Finally got around to finishing Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates. Great stuff.
I’m following it up by reading What is Man by Mark Twain. Also great stuff, philosophy in the style (and at the level) of the classic Greeks.
The best humorists are also philosophers.
Or maybe it’s the other way ’round.
I’ve really been meaning to read some Twain. I read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn of course, but haven’t read much of his other stuff. Fortunately, my uncle had his collected works and when he passed away, I got em! I think I still have them around here somewhere….
Twain reminds me of Vonnegut….I wonder if it’s the mustache…or the satire. Could be both. 🙂
I can easily see the similarities between Vonnegut and Twain. Perhaps it is the nature of the satirist, and not some special trait, but they both have a sense of the absurdity of the universe, while at the same time posessing a somewhat dark outlook for themselves.
It strikes me now, having just read “What is Man”, that Vonnegut’s “Timequake” is in a way a response to that.
In “What is Man”, Twain makes the argument that humans are machines, simply doing what it is they were made to do, that “free will” is more or less an illusion.
In “Timequake”, Vonnegut is writing a book where humans are mentally shifted in time, finding themselves earlier in their own lifetimes, but just observers, along for the ride, reliving with no interaction. When they reach the end of the loop and normal time resumes, there are tons of catastrophies because everyone had gotten used to doing nothing, being along for the ride, not making any decisions.
Ok, so the connection there might be tenious, but it’s what popped into my head just now. =P