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I'm not sure where to begin in talking about this book. I know I'm not qualified to explain it to anybody. I don't think anyone is. What it says about humanity and the divine, humanity and stupidity and cruelty....is more than I can easily comprehend. What I am about to write will not be coherent commentary. At best it will be a faltering first draft. It will most represent a stream of consciousness attempt to come to terms with the important parts of the book. And that's because that is what it will be. I am posting this on the site as I write it.

Important points to return to later on:

• stupidity with Ice-9.
• science/magic and science/ignorance and science/blindness to consequences
• human cruelty vs. human kindness
• God's role...what does the author think of God?
• Lies and religion--lies and coping with the truth--when lies become true
• Kindness
• False group affiliation
• The Nazi doctor making up for his mistakes as a metaphor for us all: we could all be so noble as to dedicate our lives to making up for our sins
• "Thinking too much"

The first point that I'd like to talk about is 'thinking too much'. I definitely think too much. And I wonder if people who say that about other people might not be right. I mean really, if life is all about finding out what life is all about (or more than likely, deciding what life is about, deciding that that was a mistake and trying again and again) then one way of figuring that out is probably as good as another. Especially since no one really knows (definitively and for everyone) what life is all about. Since no one knows then any method of finding out is as good as any other.

But I don't think that's what Kurt Vonnegut was talking about when he wrote the passage that I'm thinking of. Here, let me quote it for you:

"You scientists think too much," blurted Miss Pefko. She laughed idiotically. Dr. Breed's friendliness had blown every fuse in her nervous system. She was no longer responsible. "You all think too much."

A winded, defeated-looking fat woman in filthy coveralls trudged beside us, hearing what Miss Pefko said. She turned to examine Dr. Breed, looking at him with helpless reproach. She hated people who thought too much. At that moment, she struck me as an appropriate representative for almost all mankind.

The fat woman's expression implied that she would go crazy on the spot if anybody did any more thinking."

What Vonnegut is saying here is perfectly clear. Most of mankind is pretty dumb and likes it that way. Anybody who does too much thinking just isn't normal. Or maybe he's not saying that people are dumb, since that isn't directly implied by any means. He's closer to saying that people look with contempt upon others who get lost in their own minds, searching for answers by just thinking. The majority of humans go through their lives without thinking too much about things, probably because they're too busy trying to keep body and soul together. If they thought about what life could be for them, and how much better it would be if things were different, they would no longer be content to do what they are doing. And more than likely they would simply be frustrated by their inability to make any of their thoughts real. Perhaps the unconscious philosophy here is that if you don't know how bad things are and you never think about it, then you don't get depressed about it. Or so the theory goes. I still think that people get depressed about their pointless lives even if they don't spend time agonizing over it in their heads or writing about it on web pages. The downside is that they don't even know what they're depressed about.