Section 8. 2-Way Interpreting

Ex1. Arrange language practice in group of three, with one playing the role of an interpreter.

Kurt Vonnegut Interview

Some quotes

• “When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.”

• “I think human beings are awful animals. Let's pack it in. Let's stop reproducing. We're wrecking the place.”

• “The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.”

• “I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.”

• “One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.”

• “Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you'll look back and realize they were big things.”

• “Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead.”

1. Q: You are a veteran of the Second World War?

Kurt Vonnegut: Yes. I want a military funeral when I die—the bugler, the flag on the casket, the ceremonial firing squad, the hallowed ground. It will be a way of achieving what I’ve always wanted more than anything—something I could have had, if only I’d managed to get myself killed in the war.

Q: After you were captured, you were shipped to Dresden?

Kurt Vonnegut: In the same boxcars that had brought up the troops that captured us—probably in the same boxcars that had delivered Jews and Gypsies and Jehovah’s Witnesses and so on to the extermination camps. As a private, I was shipped to Dresden...

Q: In Slaughterhouse-Five, you write about the firebombing of Dresden. Why didn’t you wish to testify?

Kurt Vonnegut: I had a German name. I didn’t want to argue with people who thought Dresden should have been bombed to hell. All I ever said in my book was that Dresden, willy-nilly, was bombed to hell.

Q: A couple of months later came Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Vonnegut: The most racist, nastiest act by this country, after human slavery, was the bombing of Nagasaki. Not of Hiroshima, which might have had some military significance. But Nagasaki was purely blowing away yellow men, women, and children. I’m glad I’m not a scientist because I’d feel so guilty now.

2. Q: What do you think of the efficacy of people turning out at protests and marching?

Vonnegut: I’m an old guy, and I was protesting during the Vietnam War. We killed fifty Asians for every loyal American. Every artist worth a damn in this country was terribly opposed to that war, finally, when it became evident what a fiasco and meaningless butchery it was.

Q: What’s your take on George Bush?

Kurt Vonnegut: We have a President who knows absolutely no history, and he is surrounded by men who pay no attention to history. They imagine that they are great politicians inventing something new. In fact, it’s really quite old stuff: tyranny. But they imagine they’re being creative.

Q: In 1946, Hermann Goering said at Nuremberg, “Of course, the people don’t want war.... But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.” Does it work the same way in the United States?

Vonnegut: Of course it does. Bush wouldn’t know what I’m talking about because he isn’t responsive to history, but now we’ve had our Reichstag Fire. After the First World War, Germany was trying to build a democracy. Then when the Reichstag, the legislature, was burned down in 1933, this was seen as such an emergency that human rights had to be suspended. The attack on the World Trade Towers has allowed Bush and his gang to do anything. What are we to do now?

Q: So what’s the old man’s game, then?

My country is in ruins. So I’m a fish in a poisoned fishbowl. I’m mostly just heartsick about this. There should have been hope. This should have been a great country. But we are despised all over the world now. I was hoping to build a country and add to its literature. That’s why I served in World War II, and that’s why I wrote books.

3. Q: Shaw, who you’ve described as a hero of yours, was also a socialist.

Vonnegut: It’s perfectly ordinary to be a socialist. It’s perfectly normal to be in favor of fire departments. There was a time when I could vote for economic justice, and I can’t anymore. I cast my first vote for a socialist candidate—Norman Thomas, a Christian minister.

Q: Christianity pervades your spirit.

Vonnegut: Well, of course. It’s good writing. I don’t care whether it’s God or not, but the Sermon on the Mount is a masterpiece, and so is the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” In 1844, Karl Marx said, “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” He might as well have said, “Religion is the aspirin of the people.”

Q: We live in a very visual world today. Do words have any power left? What about the importance of reading books?

Vonnegut: It’s hard to read and write. To expect somebody to read a book is like having someone arrive at a concert hall and be immediately handed a violin and told to go up onstage. It’s an astonishing skill that people can read, and read well. Very few people can read well. To stare at horizontal lines of phonetic symbols and Arabic numbers and to be able to put a show on in your head, it requires the reader to perform. If you can do it, you can go whaling in the South Pacific with Herman Melville, or you can watch Madame Bovary make a mess of her life in Paris.

Q: Tell me the reasons you’ve been attracted to a life of creation, whether as a writer or an artist.

Kurt Vonnegut: I’ve been drawing all my life, just as a hobby, without really having shows or anything. It’s just an agreeable thing to do, and I recommend it to everybody. I always say to people, practice an art, no matter how well or badly you do it, because then you have the experience of becoming, and it makes your soul grow.