Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut. Chapter 1.
Over the years, people I’ve met have often asked me what I’m working on, and I’ve usually replied that the main thing was a book about Dresden.
I said that to Harrison Starr, the movie-maker, one time, and he raised his eyebrows and inquired, “Is it an anti-war book?”“You know what I say to people when I hear they’re writing anti-war books?”
“No. What do you say, Harrison Starr?”
“I say, ‘Why don’t you write an anti-glacier book instead?’”
What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too.
And even if wars didn’t keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death.
We still have war, yes. But Iraq is not our generation’s Vietnam. Afganistan is not our generation’s Vietnam. Even “terrorism” — that nebulous term that we too often use to describe “those who hate our freedom,” or “those who scare us,” or “they who wear turbans” — is not our generation’s Vietnam.
Lately, glaciers have proven easier to stop than wars.
I don’t think my generation has a Vietnam. I’m in college, now. The protests haven’t come. The outrage hasn’t come. The counterculture hasn’t come. Maybe it never will. But if it does, I don’t think it’ll be over any war.
He sent O’Hare a postcard at Christmastime, and here is what it said:
“I wish you and your family also as to your friend Merry Christmas and a happy New Year and I hope that we’ll meet again in a world of peace and freedom in the taxi cab if the accident will.”
