Fifteen of us met on 7/25/13 to discuss Kurt Vonnegut’s posthumous book “We Are What We Pretend To Be”. Those participating were: Kathleen Angelone, John Hawn, Phil Watts, Karen Lystra, John Sturman, Janet Penwell, Diane Richards, Dave Young,
Janet Hodgkin, Bill Briscoe, and Jay Carr. New to the group were John Stevens, who teaches at Franklin Community Schools, and Ruth Turner, who teaches PolySci at Hanover College. We hope they will return.

Phil announced that there will be a KV event at the upcoming Indianapolis Fringe Festival. The Shadowape Players will enact excerpts from “Welcome to the Monkey House” at the Phoenix Theatre Main Stage 6 or 7 times between 8/15 and 8/25.

Also, Phil wishes to unburden himself of the heroic service of moderating every meeting since the book club’s inception. Volunteers will rotate that task. Look under this blog’s heading for “Upcoming Books” to see who is covering what.

This book consists of two novellas: “Basic Training” and “If God Were Alive Today” and a forward by KV’s daughter, Nanette. These are believed to be the first and last novellas he wrote and neither were published while he was alive.

Our discussion was robust and insightful while being slightly unkind to the book reviewed. The Vonnegut Enterprise seems to be milking stuff that KV kept under his mattress. Janet Penwell was impressed by the change in style over the 50 year interim between the novellas, but was disgusted by the protagonist (Gil Berman) in the latter work. He was, she said, a piece of scum.

Bill perceived that the first piece was all about KV perfecting his craft. He was unable to sell this particular story and that may be because it was too long to fit the holes in the various magazines of the day who were paying for fiction. The last piece was merely a platform for his views on social issues (via the comedian Gil Berman) with little regard for plot or other mechanics. Janet Hodgkin echoed that noting that the first story was all about writing for money. It didn’t have a strong closer and that may have turned some editors off. She found the last story to be simply demoralizing.

John Sturman thought that the story lacked editing. John Hawn, who has had considerable editing experience, saw several places where editing would have helped. He would have liked to have seen the mark up on the original manuscript. Bill volunteered that the original ms. was probably at the Lily Library at IU Bloomington. KV worked hard to push the legend that he laboriously rewrote all of his pieces to make sure that every word counted and each sentence advanced the narrative. Karen contrasted the innocent hayseed protagonist (Haley) in the the earlier piece with the bitter, self-loathing Gil Berman in the latter.

John Sturman wondered how the title worked with the two novellas. The line “We are what we pretend to be” first appeared at the opening of KV’s novel “Mother Night”.
There did not seem to be a relationship, but the clever expression had a lot of “pop”.

Reading time. Phil read an except from “If God Were Alive Today” regarding the Calvin Theater and its relationship to Calvin Coolidge. Karen read Nanette’s introduction with frequent interjections from the group. Several felt that Nanette’s piece was better written than the two novellas. Her veiled remarks about Jill set us off on a discussion of KV’s second wife, Jill. Those who had met her recalled that she was quite unpleasant. She had had some commercial success as a photographer and was know for her portraits of writers. She met KV at the time his play “Wanda June” had opened.
Phil, who grudgingly admitted she was somewhat attractive maintained that she pursued KV and bagged him, much to KV’s regret. Much sexist discussion of the foibles of men and women followed. Men too often think “with the little head”.

The jokes of the comedian Gil Berman did not strike some as humorous. John Sturman thought that that they would have been funnier if they had been performed by KV. John Stevens compared KV to one of KV’s idols, Mark Twain and noted that they both were very sad at the end of their lives. Karen, who has written about Mark Twain, disagreed in
that Twain, despite all of his personal troubles, was not in such great despair. Perhaps Samuel Clemens was able to distance himself from the persona of Mark Twain. Someone lamented that there seemed to be a tendency to paint all modern authors as sad and despairing in their old age. Bill remarked that KV and MT both saw the troubles of a changing world and may have felt that their work came to naught as no one was listening to them. The past almost always seems to be more comfortable and secure than the future. Bill and Janet Penwell exchanged nostalgic stories about their childhood years in Detroit.

KV worked for years on “If God Were Alive Today” and never considered it finished.
He described it as a novel that “will not let itself be finished…that I could never finish”.
Donald Morse, writing in the LA Book Review, laments the publication of KV material that KV did not think fit for publication and the way it undermines his reputation.
See Morse’s essay under the heading in the blog “External Essays”. For my part, I was glad when this dismal story was over and thought it ended (as published) on a good note.
I have no idea where he KV was going with this.

Getting back to the problem with the title, Kathleen remarked that both KV and MT may have been caught up in the personae they created and therefore became what they pretended to be: bitter critics of the lack of social progress and unhappy with the course of society. Bill also thought that KV took more radical positions than he really believed.

Karen, who seems well versed in the battle between the sexes, wondered why the iconic image of male writers is always the image of them in old age, while female writers are often recalled with an image of them in their younger years. Maybe older guys are sexier than older gals. Oh, well.

Jay, stealing Bill’s thunder, passed out a quiz which I will attempt to post on this blog under “External Essays”. He asks us to match 14 terms: Vonnegut’s colorful substitutions for ordinary nouns. He will post the answers in his most excellent blog: bibliophilica.wordpress.com.

Several of us felt that the discussion was far better than the book. The consensus rating was a very low 5 on the 10 point KV Scale. The next book will be KV’s novel
Jailbird which we will discuss on 8/22/13. No one has volunteered to moderate as of press time. Will a Republican please step up to the plate to defend Tricky Dick and the Watergate Gang?

Dave Young