Tag Archives: Kurt Vonnegut

Hopelessness is the mother of Originality

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I quote the poet Kris Kristofferson: "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose." There find encapsulated the benefit to a gifted person of being culled. Having nothing left to lose frees people to think their own thoughts, since there is no longer anything to be gained by echoing the thoughts of those around them. Hopelessness is the mother of Originality.

And the three lovely daughters of Originality in turn, the granddaughters of Hopelessness, as this volume demonstrates, are Hope, the Gratitude of Others, and Unshakable Self-respect.

--Kurt Vonnegut, "Appendix: Unpublished Essay by Me, Written After Reading Galleys of an Anthology of First-rate Poems and Short Prose Pieces by Persons Who Were or Are in Institutions for the Mentally Ill," Fates Worse Than Death (1990)

New books today

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The last thing that I need is more books. Which is why I went and bought a few more books today.

Of course, this time it wasn't quite as financially demanding as it used to be, when I would almost compulsively raid the Barnes and Noble at Seven Corners in Falls Church, Virginia. This time, the Pollard Memorial Library in Lowell was hosting a used book sale as a fundraiser. The three books that departed with me cost a grand total of $3 (which included a $0.50 raffle ticket for... I'm not sure what it was for).

It was a good excuse to get outside, walk along the canals in the morning sun, test another Lowell coffee shop (Caffe Paradiso, my favorite out of two so far).

Here are the new additions to my library:

  • Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut. If anyone needs to know why I picked up a Kurt Vonnegut book, even if the dustcover was ripped all to hell, immediately leave this site, never come back.
  • The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
  • The More Than Complete Hitchhikers Guide by Douglas Adams. This book has all four books of the trilogy in one volume. As a former member of the space cadet cult, I was still a sort of outsider because I had never read any science fiction. (I read the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson when I was in grad school, but I would classify that one under "geriatric sex," not "science fiction.") I have, however, played a little bit of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy on the Commodore 64. I'll give them a try. I'm no longer accepted by the space cadets, so maybe the books will be more fun without the corresponding baggage.

By the way, I'm kittell on LibraryThing.