About Time

I guess what else but the death of Kurt Vonnegut could prompt me to write my first angry letter in, oh, I don't know how long?

I wrote it to the Jim Lehrer NewsHour, in response to this.

Here it is:

I'd like to comment on two points made in the discussion of Kurt Vonnegut's death, aired Thursday, April 12.

The first, by Alan Cheuse:

"Born in the middle of the country, and I guess they [Vonnegut and Mark Twain] looked at life a little bit more sharply than we did, because perhaps there was less immediately to see, and so they looked a little more deeply at life." (emphasis mine)

I realize that Alan Cheuse, who is from the New York metro area, did spend some time teaching in "the middle of the country." But every time I hear so-called "Middle America" characterized this way, i.e., as a less interesting place with nothing to see, I feel a bit like the cavemen in those GEICO commercials. (We're watching, you know!) In addition, even by Cheuse's own implied standards, I beg him to consider this: the population of Indianapolis, where Vonnegut was born, was over 300,000 people in 1920. Hardly a corn-shuckin', moonshine-drinkin', culturally void podunk waterin' hole.

The second point I would like to make relates to the discussion about whether Vonnegut should be considered "juvenile literature," in the words of Christopher Buckley. [who I think is a total pretentious prat, although I didn't say this in the letter I actually sent.]

Yes, I heard what Buckley said about Vonnegut joining the "good company" of Stevenson and Twain. But the unspoken subtext there was that juvenile literature -- which is less serious or important than "adult" literature, of course -- is somehow "uplifted" by the presence of classic authors. Forgive my candidness, but that's a really backwards attitude. The American Library Association has been awarding the Newbery medal to the best children's books since 1922. Additionally, the genre of young adult literature has taken a major upward turn since, perhaps, Buckley read his last Hardy Boys adventure. I think Vonnegut would have been proud to be shelved alongside Meg Rosoff's how i live now or M.T. Anderson's Feed.

Sincerely,
Christine Borne
Queens, NY