Welcome to my blog Upstate Girl, (a.k.a Follow Your Bliss Part II), I am an independently published author. This blog is all about writing and the stuff that inspires me to write, the joys and obstacles that come along with the writer's life, and my fascination with the psychology of people and what makes them tick...the human condition, as is...and my love for words, playing with them and making sense of them...and I throw in a few photos from my acre of the world just to make things pretty...sometimes there are things I have no words for, only pictures will do.

*Copyright notice* All photos, writing, and artwork are mine (
© Laura J. Wellner), unless otherwise noted, please be a peach, if you'd like to use my work for a project or you just love it and must have it, message me and we'll work out the details...it's simple...JUST ASK, please.

Saturday, September 20, 2014

My Thoughts Regarding "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut





(The first line of first page.) All this happened, more or less.

So it goes. Fatalist, but not defeatist. You have to laugh at yourself or you’d cry your eyes out if you didn’t…am I wrong?

Vonnegut, what a quirky guy, he was our late end of the 20th Century Mark Twain—the biting humor can make my eyes water—if only I could be so adroit in my observations of the world—I try, really I do. I just love his way of telling it like it is and then going over the edge of reality into aliens and time traveling. Was it all about PSTD—surviving as a POW in Germany during the bombing of Dresden is nightmarish enough—why not?

Whatever, sometimes a writer has to do what a writer has to do to tell the story, making up shit as we go along, and throw in a few aliens to make a point—

So it goes—this phrase occurs 106 times (Don't be silly, I didn’t count them, I discovered that bit ‘o trivial trivia on the internet.) There were times I wanted to run screaming into the night only because he’s right. And it’s because he’s right and has the audacity to bite the reader in the nose one time too many with truths in disguise of fiction that this book is very often “banned” for its being indecent, anti-Christian—irreverent in its relevance, if that makes any sense. Banning books because of their content makes no sense to me whatsoever—(come on, ban one of my books!) Just that it is still considered controversial sings its impertinence to be timeless. Individuals (or groups) who initiate the banning of certain books are insecure in their beliefs and just can’t stand someone else having an opinion that goes against their grain—get a hold of yourself. Please. It’s only a book—a book for goodness sake—not just any book—shhh, listen, hear the words? It’s Slaughterhouse-Five.

So it goes.

No comments: