I truly love Kurt Vonnegut. 1 So don't take it the wrong way when I say that when I think about his prose, I think more along the lines of sneakers in the dryer than an ice-skating ballerina. You know . . . there's a rhythm and an impact, for sure . . . but it's not what you'd call elegant. In fact, that's part of the charm, isn't it? It's just straight up. For instance, in Breakfast of Champions he describes a gun as "a tool whose only purpose was to make holes in human beings." The simplicity . . . the clunkiness of it . . . is what makes it resonate in my mind, what makes it kick against the pricks. 3 So this morning while I was reading Player Piano, and ran across this line--
"They stood on the turf of the golf course now, in a muffled world of blues and blacks under the frail light of a new moon."
--it kind
of took me by surprise. I mean . . . that's fuckin' poetry, man. That's . . . ice-skating ballerina.
I'm also thinking that Under the Frail Light of a New Moon is the title of my next novel.
1 Not in a gay way. 2
2 Not that there's anything wrong with that.
3 It's not vulgar . . . it's a Biblical allusion, man. Look it up.
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