The Problem With Kurt and Ernie

(This took a little longer than ten minutes, partly out of necessity, partly as a make-up for last night's "sellout," as one hater called it.)

I have to confess that I have an issue with much of great literature, or at least so-called great literature that I read. Now, before we get too far down this road, let me say that my issue will most likely be misunderstood. I’ve run into similar misunderstandings regarding my taste in movies, and despite the fact that I have repeatedly tried to explain how my perspective differs from that of, say, Ned Flanders, the misunderstandings continue. Here’s what I’m talking about:

There are a handful of notable authors that I have found myself repeatedly drawn to. The two cases in point for this ten-minute ramble are Ernest Hemmingway and Kurt Vonnegut. In my life history as an avid reader and English major, I found myself drawn to Vonnegut’s works. His subject matter is always completely unpredictable, and his narration is unique and brilliant, filled with hilarity and sarcasm and quiet, real sadness. I started, as most do, with Slaughterhouse Five, then moved in no particular order through most of his canon. At some point, probably after reading Galapagos and Breakfast of Champions back to back, I realized that while Vonnegut’s writing consistently draws me in, makes me think, and makes me laugh, it also almost always leaves me with a sense of utter emptiness regarding the human condition. (Bluebeard is a semi-exception, as I recall. It’s been a while since I read it, though.) There is beauty and comedy and insight in his works, and he writes with amazing originality, but after you turn the last page, you are left with a sort of weight, a deep-seated perspective on the almost nihilistic position of humanity. So I put him down, because while the journey is amazing, you know that you’re probably going to get punched in the stomach at the end.

At some point I picked up on Ernest Hemmingway. It took a while to get the distaste of my high school reading of The Old Man and the Sea out of my brain (although this may have less to do with the quality of the book and more to do with how well it speaks to a seventeen-year old), but once I did I really, deeply enjoyed For Whom the Bell Tolls. Hemmingway’s simplicity with language (everything is a Hemmingway book is “good” and “fine” or "ugly" and "awful") is astounding and wonderful, and he crafts amazing stories about amazing places. Despite all of the beauty, however, there is, in a tone very similar to Vonnegut, a pervasive sense of emptiness and loss at the end of almost all of his works. I once saw a poster or e-mail forward (can’t remember which) in which various historical figures gave their answers to the question “Why did the chicken cross the road?” Hemmingway’s made-up answer was this: “To die. In the rain.” And you know what, that’s just about right? He is another guy that will damn well punch you in the stomach if you’re not careful. Amazing writer. Great stories. Deep sense of emptiness.

Comes now the lobby of individuals who accuse me of wanting only sunshine and teddy bears at the endings of all of my books (and movies). This is, always has been, and continues to be simply not true. What I’m looking for in a story of any kind is some kind of beauty and some kind of hope. I am completely on board with sad or difficult endings where everyone doesn’t end up married and happy. I am entirely comfortable with plots that involve great hardship and emotional toil. I have no objections to the guy not getting the girl when it all falls apart at the last second, but what I do ask is for just a single glimmer of hope. In my readings, Vonnegut and Hemmingway are hard pressed to find much hope at all, for their characters or for humanity in general. Epic efforts go unrewarded. Meaning and truth are completely lost. Relationships devolve into distance and sadness. Beauty is trampled by brutish unavoidability. The chicken crosses the road and dies in the rain. Why is it that authors, playwrights, screenwriters, directors, artists, and a countless list of other types of creative people consistently bring their works back to this bottom line of emptiness and hopelessness?

It’s not as though there isn’t a real alternative. In fact, I sometimes think that the alternative is much more difficult to reach creatively than the default “To die. In the rain” ending. It is relatively easy to close the doors of possibility one by one and leave your story dead-ended in a dark place. It is much, much more difficult to find the way in which your story can weasel out of that dark place to some position of compromise or uplifting thought without turning it into insipid drivel. For an example of what I mean, read either Life of Pi by Yann Martel or Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins. In both books you will find astounding beauty, terrible loss, great struggle, and true, honest, soul-lifting hope.

In the end, though, I have accepted Vonnegut, Hemmingway, and other similar writers on their terms, instead of wanting them to be something that they’re not. I just find myself turning back to them less and less often, and towards the works that offer some suggestion that no, life isn’t empty and meaningless.