Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: Sitting Up Mud Lies Down

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: Sitting Up Mud Lies Down
By Kirsten Anderberg (http://www.kirstenanderberg.com)
Written April 12, 2007

“”God made mud. God got lonesome. So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!" "See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars." And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around. Lucky me, lucky mud. I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done. Nice going, God. Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have. I feel very unimportant compared to You. The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around. I got so much, and most mud got so little. Thank you for the honor! Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep. What memories for mud to have! What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met! I loved everything I saw! Good night.” - The Last Rites of the Bokononist faith (Written by Kurt Vonnegut, jr., from “Cat’s Cradle”)

It is with sadness I eulogize Kurt Vonnegut, jr. today. He was an impressive sitting up mud! I used to cut classes in high school, to go sit under a tree and become engrossed in Vonnegut’s wonderful novel, “Cat’s Cradle.” I have used lines from “Cat’s Cradle” and “Breakfast of Champions” as life references since the 1970’s. Terms such as “karass,” “sitting up mud,” “bad chemicals,” and “Bokononism” have become commonplace in my life, due to my exposure to Vonnegut at an early age. My father gave me “Cat’s Cradle” to read, and I handed it to my teenaged son to read as well. I normally do not enjoy fiction, but Vonnegut was an exception for me. I delighted in his plots and twists, all heavily laden with sarcasm and political angst. “Cat’s Cradle” is a fictional story about what scientists and their families did the day America dropped the A-Bomb on Japan. I love the dark humor throughout “Cat’s Cradle.” And the child’s game “cat’s cradle” has never seemed the same after reading that book! In the book, the father who rarely speaks to his children, walks up to his son and leans into the kid, in a frightening manner, and holding a cat’s cradle made of strings in his fingers, says, “See the cat? See the cradle?!” Yes, that in a nutshell, is the madness and beauty of Vonnegut’s writing style.

“”If you find your life tangled up with somebody else’s life for no very logical reasons,” writes Bokonon, “that person may be a member of your karass...” – Kurt Vonnegut, jr.

“Man created the checkerboard, God created the karass...” – Kurt Vonnegut, jr.

Need I say more? Thus, the term, “karass,” is a part of my family and friends’ vocabulary and we know exactly what it means. There really is no other term for that in the English language that I know of. Vonnegut named a phenomenon there and I have used his label for it for 3 decades.

Vonnegut often ridiculed American rituals in a way that seemed to cast a new light on age-old problems. Entering the world of a Vonnegut novel is a bit like ingesting a psychedelic drug! He gave us new angles on the mundane, and kept us laughing heartily, to boot! “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be,” advises Vonnegut in his novel, “Mother Night.” Vonnegut was often quite spiritual in his depth and social analysis, while ridiculing religions regularly.

In “Slaughter-House Five,” Vonnegut writes, “The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.” And in “Cat’s Cradle,” Vonnegut creates not only a fictional religion, “Bokononism,” but also a fake holy book, “The Books of Bokonon,” that is quoted throughout “Cat’s Cradle” as well!

From the 53rd Calypso from The Books of Bokonon, Vonnegut writes, “Oh, a sleeping drunkard, up in Central Park, and a lion hunter in the jungle dark, and a Chinese dentist, and a British queen, all fit together in the same machine. Nice, nice, very nice...so many different people in the same device.” An underlying theme in much of Vonnegut’s writing is that of religion and politics. In the novel “Cat’s Cradle,” Bokononism mocks not only religious dogma in excess, but also the government’s interaction with religions and the people. Bokonon is the head honcho in Bokononism and The Books of Bokonon are the people’s “bible” in the story. Bokononism is outlawed yet everyone, including the highest government officials and police officers, are Bokononists! There is a big “hook” in every town square to hang Bokonon if ever sited, as he is a wanted outlaw. One website at http://cns2.uni.edu/~wallingf/personal/bokonon.html, has listed The Books of Bokonon on its own site!

As I have said, Vonnegut’s works have influenced my daily life and vernacular. In so many ways, his succinct descriptions of phenomena that I have experienced and wondered about myself, helped me feel less alone in the world. And I found there were others like me who adored Vonnegut as I went through life! Imagine my surprise when I noticed the publishing company name on Grateful Dead sheet music! It said “Ice Nine Publishing!” When I noticed that, not one Deadhead I knew understood my excitement, nor knew what Ice Nine was! (Ice Nine is the villain substance which pushes for the world’s demise in “Cat’s Cradle...”). And I went to see a jazz band in Seattle once, just due to their name: “Kilgore Trout.” (Kilgore Trout is a central character in Vonnegut’s “Breakfast of Champions.”)

Yet another reference that I stole from Vonnegut’s work is the term, “bad chemicals.” In Vonnegut’s brilliant book, “Breakfast of Champions,” the boss character interacts in absurd ways with his employees (and everyone), and is said to have “bad chemicals” when he is behaving bizarrely. I often refer to politicians and authority figures misbehaving as having “bad chemicals” due to this storyline.

One of the most amazing aspects of Vonnegut’s writing style was his ability to write on several levels simultaneously. One person might enjoy his work as pure fiction, while another would enjoy a deeper political and spiritual subtext...Much as someone who only understood English could enjoy a circus act done in French, on visuals alone, I feel that Vonnegut was understood on different levels depending on the person reading him.

““So there you are!” She asked Frank what he thought he was doing and he said, “experimenting.” That’s what Frank always used to say when people asked what he thought he was doing. He was always experimenting.” – from “Cat’s Cradle.” Now, some might read that and it may pass by them. But to me, as a teen, that was a goldmine. You will note Vonnegut did not say Frank said that when asked what he was doing. He said that when he was asked “what he *thought* he was doing.” Those two things are quite different in tone, the latter having authoritarian overtones. I still sometimes answer authority figures with Frank’s catch-all reply.

Vonnegut has a history of speaking out against unjust wars and corrupt politicians in real life too. He has been outspoken against the Iraq war and has openly criticized George W. Bush in recent years. Vonnegut has always been somewhat skeptical of government, as we see in his earlier quips. “When you get to be our age, you all of a sudden realize that you are being ruled by people you went to high school with. You all of a sudden catch on that life is nothing *but* high school. You make a fool of yourself in high school, then go to college to learn how you should have acted in high school, then you get into real life and that turns out to be high school again – class officers, cheerleaders and all.” – Vonnegut. He also says, “High school is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of...Richard Nixon is a familiar type from high school.” Vonnegut obviously wrote this back when Nixon was the easiest stereotype of a political blunder, long before these easy days of George W. Bush’s endless blunders. And yes, George W. Bush *most certainly* is “a familiar type from high school,” as Vonnegut puts it.

Vonnegut is one of my literary heroes. He is a writer who not only has made me laugh deeply at society and myself, but he also has challenged me to write meaningful text. He was a thinking person’s fiction writer. His words linger in your mind, long after putting his books down. Decades after putting his books down. I keep “Cat’s Cradle” in my permanent library as a classic. I found his writing style to be brave, exciting, inspirational, and very unique. Vonnegut is inimitable. His voice is one that will be sorely missed in this world. But as the Tralfamadorans noted, his work, his life, still exist, standing on their own, like a mountain range. “Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep. What memories for mud to have! What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met! I loved everything I saw! Good night.” Good Night, Kurt.