Word: backed
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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KILGORE TROUT IS BACK. He's a little older and a little more tired, but he's survived and is among us once again...
...best elements of his previous novels. Starbuck's screwed-up, out-of-control life is grotesquely fictitious, yes; but Vonnegut makes it clear that there, but for the obvious absurdity of the storyline, go we. In Jailbird, Vonnegut's tenth novel, Kilgore Trout a.k.a. Starbuck goes beyond and back-he visits the depths of Harvardiana and survives. The story is inspirational, the Vonnegutisms ("Small world") are typically comforting, and his black humor is as sordid as ever. Jailbird will make you eager for more Vonnegut, and with any luck, Kilgore Trout will be back again...
...elaborate Maginot Line of prepared defenses since Joyce had Stuart Gilbert write a whole book under his "supervision" to explicate Ulysses. Barth demands that Joycean parallel. You could spend a month, a year, maybe a life detecting patterns within patterns in Ulysses; at the end you might look back and wonder why you bothered, but at least you'd have met thousands of smart people along the way. You can spend the same time with Letters and find equally pleasing patterns, but then look over your shoulder and your only company's the reeling silence...
...guiding patterns of Letters are like those abstract coffee-table sculptures that come apart into little pieces, then stand whole again only as a testimony to the dogged persistence of the party guest who sat there all night putting the damn thing back together again. You can play that game if you want to; stand in line for your Ph.D in Contemporary...
...banished him to Iran (as ambassador) because the President was furious when Helms refused to enlist the CIA in the Watergate cover-up. The CIA was not directly behind the break-in (though some who were had worked for the Agency), says Helms, and the facts seem to back...