<i>Deadeye Dick</i> by Kurt Vonnegut

I swear I read somewhere that this was Vonnegut's favorite of his own works. I can't though, put a source to it---and a Time obituary says it was Slaughterhouse Five. Despite the internal mis-attribution, I enjoyed the book.

This is a self contained novel compared to other Vonnegut works where characters, words and phrases are shared. Like Player Piano in that sense: it almost seems like a different author. We become wrapped up with one character and his personal story and it is not outside events that shape his life (like Billy Pilgrim w/WWII), but his own actions (shooting into the night, writing a play).

Even with the main character (Rudy) acting without pressure from an exterior crisis, the book covers the regular Vonnegut theme of the inevitableness of life (there is little one can do but go with the flow). With no war or similar, Rudy shows this by doing nothing based on his own ambition. He writes and submits his play to a contest based a comment from a teacher. He becomes a pharmacist based on a comment from his father. The only act that he does on his own is the shot into the night. From there on, he is swept along by everyone else.

I like how Vonnegut set Rudy's most upsetting scenes as mini plays. It gave them more action---more interactions between people than the retelling of those interactions. It made them strong and more fun. Sometimes more can be done with brief stage directions than with a paragraph of dialog.

This was a good one. I enjoyed it.

9/10

<i>The Great Santini</i> by Pat Conroy

This is a book I should have read in high school.

A ticket taker on the train saw it and said that when he read it, he made it about 2/3rds of the way through when he got so mad at the story that he had to put it down for a few days. Based on that, I expected there to be a huge blow out between Ben and his father. Though there are a number of incidents, there was nothing obscene enough to make me put the book down.

I appreciated the complexity that Conroy gave Ben's father. Though the Marine attitude was getting on my nerves quite a bit, there was more dimension to Bull's character. He had fun with his kids and gave up his post to make sure his son was safe. It was easy to hate him, but it was hard to say that he had no redeeming qualities---something that Ben realized by the end.

I generally liked Ben. I was pissed---just as he was---that he listened to his father in the basketball game. The better strategy is to take it and just play tougher---get revenge in regular play. One of the things, though, that Ben was learning was when he should and when he shouldn't listen to his father. Mary Ann was generally his conscience on such matters, but she couldn't be with him on the court, and, indeed, was nowhere to be found in the stands.

Overall, a good book. Conroy was tight with his prose and portrayed the characters motives and ideals clearly. I would like to know what happened to Ben. I assume he became a pilot to honor his father. But it would have been poetic justice to see him become an English professor.

8/10