Author gives wisdom on life, writing & politics

With razor sharp wit and a whiteboard, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., the acclaimed fiction writer, shared his views on everything from writing to politics to life with a packed auditorium last night. The first speaker for Lecture Series this year, Vonnegut spoke to over 620 people.

"If you really want to hurt your parents and you don't have nerve enough to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts," Vonnegut said. The point of art is the satisfaction and sense of accomplishment obtained through creation _ not fame and fortune, he said.

The author, who turns 80 on Monday, confided that this might be one of the last times he speaks at a university, due to the increasing difficulties of traveling. Lecture series paid Vonnegut $25,500 to speak last night, capitalizing on the fact that he was already in the area due to a book signing at the Harvard Coop today. Vonnegut, a World War II veteran and a socialist, originally studied to be a chemist _ a perspective that he has brought into his own work and the critique of others. He explained his views on literature with the assistance of two axis he drew on a whiteboard: The vertical line representing the range of happiness to misery and the horizontal beginning to end.

Upon these, he demonstrated that all of the best genres typically experience a low point on the vertical axis during the story and then rise up towards the end, except for Shakespeare, who was "as poor a story teller as any Arapaho."

After studying anthropology at the University of Chicago, Vonnegut concluded that "All the primitive stories were lousy, they were level. It proved to me again that they deserved to lose."

The speech touched on politics as well, and Vonnegut placed himself against the Bush administration and its intentions of going to war with Iraq. "Whenever we do this sort of thing.... we kill so many people, men women and children in the process of getting the bad guy," he said.

He said today's government is "television," and politicians don't like peace because it is not entertaining. "What is entertaining is revenge," he said, linking Bush's desire to overthrow Saddam Hussein to his father's failure to overthrow him.

Recent economical scandals like Enron, Vonnegut said, illustrate the need for economics courses to include discussion of morality. He suggested a medical text, The Mask of Sanity, now out of print, as standard reading for any economics or political science course in college

He also encouraged audience members to read Howard Zinn's The People's History of the United States. Zinn, who visited Tufts last month, was frequently referred to by Vonnegut for his friendship and political views. Both are vocal about their stance against the prospect of war in Iraq.

He recommended adding Othello's Iago into any story that young writers struggle with. He said Iago would make other characters "bounce" around. Vonnegut also emphasized that nobody should ever use the semicolon, which he called "hermaphrodite transvestites," that serve no purpose. "The only reason to use one is to show you've been to college."

The audience was treated to a preview of his unfinished book, which he called "so pessimistic that it breaks my heart." Excerpts of the work proved to be very much in line with Vonnegut's previous works, displaying biting humor that pierces through societal illusions _ attacking the nation's obsession with petroleum and its disregard for the environment.

One of the characters in the book, a mauve Martian, said that after ten years of studying American culture, Martians would never understand the obsession with "blow jobs and golf."

In addition to his novels, Vonnegut is an avid drawer. Although none of his works have been in an exhibition, he said a representative of the Whitney Museum is coming to look at his works later in the month. Many of his drawings have been included in his novels as part of the story.

Students were impressed by the humor and intelligence Vonnegut displayed during the speech.

"He was amazing," sophomore Sangeeta Parekh said. "It was really exciting to hear him talk, and I was surprised at how funny he was."

Vonnegut, who originally began his career as a journalist, ended the way he wraps up most of his talks. He asked audience members to tell their neighbor the name of a teacher that truly inspired them. He then encouraged the audience to appreciate "being happy now," quoting his Uncle Oleg. "If this isn't nice what is?"