And just as he was tricked, so are we when we read this interesting story. It leads us to believe that Farquhar had escaped and is alive when all the while he's really dead. Some people don't believe that it was Bierce's intention to trick the reader into believing one thing and then showing them in the end that everything they believed throughout the previous chapter was all just a pigment of Farquhar's imagination. Personally, I think it was meant to trick the reader because honestly the story would be kind of dull and boring in my opinion if it didn't have this sort of twist to it. What do you all think?

Unsavory Truth

In Ambrose Bierce's short story, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," the reader must be mislead in order to have much of a story to tell. Without this trickery there would be little to the plot, and a much less substantial climax if one at all. The trickery is the apparent escape of Peyton Farquhar when the reader in lead to believe that the rope from which hi is being hung breaks. He is then frantically freeing himself, although at ties against his own will, and reaches safety after quite a struggle. When Farquhar arrives home to his beautiful wife, the reader soon learns that this entire endeavor to return home was just a figment of Farquhar's imagination.

When looking back this "untruth" seems far-fetched to say the least, but by being such an unlikely occurrence it relied heavily on the reader willing it to be true. The same can be said for the power of Farquhar's mind. He willed himself to believe the daydream that he made it home to his wife and children rather than having accepted his death. The likability of the gentleman, the fact that he has a family, and the courage to fight for what he believes in, made many a reader cheer for him and want his dream to be true rather than his reality.

It is not necessarily the likeliness of a happening that makes it believable, but possibly how much the audience wants it to happen.

I realize this is incredibly nit-picky of me, but I noticed on the bottom of page four of the Bierce that instead of saying that Farquhar opened his eyes he "unclosed" them. I don't know if Bierce intended it that way, but is this word choice significant at all? Is it possible that this is another clue to the illusion of his escape? I really have no answer to this, I just want to know what everyone else has to say about it.

Calvino

I like the idea of this novel, that the book leads you on how to read it. I've never read a book like that before, most just tell their story and let the chips fall as they may. In this case it was kind of interesting, the way the novel pushed thoughts into your mind. It made it much easier to get absorbed into the novel.

Normally I find I enjoy books better when they don't try to lead you places you wouldn’t normally go. Reading should be natural, not forced. 

I guess the idea for this novel was cool and I kind of liked it this one time, I don’t think I’d read a book like this again. 

Persisting Racism

“You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.” ~Octavia Butler
Even though this quote doesn’t exactly pertain to the blog I am writing, I liked it and I think it pertains to the essays we are writing for our final papers. Writing takes practice; even Octavia Butler has to edit her work. First drafts are always shit.

Even if the whole quote doesn’t pertain to the blog, persistence does. In Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred, racism persists throughout history. Butler says, “The future of humanity will be like the past, we'll do what we've always done.” In Kindred Dana is a “slave” to the company she writes for and when she travels back in time, she is a slave to Rufus. Race defines who Dana is. Even though her education and intellect alter her experiences she can’t “rub off” (127) her skin tone.

In my sociology class, we have been learning about institutionalized racism. Even though the civil rights act in 1964 banned explicit forms of racism like segregation, racism is still engrained in the practices of American society. Much like Dana suffered as a slave to her job, while Kevin enjoyed job freedom and job security- situations like this exist in real life. The unemployment rate for African Americans is 16%, 4% higher than that of whites. In New Orleans, there is a 50% chance that African American men will spend part of their lifetimes in prison, whereas white men in New Orleans have less than a 10% chance of ever going to prison. Schools in mostly black neighborhoods are often worse than schools in mostly white neighborhoods, and adoption rates for black babies are half that of those for white babies. Why do these forms of institutionalized racism persist in American society almost 50 years after the Civil Rights Act was enacted? Is it like Butler said “the future of humanity will be like the past”? Or will this form of persistence eventually fade?

It's like we're back in 1st grade..

While discussing the ways in which to read this book in class, I became incresingly annoyed that this was a discussion we even needed to have. When I read a book, whether for class or for entertainment, I don't want the book telling me how to read it; I want to read the way I want to read.

I do agree with some of the class, however, that each book needs to be read differently in order to understand the concepts it is trying to get across. But in reading books that are very different from each other, I still find myself following my own personal reading style. It makes me so mad that Italo Calvino is trying to disrupt his readers reading habits with this unlinear and confusing book. It is like Calvino is doing this just to mess with our minds.

In Chapter 5, Ludmilla says something that I find interesting: "The novel I would most like to read at this moment should have as its driving force only the desire to narrate, to pile stories upon stories, without trying to impose a philosophy of life on you," (92). I believe that a books main purpose is to tell the reader a story, so, when reading, I do not want to have to figure out so philosophical point that the author is trying to make. I do not want to be left to put pieces of a book together to make it seem more logical- this is the authors job! Calvino is essentially trying to teach us how to read.. just like when we were in 1st grade.

Hate to love it, Love to hate it.

I find it very frustrating that I still can't tell whether or not I liked On a Winter's Night a Traveler. I know for a fact that I began to like quite a few of the stories, but before allowing myself to get too caught up in them, I prepared myself for the abrupt ending and anticipated disappointment of never finding out what happens.
I really want to be able to say I enjoyed the book, but to be honest, it pissed me off so much that I'm not sure I can get over my annoyance. I will grant Calvino the praise that the idea and structure of the book it down right brilliant - so brilliant, I hated it. I have never read a novel quite like this one, and its sure safe to say I wasn't fully prepared for this one.
I began writing this blog with honestly no direction, but a goal. I wanted to find out why I find myself disliking the book so much. It was a good book - it was very well written, easy to read, featured great characters and interesting stories. Then why do I find myself so ticked off with it? I've come to realize its because this novel didn't allow me to fall into the trap of manipulation. It literally prevented all chances of forgetting that it was a novel or getting caught up in the story. It was a novel that kept reminding me it was a novel.
On a Winter's Night a Traveler has come to show me that the power of literature is one thing that can honestly overcome human rationality and reason. This book was basically a tease since I never fully got what I wanted, aside from the realization that books have the ability to completely take over my brain.

Really?...Really?

Okay, so it’s time to be honest. When we first started reading “If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler,” I absolutely hated it. There was just something about the text that didn’t allow me to get involved. And when I’m not involved in a text….well….i usually stop reading it. But not this time. And I’m glad that I didn’t.

See, 260 pages after getting frustrated with the book, I had an epiphany and realize why I could not stand the book at first. Up until this novel, every book that I have read has had its substance at face value – i.e. I knew what I was reading – the plot, the characters, the setting, everything. And Calvino totally threw me a curveball with this text – and the discomfort made me automatically thrown up a guard a say “Ugh. I hate this book.”

As Pr. Schwartz said in reply to my whining – “Well, maybe the book hates you back.” But no. Because now I have an inkling of the book’s point. Calvino doesn’t care about plot summary or linear timelines or anything that makes up a traditional book. He is giving almost a social commentary on the way that people expect to read a book. He is informing me and the thousands out there like me that reading isn’t so cookie-cutter; every book doesn’t have to follow the cycle of rising action, climax, falling action, and all the other “literary terms” in between.

So I applaud you, Calvino. But it was like pulling teeth the entire time.

Sweet Dreams

Appropriately titled because of the fact that it is 2:15 in the morning; I couldn't figure out what EXACTLY I wanted to say for the blog and then I remembered the mini-conversation about dreams. When we were actively searching for symbols and metaphors during class, Morgan pointed out dreams and though I have to admit I was shocked that she actually found one that made sense to me (lol) it was a REALLY good one. It pertained not only to the book, but to the class as well. Dreams lie to you constantly, and they are blatant lies at that. Sometimes you have a dream about your best friend, and even though the person in your dream looks NOTHING like your best friend, you KNOW that's who it is supposed to be. I feel like that's what we have been doing. Even though the book says one thing we know it's another, but we don't let it bother us... usually. Now that we are further along in the class and more comfortable, we have that tendency to "go with the flow" and let the story be told to us. I actually really like that even though we're not getting so worked up over the stories like we were, we are still cautious and still question what we don't know.

A Reader's Manipulation

Upon beginning a novel, you relax and project yourself into events that exist within the text. As Calvino states, “once you’re absorbed in reading there will be no budging you.” You choose to begin the novel, but as the first sentence glides beneath your eyes, you give up your ability to make decisions because the new world you enter is not your own. The text is the driving force, compelling you to “follow events of pages and pages with passive resignation.” Yet, while you have no control over the passing events, you still “find yourself involved, despite yourself.” This is the manipulative world of the story, which is the basic plot to Calvino’s novel.
Calvino structures If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler in a way that demonstrates your lake of control. By beginning a new story every other chapter, Calvino erases the traditional method of storytelling, in which an ending resolves the main idea of the narrative. The absence of an ending evokes frustration, as it goes against your expectations. You feel the need to enter the novel to find a resolution, but you are bound to the text and unable to influence its structure. So you carry your frustration with you, which influences your understanding of the text. So, to represent you, the reader, Calvino inserts a protagonist called “Reader.” Throughout the novel, this character searches for the endings of the books he begins but is consistently disappointed. Your annoyance is reflected in him, as you both yearn to find some meaning to the plots of the many novels. Yet, neither of you are ever satisfied with an ending.
However, by the novel’s end, you realize that the plot was never the point of the story, and that you and “Reader” are chasing a main idea that never existed. Instead of a moral or lesson, the main idea of the novel is to demonstrate how a text manipulates the reader. Because the text is unchangeable, you are forced surrender your control on events, just as “Reader,” regardless of the frustration involved.

Sick of Calvino's Bullsh*t...but Ludmilla's cool.

Some people think of Calvino's manipulative style with discomfort, or awe, but it makes me personally feel a little annoyed. It's as if he's trying to distract the reader from the story by giving him or her the Reader as a character through which to live vicariously. To be honest, it feels a little like a cop-out. On page 137, Calvino introduces another distraction--Ludmilla, the Other Reader. He goes on for a page about the assumed existence of the Third Person, the Other Reader who must exist in order for the novel to exist. He goes on to presume all this stuff about the Other Reader who is the reader, and therefore creates Ludmilla from the character and the female reader. As annoying as his earlier shenanigans with the male Reader are, this play with Ludmilla is actually kind of interesting because it shows Calvino isn't just this chauvinistic loser who assumes the Reader is male. He mentions the Other Reader before she is introduced as Ludmilla, but this is the part where he addresses the reader as female. He goes on to address to the reader, posing questions and fleshing out Ludmilla as he answers them for the reader. He then comes back to the original Reader and reassures him that he hasn't forgotten about him. Then, he has the male Reader become jealous of Irnerio's familiarity with Ludmilla, and the reader sees both sides, both the jealousy and the indignation at it. But then he has them make love, which is just weird, like the reader is making love with his or herself. Then Calvino pulls the reader back into the safety of the story and the search for the novel, but the reader is left a little weirded out, and a little annoyed.

Coming Full Circle

I feel that If on Winter's Night a Traveler has been talked about enough in class. Miss Janelle even told us that she would usually never spend 4 days on a single text.  But the ideas that transcend the book are worth debating even still. I have never seen Jeremy so up in arms about an issue until I saw the furry in his eyes during last class.  Miss Janelle tells us there is only one way to read a text, and he throws a shit storm almost as if the Patriots got their asses kicked by the Saints the night before (ouch).  The idea that he had to read the text exactly how everyone else who had ever read it was ridiculous to him. It was almost as if that statement alone sucked out every inch of freedom this man had.  So why does it take a question of freedom to infuriate someone so much?  Calvino's novel takes away our freedom from the get go. He is telling us how to read our novel. Back the FUCK up Italo. I'm going to read how ever the hell I want. Then I'm going to finish this novel... right after you tell me I'm about to. How free are we really when we read these texts?  We're instructed to and then we do it. Then we participate in the discussion that we don't have a choice whether or not to listen to.  It's not necessarily a bad thing, however, I mean we pay to get schooled here. I know I like the class, and I have liked all the books. But I'm scared every time someone tries to rape my free will away from me. Please don't do that, I like making my own decisions.