Deadeye Dick - Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut was one of my four go-to authors through high school, and by the time I left home for university I’d read all of the books of his my parents had, except for one: Deadeye Dick. The (fairly stupid) reason for this was that their copy was either poorly bound or mistreated (or both), and as a result most of the pages would come free as soon as you turned them. I was never comfortable takin it out of the house, and because I did most of my reading on the school bus, I kept giving it a miss.

I’ve picked up a few Vonnegut books since high school (mostly re-reads), but that dumb prejudice kept me from picking it up until a couple of weeks ago, when I finally decided to read the thing, and if it fell apart in my hands, who the hell cares?

It would be a neat irony if it turned out Deadeye Dick was far and away my favourite Vonnegut book, but reality isn’t so tidy. It’s a good book—I’ve never read a Vonnegut that wasn’t—and very much in his milieu, but I don’t think it is quite the equal of Cat’s Cradle, Slaughterhouse Five, or Breakfast of Champions (which most people don’t consider one of his best, but remains a favourite of mine).

The story follows Vonnegut’s familiar obsession with bizarre characters caroming off each other in peculiar coincidences. The narrator, a pharmacist and self-professed “neuter” named Rudy Waltz, recounts his life and that of his helpless bohemian parents. At twelve years old, Rudy fired a gun off his roof at nothing in particular and accidentally murdered a pregnant woman. The resulting arrest and lawsuit ruins his family socially and financially, and he becomes their caregiver, a role he doesn’t seem to particularly resent.

Like most Vonnegut novels, Deadeye Dick bounces between points in time, talking one moment about his venture opening a hotel in Haiti, the next about his short-lived career as a published playwrite. Rudy’s defining trait is his apathy/ Nothing in life excites him, and he recounts everything with muted emotion.

This isn’t the book I’d give someone as an introduction to Vonnegut, but for a fan it’s certainly worth a read.

Transperceneige (Snowpiercer) - Jacques Lob, Jean-Marc Rochette, Benjamin Legrand

La Transperceneige—or “Snowpiercer” in English—is a futuristic trai nwith 1,001 cars containing (what are supposedly) the last living humans on Earth after a global nuclear conflagration induces an eternal winter. At the opening of the story, Transperceneige has devolved into two distinct civilizatiosn sealed off form one another, with the citizens in the frontmost cars living a life of relative luxury, while those in the backmost cars dwell in abhorrent squalor.

The story opens with a “queuetard” (roughly translating to “tail-dweller,” a perjorative for those in the backmost cars) named Proloff, who enacts a daring escape to the front cars only to be captured and questionsed about the deteriorating conditions in his homeland. He gains the support and friendship of Adeline Belleau, a citizen of the upper classes who belongs to a movement favoring integration and equality between the cars. Their struggle defines the first chapter, before abruptly switching to another train called the “Crève-Glace,” or “icebreaker,” and following the exploits of an arpenteur (or “explorer”) named Puig Vallès.

There are a number of twists and turns, and the writing doesn’t take pains to lay everything out for you (though part of that may have been my French, which probably fails to catch some nuance), but the story is coherent enough to propel you forward, even if there are some components that require a fair bit of suspended disbelief. The premise itself is maybe the hardest sell. I still don’t really understand why the sole survivors were on a train, and not in a bunker somewhere, nor am I sure why it was so important that it kept moving. If anything, a trai nseems liek a pretty impractical place to weather an apocalypse. WOuldnt’ the rails have been damaged in some place? And how does it keep going forever? Presumably it’s on a loop, but a loop where, and for what purpose?

I wondered about these things from time to time, but for the most part was comfortable ignoring them. Some stories are more about style than plot, and getting too hung up on technicalities can cause you to miss the positive aspects of the story, and there are several here. The characterization is rich, its heros and villains sufficiently shaded in their ethics to help you pick sides without making the good guys too good or the bad guys too bad. The dialogue is rough and natural, full of contractions and figures of speech that lend an air of verisimilitude and fit the rough-edged post-apocalyptic setting. Admittedly my French is not good enough to truly gauge the accuracy of the speech, but it sounded good to my ear (and also taught me a bunc hfo new swear words, which is an important and often neglected part of language learning. “Salaud” and “bordel” are both going in the old back pocket, as is the euphemistic, s’astiquer (politely translated as to “polish” oneself).

Lastly, I should note that when I checked the book out of the library, I assumed it was the complete series—it is titled to suggest as much—but it turns out this version was published right before a fourth and final volume was released, so I haven’t actually read the true conclusion (which surprised me, as the end seemed fitting). I am intrigued enough to seek this out at some point.