When I began to read the first assigned story—after spending too much time playing video games and remembering that I had a blog assignment to do—I became intrigued. Then I became invested. Before I knew it, I had finished it with a dreamy sigh. When I referred back to the title though, I winced: “The Long Walk to Forever” is uncomfortably reminiscent of Nicholas Sparks. This wince reminded me that Vonnegut mentioned something about this story in the preface. Much to my embarrassment, I found that he labels it “sickeningly slick”. I didn’t know what that meant at this point, mind you, but it certainly didn’t sound like a good thing.
It turns out, “slick” in this sense—as defined by dictionary.com—means “regarded as having a sophisticated, deftly executed, but shallow or glib literary content”. Now I felt secure in my shame to have so thoroughly enjoyed the story.
But why? As was discussed during our last class period, Vonnegut is either being self-aware or slightly mocking of his critics with his depreciating tone. After all, he included the short story (more aptly named “Hell to Get Along With”) in the book when he could have otherwise left it out, so he obviously found it of some worth despite essentially calling it pulp fiction.
Thanks to extensive therapy my brain flags subconscious, negative emotion and challenges my conscious brain to explain it. So, what Vonnegut thinks about his short story is less important to me than why I felt ashamed for having liked it. Why did I feel the need to justify that? Why do I cringe away from Nicholas Sparks? Why did I instinctively agree with Vonnegut’s assertion that “to have lived scenes from a lady’s magazine” is somehow indecent?
I’m not sure. But something that came to mind was Ramsay’s answer to the million-book problem. Messing about and reading books that aren’t necessarily on any “Top 100” lists is just as valid as reading solely from those lists. I’m not trying to say that all literature is created equal, but I also don’t think we should blindly adhere to socially constructed distinctions of what makes something valuable or not valuable.
Meme: Posted by u/_neo21_
https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/9trjae/wait_for_it/?utm_source=ifttt
