Word: novelized
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Secret Rendezvous is a gruesome book, and a grueling book, but not a great one. Many of its ideas are not new; the existential themes of man's isolation and sickness date from as far back as The Woman in the Dunes (1964), Abe's first novel and still his most popular in the West. The weakness of Secret Rendezvous lies not in its ideas, which were presented successfully in Abe's first book but in its format. In adopting the medium of fantasy, an author hopes to convince the reader not with the poignant accuracy of his images...
...unless a lot is lost in translation, Abe's new novel is closer to outright farce: the crudeness and grotesqueness of its images entirely alienate the reader. Apart from the initial shock of meeting Abe's characters, there is little else besides some black humor; the reader is left stunned, unable to identify with the narrator or to place the story in a familiar or meaningful perspective. Secret Rendezvous leaves the reader provoked, but unmoved, and while he must respect the profundity of Abe's vision, the novel does not convince him to share...
...honcho controlling RAMJAC is a shopping bag lady--she is too important to live luxuriously in public--who carries RAMJAC's important documents in the toes of her purple sneakers. She is, of course, from Cambridge, Mass. At the end of the novel, Walter finds himself in a legal mess concerning RAMJAC which will land him in jail once again. Yet, like all Vonnegut heroes, he still believes, like the rest of us, "that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool...
With Jailbird Vonnegut finally succeeeds in meshing the 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...
...novel opens, Kinsman is 21, an idealistic Air Force test pilot. He loves to fly, and he wants to be an astronaut. He is told: "You don't believe they'll actually give you what you want, do you? They'll use you for cannon fodder... They'll put you in a war plane and order you to kill people." Kinsman, already straining his Quaker heritage by joining the military, vows he won't be a pawn of a system he does not like but must deal with to get what he wants--into space...