Return to First Unitarian Church Website

This sermon was delivered by Wesley V. Hromatko, D.Min. on 11/13/05.

Kurt Vonnegut’s Vision

by
Wesley V. Hromatko, D.Min.

© 11/13/05

There were many Unitarian Universalist writers in the nineteenth century. We might wonder about contemporary UU’s. Are we losing it? Well, there are still UU writers that are well known and have influence. The UU World has been listing some of them. Two well-known writers represent our humanists and theists. Oddly enough, they both attended Shortridge High in Indianapolis. Novelist Dan Wakefield returned to religion at King’s Chapel and wrote Returning. He has also written a guide to writing spiritual autobiography, The Story of Your Life that was published by Beacon Press in 1990. A screenwriter he was also a novelist and wrote for The Nation and Atlantic Monthly. He calls Kurt Vonnegut, his mentor. [1] Vonnegut, a hero of avant-garde literature, is president of the American Humanist Association.[2] He is still publishing but is best known for Slaughter House Five. It also was made into a movie. Modern Library chose it as one of the best novels of the twentieth century. It’s number eighteen. Yale Literary critic Harold Bloom isn’t easily pleased, but he includes it as part of the Western Canon.[3] Dan Wakefield will have to wait for another time. Since Vonnegut has been canonized he is my subject this morning. However, this sermon deals with spiritual or religious thought rather than literature.

Vonnegut’s writing is hard to classify and it sometimes ends up with science fiction. It helps to realize, however, that Vonnegut like Jonathan Swift who wrote Gulliver’s Travels is a satirist. The author even wrote a preface for a new edition of Gulliver.[4] Mark Twain in a Connecticut Yankee is another precursor.[5] Vonnegut’s oldest son was named after Twain.[6] Vonnegut’s first book Player Piano is a dystopia like Brave New World or 1984.[7] Sirens of Titan satirizes science fiction.[8] Mother Night is based on the form of a spy story[9] or mystery. Cat’s Cradle spoofs the doomsday novels such as On the Beach.[10] It like the Sirens of Titan also deals with religion.[11] Slaughter House Five is a war novel. It is against war as was Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. [12]Breakfast of Champions is a non-book or anti-novel lampooning the style of Henry James.[13] As Vonnegut might say, “And so it goes.”

Vonnegut came from a long line of cultured German immigrant skeptics. One of his ancestors arrived in the United States with six hundred books.[14] The author has a tie to the upper Midwest. His mother’s immigrant ancestors Peter and Sophie Lieber settled in New Ulm where they had a general store before moving to Indiana.[15] New Ulm once required seats for free thinkers in the town government. They debated allowing Lutheran settlers and finally let them in. New Ulm hasn’t been the same since. His great grandfather Clemens Vonnegut, a freethinker, wrote a book, Instruction in Morals, and his own eulogy read at his 1906 funeral in Indianapolis.[16]

Freethinker or not is Vonnegut really a Unitarian or did he just have similar ideas? He has said that he is.[17] Unitarian minister Francis Scott Corey Wicks in Indianapolis married Vonnegut’s parents.[18] Vonnegut’s father, a prominent Indianapolis architect designed the first building for the congregation. His parents were members of All Souls in Indianapolis [19] and UU minister Jack Mendelsohn named his son for him. Jack Mendelsohn first met Vonnegut the author at his father’s 1957 funeral. [20] Vonnegut’s son Kurt even once considered becoming a UU minister.[21] Vonnegut has even admitted to attending a Unitarian church, “The minister said one Easter Sunday that, if we listened closely to the bell on his church, we would hear it was singing, over and over again, “No hell, no hell, no hell.”[22] Vonnegut was the 1986 Ware Lecturer at General Assembly in 1986[23] and in memory of William Ellery Channing on his 200th birthday at First Parish, Cambridge, Massachusetts.[24] In “Who Am I this Time” which was made into a television program for American Playhouse one of the characters is Harry Nash who as a baby was left on the steps of the Unitarian Church.[25]

One of Vonnegut’s main ideas is human dignity.[26] Human dignity has been central to Unitarian Universalists since the time of Channing. When Vonnegut spoke at Cambridge Unitarian church he recalled Channing’s great idea of human dignity. [27] Considering the unusual and bizarre characters in some of the novels we might think dignity is the last thing Vonnegut would value. Human dignity means however that people have value as people no matter who they are. One of the authors concerns is automation since the time he published Player Piano, his first novel. If we value people only for what they can make, if they are put of jobs by automation then they are no longer economically valuable.[28] The hope of automation was that machinery would take the burden out of dirty, hard jobs and give people leisure. Instead machinery can make people superfluous if we only think of them as inefficient machinery. In God Bless You Mr. Rosewater human dignity is a major theme. Rosewater takes care of those society values the least.[29] Eliot Rosewater is perhaps mad or driven mad. In a hardhearted business world he would have to be. [30] On the other hand, he reminds us of Albert Schweitzer and mother Theresa. Rosewater protests that he isn’t religious but he knows only one rule “….you’ve got to be kind.” [31] Emerson in our reading this morning agrees.

Another of the author’s ideas is the importance of family and society. The cultured German community of his Indianapolis childhood valued family and community. He laments the loss of community and the pervasive sense of loneliness in modern life.[32] In his talk about Channing Vonnegut wishes he could have lived in the secure and prosperous world of nineteenth century Boston. Drawing upon his study of anthropology at the University of Chicago he calls it a folk society. Channing realized the society was changing. He called upon his congregation to realize that other people had human dignity. Channing didn’t live long enough to see the end of his world, but he knew that we had to realize our common humanity.[33] The family Vonnegut thinks is the way to end loneliness and realize our human nature. In his novel Slapstick Wilbur Swain is elected president of the United States. He promised to end loneliness. Using a computer Swain arbitrarily assigns everyone to a family. Green death and Albanian flu destroy the structure of American society and only the created family groups remain. Belonging to these arbitrary families reduces violence and conflict.[34] Paradoxically, computers that dehumanized Player Piano’s world now make a better world possible.

Vonnegut believes in family. He adopted his nephews and their dogs when their mother and father died in 1958. She died of cancer and his commuter train went off an open bridge.[35] He genuinely valued family but his own first marriage ended in divorce. He and his first wife argued about religion before their divorce,[36] but, of course, that wasn’t the whole story. He now realizes that he has a physical problem. Once every twenty day he says that he “blew his cork.”[37] The novelist’s mother committed suicide[38] and his son Mark had a serious breakdown. Mark who is now a doctor wrote a book The Eden Express telling about his experiences. He thinks of these problems as physical and doesn’t romanticize them.[39] His father, the author, has had treatment for his highs and lows and the scientific explanation for motivation found its way into his book Breakfast of Champions.[40] Although his daughters became born again Christians,[41] Vonnegut persisted in his own humanism. Speaking of one of them he said he doesn’t argue; he is just glad if she isn’t lonely.[42] His family actually turned out quite well, all six of them.[43] In spite of normal everyday disasters like a car crash,[44] and Mark’s breakdown they made it. His daughter survived in spite of knowing a serial killer, Tony Costa. He murdered young women and could be a character on television.[45] There is a doctor, Mark, Steve a comedy writer,[46] a cabinet maker, who was in the Peace Corps,[47] Kurt a builder of post and beam houses,[48] and two artistic daughters, Nanette and Edith.[49] The family really enjoyed being a family and coming together for reunions.[50] Vonnegut has now remarried and survived an apartment fire in 2000.[51]

The voluntary association is important to Unitarian Universalists. Vonnegut and his characters find substitute extended families in voluntary associations.[52] The best place for Harry Nash as an abandoned baby was to give him to the extended family called a Unitarian Church. Harry finds love in another voluntary association, the community theater.[53] In the novels the voluntary association of all voluntary associations is the volunteer fire department. It represents the antidote for all the hate in the world. He mentions the fire trucks as a symbol in Sirens of Titan.[54] In God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Rosewater killed two German firemen by mistake in World War II and ever afterwards has valued and supported them. Kilgore Trout, the author’s alter ego, tells Rosewater that firemen are

“…almost the only examples of enthusiastic unselfishness to be seen in this land. They rush to the rescue of any human being and count not the cost. The most contemptible man in town…will see his enemies put the fire out. And as he pokes through the ashes…he will be comforted and pitied by no less than the fire chief…. There we have people treasuring people as people. It’s extremely rare. So from this we must learn.”[55]

There is a prophetic side to Kurt Vonnegut’s religion in spite of his emphasis on family and caring relationships. His prophetic side resonates well with many Unitarian Universalists. He is concerned about ecology and war.[56] Looking at his family tree he says, “I find no war lovers of any kind.”[57] Having been a forward scout for Patton who survived the bombing of Dresden he knows something about war. He was awarded a purple heart.[58] My favorite section of Slaughter House Five is the part where the bombers fly backwards. The bombs go back in the planes and the planes fly backwards to be taken apart and made harmless. The author made a recording of the passage to music. Dresden was an artistic treasure it wasn’t important as a military target. He survived the bombing under the slaughterhouse. [59] Recently the Dresden Frauenkirche was rebuilt and dedicated.

Civil Liberties and particularly freedom of speech are also important to him as they are to other Unitarian Universalists. He had no more use for Soviet repression than any other.[60] His books have not been merely condemned but actually burned in Drake North Dakota. The worst language in Slaughter House Five was a soldier using soldier’s language.[61] To write about Dresden without crying took twenty years.[62] Never the less, he claims he isn’t a radical. He just really believes what he learned in school. “Everything I believe I was taught in junior Civics during the great depression at school 43 in Indianapolis.”[63] He does admire Eugene Debs, the Indiana Socialist who ran for president five times as a person.[64]

Vonnegut is a genuinely religious man who believes that morality can exist without traditional religion. He satirized religion in Sirens of Titan with The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent. The Sirens of Titan pokes fun at predestination.[65] It is a metaphysical shaggy dog story.[66] In Cat’s Cradle religion is harmless and untrue but it helps people bear their miserable lives on a Caribbean island like Haiti.[67] Ironically he shares his birth date with Dostoevsky who famously believed that without God there can be no morality. Vonnegut believes in morality. He believes we are all responsible for each other.[68] Morality alone, however, isn’t enough. For a long time he has been telling his listeners, “Please notice when you are happy.” Satirist or not you might think he has a spiritual side.

Vonnegut claims to be a “Christ worshipping agnostic.”[69] Vonnegut’s only true children’s book tells the story of how Jesus was born as a human baby.[70] For his born again daughter he started to write a passion play without God. The last of Jesus’ followers gathered near the cross. He was suffering high above them. All they could do was to try to talk to him, to sing to him. Finally, they went down on their knees exhausted. One Roman says to them “The way you are worshipping him, you would think he was the son of Your God.” One of them maybe Mary Magdalene replies, “Oh no, sir. If he were the Son of our God, he would not need us. It is because he is a common human being exactly like us that we are here—doing as common people must, what little we can.”[71]

On a recent edition of NOW he was interviewed about his new book of essays, Man Without a Country. Dealing with current events, religion, and morality he read from the Sermon on the Mount. In the book he says, “How do humanists feel about Jesus? I say of Jesus as all humanists do, “If what he said is good, and so much of it is absolutely beautiful what does it matter if he was God or not?” “….if Christ hadn’t delivered the Sermon the Mount, with its message of mercy and pity, I wouldn’t want to be a human being. I’d just as soon be a rattlesnake.”[72]

[1] Derek Alger, “Dan Wakefield,” PIF Nov. 7, 2005, http://www.pifmagazine.com/SID/722/?page=2&

[2] UUA Directory 2005.

[3]Bob Thompson, “The Hand of Time,” Washington Post, Oct. 12, 2005. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/11/AR2005101101844_… 10/19/05.

[4]Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981),355

[5] Donald L. Lawler,”Vonnegut in Academe (II) in Vonnegut in America: An Introdution to the Life and work of Kurt Vonnegut, ed. Jerome Klinkowitz and Donald lawler (NY: A Delta Book: Dell Publishing, 1977), 191.

[6] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 169-172.

[7]Jerome Klinkowitz, Kurt Vonnegut (London and New York: Methuen Co. Ltd, 1982), 36.

[8] Jerome Klinkowitz, Kurt Vonnegut (London and New York: Methuen Co. Ltd, 1982), 41.

[9] Jerome Klinkowitz, Kurt Vonnegut (London and New York: Methuen Co. Ltd, 1982), 46.

[10] Jerome Klinkowitz, Kurt Vonnegut (London and New York: Methuen Co. Ltd, 1982), 52; Stanley Schatt, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976), 67-68.

[11] Stanley Schatt, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976), 62f.

[12] Jerome Klinkowitz, Kurt Vonnegut (London and New York: Methuen Co. Ltd, 1982), 64-5

[13] Stanley Schatt, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976), 98.

[14] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), p.23.

[15] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981),28-29.

[16] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 192-3.

[17] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 164; Kurt Vonnegut Wampeters, Forma, & Granfalloons (NY: Dell, 1989) 31

[18] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 51.

[19] “Indianapolis Centennial,” UU World March/April 2004 http://www.uua.org/world/2004/02/newsinthecongregations.html Nov 10, 2005

[20] Jack Mendelsohn, “Re: Kurt Vonnegut” September 8, 2003. Email in possession of the author.

[21] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 31.

[22] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 204.

[23]“History of the Ware Lecture,” http://www.uua.org/ga/ware.html as retrieved on Nov 10, 2005.

[24] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 210.

[25] Kurt Vonnegut, “Who Am I This Time,” Welcome to the Monkey House (London, UK: Panther Books Limited, 1972), 28.

[26] Jerome Klinkowitz, “Vonnegut in America” in Vonnegut in America: An Introduction to the Life and Work of Kurt Vonnegut, ed. Jerome Klinkowitz and Donald Lawler (NY: A Delta Book: Dell Publishing, 1977), 31.

[27] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 213.

[28] Jerome Klinkowitz, “Vonnegut in America” in Vonnegut in America: An Introduction to the Life and Work of Kurt Vonnegut, ed. Jerome Klinkowitz and Donald Lawler (NY: A Delta Book: Dell Publishing, 1977), 31.

[29] Jerome Klinkowitz, “Vonnegut in America” in Vonnegut in America: An Introduction to the Life and Work of Kurt Vonnegut, ed. Jerome Klinkowitz and Donald Lawler (NY: A Delta Book: Dell Publishing, 1977), 31.

[30] Kurt Vonnegut,Jr., God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (NY: Dell Publishing, 1965), 92.

[31]Kurt Vonnegut,Jr., God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (NY: Dell Publishing, 1965), 177; Stanley Schatt, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976), 69.

[32] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 113.

[33] Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 211-213.

[34]Stanley Schatt, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976), 114.

[35] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 244.

[36] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 192.

[37] Kurt Vonnegut, Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons (NY: Dell, 1989), 252.

[38] Stanley Schatt, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976), 15.

[39] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 238; 241.

[40] Kurt Vonnegut, Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons (NY: Dell, 1989), 252-3.

[41] Stanley Schatt, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976),235.

[42] Stanley Schatt, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976), 216-217.

[43] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 244.

[44] Kurt Vonnegut, Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons (NY: Dell, 1989), 249.

[45] Kurt Vonnegut, Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons (NY: Dell, 1989), 66f.

[46] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 248

[47]Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 244.

[48] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 247

[49] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 252.

[50] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 249.

[51] Bob Thompson, “The Hand of Time,” Washington Post, October 12, 2005 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-syn/content/article/2005/10/11/AR2005101101844_… 10/19/05

[52] Jerome Klinkowitz, Kurt Vonnegut (London and New York: Methuen Co. Ltd, 1982), 29-30

[53] Kurt Vonnegut, “Who Am I This Time,” Welcome to the Monkey House (London, UK: Panther Books Limited, 1972), 36-37.

[54] Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., The Sirens of Titan (NY: Dell, 1959), 242.

[55]David H. Goldsmith, Kurt Vonnegut: Fantasist of Fire and Ice (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1972), 23.

[56] Stanley Schatt, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976), 155.

[57] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 18

[58] Stanley Schatt, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976), 15-16: “Chronology,”n.p.

[59] Bob Thompson, “The Hand of Time,” Washington Post, October 12, 2005 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-syn/content/article/2005/10/11/AR2005101101844_… 10/19/05

[60] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 1f.

[61] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 4.

[62] Stanley Schatt, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976), 16.

[63] Jerome Klinkowitz, Kurt Vonnegut (London and New York: Methuen Co. Ltd, 1982), 29

[64] Kurt Vonnegut, Man Without a Country (NY: Seven Stories Press, 2005).

[65] Stanley Schatt, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976), 39.

[66] Donald L. Lawler, “The Sirens of Titan: Vonnegut’s Metaphysical Shaggy Dog Story” Vonnegut in America: An Introduction to the Life and Work of Kurt Vonnegut, ed. Jerome Klinkowitz and Donald Lawler (NY: A Delta Book: Dell Publishing, 1977),277.

[67] Stanley Schatt, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976), 63.

[68] Donald M. Fiene, ”Kurt Vonnegut as an American Dissident,” Vonnegut in America: An Introduction to the Life and Work of Kurt Vonnegut, ed. Jerome Klinkowitz and Donald Lawler (NY: A Delta Book: Dell Publishing, 1977), 277.

[69] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981),327.

[70] Jerome Klinkowitz, Kurt Vonnegut (London and New York: Methuen Co. Ltd, 1982), 69. Kurt Vonnegut with Ivan Chermayeff, Sun Moon Star (NY: Harper & Row, 1980).

[71] Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday (NY: Delacorte Press, 1981), 217-218.

[72] Kurt Vonnegut, Man Without a Country, ed. Daniel Simon (NY, London, UK, Melbourne, Toronto: Seven Stories Press, 2005) 80-1.