• THE SIRENS OF TITAN
• by Kurt Vonnegut
• [rated by PBS readers as #87]
• 326 pages

1/14/19 – 50 PAGES IN –

FINALLY!! A book I can’t wait to read! I keep finding myself taking a few minutes and reading a little more.

I confess that I’m shocked I haven’t read Vonnegut but I’ve read a lot of Tom Robbins, who obviously learned every trick in the book from old Kurt.

The voicing is so clear, so unique and so current! And then – to realize that this came out the year I was born. In 1959! That’s amazing.

Anyway, I love it. I love that I have no idea where it is going. So far, I am a dyed in the wool Vonnegut fan. So zany! So ground breaking, in every way.

2/15/19

Okay. Finished it.

I realize, as I read these books in a drawn out, little bit at a time fashion, that there is a gulf that will always be there, most likely with each of them. I will never know the feeling of having discovered a book or an author in real time. Would I have been running to friends and saying, “You gotta check out this Kurt Vonnegut?” I am reading these classics since they were pronounced classics – after tons and tons of people have read them, loved them and never forgotten them. Hence, the votes they got.

Will I even feel that way with the ones I have already read? Detached from a totally present day experience?

That said, this was quite the interesting read. As I said earlier, I never knew where it was going. After a while, with no really clear point that he was aiming for, I grew restless. By the end, I was fairly happy it was over and done with.

But I still never once knew where I was headed, because the thing went everywhere but in the end, there really wasn’t a point. I’m sure that, when it came out, there were probably a bunch of paid eggheads that discussed what it was really about. But I doubt that they enhanced anything about it or got to more of the truth of it by doing that.

In the end, this is a brilliant, zany mind that readers get a chance to hang out with, grateful with each page that his mind could stay for the length of time required to finish a book. But it was definitely, more than anything else, a journey into a mind like no other.

The question that continues to visit me is – will I pick up another book by these authors after this quest is done? I might read another Outlander. Might. Doubt I would read another Junot opus. Life these days feels tough enough. Vonnegut? Maybe. My husband has another title of his that he loved years ago. Who knows? I might want to wander back into that mind.

Last point. The ending was lovely. So happy that he had the grace in there to give us a graceful exit.

And now, I will either give myself a break and read something pulpy and fast or the next one I pick. Depends on the next one I pick. Hm…

Hours Later –

My husband went to a gig and I went to get my box of titles. At this point, I have allowed myself to pick three titles each time and then to pick one book out of that. The reason being that I really want this to be as organic as possible and if I am just not feeling that first title, organic might fly out the window. I think I’ll know if I am pulled to it in some way. It’s been pretty smooth and effortless – to this point.

Oddly enough, I think that, all three times, I have gone with the first title I picked.

This time, I picked PBS readers’ first choice and a book I have loved for a lifetime (except when I was little and first read it – Boo Radley scared me!) – To Kill A Mockingbird.

God, even that title!

During the time you could vote for the PBS contest, this was one of the 8 that I voted for. More than that, I think it deserved to win.

I picked two other books after Mockingbird just for fun, but they held no sway. I was already preparing myself to read Mockingbird again. I debated whether or not to wait till the end of all 100 to read the titles I picked if I had already read them. But then, as with so many of the weird constructs in my brain, I thought, why? What’s the point of that?

Besides, it has two major things in its favor. One is that I don’t really have to plan my timing around reading this book, as it is utterly timeless. As a point of fact, it very well might even feel a bit more civilized that the world we are currently living in.

And that brings me to a second point. It is the epitome of sanity after just having read Kurt Vonnegut!

I am curious about what reading it this time will bring….

But even though I’m turning 60 this week, I still feel the need to hug Atticus Finch and have him read me a bedtime story. So I think we are good to go…