Pete's Log: Bluebeard Redux
Entry #2687, (Books, Writing, n such)(posted when I was 46 years old.)
At the end of February, On This Day reminded me I had read Kurt Vonnegut's Bluebeard 23 years ago. My review of the book had already been on my mind, yet I didn't actually remember much of the book. Mom likes to joke that not remembering books or movies just makes it easier to enjoy them again. So I decided to see if I'd enjoy it again, and I most certainly did.
I did not set out to beat the 24 hours I completed the book in last time, but today it was about 12 hours from start to finish, of which maybe half was spent actually reading. The book is certainly well crafted, or I wouldn't be able to finish it so quickly. It is funny and sad and cynical and optimistic.
I don't really know how to review a book for a second time—probably I should highlight how the past 23 years have changed me and thus how my experience of the book has changed. That would probably be easier if I remembered the book more.
I don't know if the passage of time was meant to be a major theme of the book, but it came to mind often this time around. The book was published in 1987, so less time had passed from the publication date to my first reading than has passed since my first reading to the present. Yet the book felt incredibly relevant to our current news landscape.
Towards the end, someone describes a challenge in their life as their "Mount Everest." To which the explanation "Mount Everest hadn't been climbed yet. That wouldn't happen until 1953" is added. To which my mind adds that Mount Everest was first summited within my parents' lifetime. Add that to the polio vaccine and the moon landing and I don't even know what else.
Growing up, one of our neighbors was a German World War II veteran. I'm not certain anymore if this is a real memory, but I think he told us how his hope during the war was to be taken prisoner by the Americans. But growing up, World War II veterans were a part of my life. In a way they aren't for younger generations. And I think about that a lot.
I dunno. What else to say? The Great Depression and World War II are major factors in our protagonist's life. And I'm less bothered about knowing in advance about the potato barn. It first comes up on page 42. It's teased throughout the whole book. It's a good book.
I learned two new vocabulary words from this book. Perhaps I learned them the last time, but I don't remember them. The first was yclept which I spent too long wondering what it was a misspelling of before actually looking it up. The other is flense, which means "to strip the blubber or skin from, as from a whale, seal, etc" and thus isn't likely to prove particularly useful. Not that every word has to be.