tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post7404135901103465718..comments2024-03-07T12:57:35.296-05:00Comments on Varieties of Unreligious Experience: Exhaustive enumerationConrad H. Rothhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-69684377801402506722007-09-29T18:09:00.000-04:002007-09-29T18:09:00.000-04:00G and LH: thanks.Steven: Yes, I've always had a so...G and LH: thanks.<BR/><BR/>Steven: Yes, I've always had a soft spot for Vonnegut. It seems dirty to even mention Amis in the same paragraph. Still, Bin Laden as Bokonon, eh? I like it! <BR/><BR/>Jaime: "a winking representation of 3 delightful little carbon dioxide bubbles rising through an alcoholic beverage."<BR/><BR/>Ingenious!Conrad H. Rothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01916542057749474124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-53170904853146860622007-09-29T11:38:00.000-04:002007-09-29T11:38:00.000-04:00"It would have been better to put a full stop afte..."It would have been better to put a full stop after 'zymometers' and leave the novel at that." <BR/><BR/>Agreed, though with one qualification. The ellipsis would have had to stay. Horrible way to end a book, functionally, but observe-<BR/><BR/>1. A zymometer is an "an instrument for measuring degree of fermentation." <BR/><BR/>2. That ellipsis, in this context, was <I>surely</I> (surely!) meant to serve as a winking representation of 3 delightful little carbon dioxide bubbles rising through an alcoholic beverage. <BR/><BR/>And since-<BR/><BR/>3. The final scene in the book, as it was published, centers around the performing of a toast with a bottle of just such a delightful beverage, and ends with the subsequent smashing of said bottle against a rock, which would have, of course, freed those little carbon dioxide bubbles to scatter off, just so- ...<BR/><BR/>4. Ultimately, if taken as a visual pun, the word zymometers followed by an ellipsis elegantly provides all the clues necessary to ascertain the emotional content intended in the author's resolution. <BR/><BR/>Really it's all any diligently hyper-aware lateral-thinking reader would need to sit in a poorly lit coffee shop, nodding knowingly, with a wry smile playing across his face.<BR/><BR/>Elementary my dear Conrad!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-59568715492415244472007-09-29T11:24:00.000-04:002007-09-29T11:24:00.000-04:00Conrad! I never would have taken you for a fan of ...Conrad! I never would have taken you for a fan of Vonnegut's, but this is deft-and-compressed an appreciation as anyone could hope for (with the bonus of an editorial suggestion so just it hurts to think it'll never be heeded). <BR/><BR/>Vonnegut foresaw the PC dystopia of our Now all the way back in '61 ("Harisson Bergeron"), figured out the Bin Laden-Bush relationship in "Cat's Cradle", slipped Martin Amis the idea for "Time's Arrow" (in the bombing-in-reverse sequence from "Slaughterhouse 5") and gave the secular cadaver of the American "Left" an identifiably sane, charming and reasonable face. And he could write *rings* around Gore Vidal, the anti-Vonnegut who manages to package *his* populism in the purplest snobbery.<BR/><BR/>But, back to the subject of literary list-making: isn't Vonnegut the direct heir, in temperament and list-making both (though minus, *perhaps*, the bisexuality), to Walt Whitman?<BR/><BR/>"I see plenteous waters,<BR/>I see mountain peaks, I see the sierras of Andes where they<BR/> range,<BR/>I see plainly the Himalayas, Chian Shahs, Altays, Ghauts,<BR/>I see the giant pinnacles of Elbruz, Kazbek, Bazardjusi,<BR/>I see the Styrian Alps, and the Karnac Alps,<BR/>I see the Pyrenees, Balks, Carpathians, and to the north the<BR/> Dofrafields, and off at sea mount Hecla,<BR/>I see Vesuvius and Etna, the mountains of the Moon..."<BR/><BR/>(what a glittering wordchain, and long before wikipedia, too)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-82770419674135175312007-09-29T10:58:00.000-04:002007-09-29T10:58:00.000-04:00Well spotted, well discussed.Well spotted, well discussed.Languagehathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13285708503881129380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20433842.post-7590670775167138112007-09-28T20:32:00.000-04:002007-09-28T20:32:00.000-04:00That is a great list. Thanks.That is a great list. Thanks.Sir Ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07953581535133000686noreply@blogger.com