Cat's Cradle - Vonnegut

A dark, satirical, humourous middle finger extended to everyone in Capitalist Christian and Science Loving America for about 250 rapid-fire pages that takes us through the post-war United States and the defilement of social structure which we felt necessary to sacrifice for peace, and ends up in a completely dystopian, end-of-world, doomsday moment of Zen on a deserted island. What could be more fun?

I read this book in order to become more familiar with the works of Mr. Vonnegut. I'm not too huge a fan of his work, if you can believe it. The only book I had read prior to this that he has written was Slaughterhouse V. And even though it makes nearly everyone's list of American books from the last century that are must reads, I just was not too impressed by it. It was simple, and whilst trying to come of as sad, almost seemed to come of as pathetic. To make matters worse, I just really did not understand why it has such a religious following. Honestly, if I never met a guy with a tattoo of a quote from that book on his arm, I may have been able to enjoy it more.

I think another part of the problem was that I felt I was missing something. Like there was a truly epic experience that the book offered that I just missed out on, probably due to the fact that I skipped out on reading Slaughterhouses I through IV. "This tends to happen when you pick up Book V and start there," I thought. "Surely someone did the same with 'Heretics of Dune' or 'Harry Potter and the Fifth Book of the Franchise.'"

Anyway, you don't need a fanatic loyalty pledged to Kurt Vonnegut to be able to enjoy this book. It just is, on its own, very enjoyable, fast, and darkly funny. Its statement on religion, philosophy, and science is tremendous and, if you are quite the cynic, accurate. Celebrating a genius like Albert Einstein for giving us the power of atomic energy, probably not the best idea. Let alone thinking about that power and knowledge in the wrong hands. Really made me want to go jam to O.M.D’s popular 80’s hit, and one of the best songs of 80’s electronica bar none, Enola Gay. 

This book has indeed inspired me to go for more in terms of Vonnegut literature, even though I maintain I am not a devout follower, nor even yet a fellow traveller. Which reminds me, you can claim loyalty not to him but to fun phrases and terms he makes up: like Bokononism, wampeters, granfalloons (people pretending to be a part of a made-up cause), so it goes (death), and, thanks to the next Vonnegut book I've started:  chrono-synclastic infundibulum.

The Cold Dish - Craig Johnson

Gazpacho is a dish best served cold. That is mostly what this book is about. Cold dish stuff. Like revenge. And vengeance. And avenging someone. Any and all venge related words happen here, and the Sheriff is trying to play detective to prevent the vengeant from avenging, revenging, and vengancing the vengee. The characters are pretty good in this story. The main character is a bit down, feeling sorry for himself, and lives in a self-loathed squalor. But he truly is a great sheriff, very representative of small town law enforcement. Even drinks on his way home in his cruiser.

After his wife died, he did not necessarily go into a deep dark depression, but instead just melted into a sloppy, unmotivated, unambitious version of himself. Then the murder happens. Talk about a hell of a shot, ballistics and detective work eventually find out the round was from a Sharps .45-70. One of the best rifles ever made. Not so much a rifle, really, but a shoulder cannon. Or better yet, an explosion that just hurls a baseball weight of lead at its target hard enough to put a bison down at 300 yards. Hence the name, Buffalo Rifle. It is also capable of taking down a person at a better range, though that takes a great shot and even a bit of luck, as the bullets do not fly very true beyond 500 yards, which tends to be its practical range for shooting targets in the field.

In any event, the author knows much about this gun and other guns in general, and as the sheriff learns about them, everyone gets walked through the history and the mechanics of these  breech loading canons. Truly awesome weapons, but very difficult to shoot. Pretty funny, also, that there are so many in such a small town. Irony that is not lost upon the sheriff, which I appreciate. Kind of like a moment when the character in the story says “this story is sort of weird, but okay.” I think this happened on multiple occasions, but my memory is a bit foggy on the other instance. It was something to the effect of him answering another member of the community with “I’m not sure it’s a murder mystery yet, but if it is, there aren’t many butlers in these parts.” Not sure the details of the joke, but I make butler jokes all the time in murder stories so I thought it was great.

Again, the characters were all great, Henry Standing Bear probably the best of them all. Omar in perhaps a close second, but virtually all characters, very minor or major, had their own identity, contributed something to the storyline, and created that bit of small-town community whilst still being true to the small-town drama queens that I am more than just a little familiar with.

The pace was great, the mystery was pretty good, and the ending was getting to be a bit frustrating but ended up being okay. Violent, and violent to the point of the author taking the approach “we don’t need to talk about how gross that is, but trust me, it is devastatingly disgusting.” A .45-70 is capable of incredible damage, and I felt the damage it did to the murder victims wasn’t sensationalized or over-exaggerated. But in the end? Best we all don’t know how that one ended up looking.

This was enough to throw the sheriff into a strange depression. It lasts for several weeks, and by the time the book is over we don’t know if it will last longer, be something he carries with him forever or just gets over and gets back to being the sheriff. Guess we’ll have to read the next one to find out.

The combination of old school style, vaguely sexist and only slightly above the law, makes me think of the noir mystery novels I really like. But set in a contemporary western environment I can relate to much more. Pretty good combination, though I still will deny it being a great book, I will say it is a good one. Maybe because a mystery series just isn’t really my thing.