Chapter 108: Frank Tells Us What to Do to Chapter 127: The End
page 240- 287
My Experience:
Liking how Vonnegut ends his book with the end of the world At least he goes out with a bang! There's no better way to tie up loose ends than by killing everyone off. Overall, I was EXTREMELY happy with my novel choice. Definitely is fighting for my favorite Vonnegut book. What I liked the most about it was Bokononism because what author in their right mind makes up a religion, especially one like this?! Vonnegut is cray, that is why he is so awesome. I'm debating getting a quote from this tatted, thats how much I loved it! Also, I was really tempted to name this section "Winter is Coming" but I could not pass up the chance to use pool-pah, because it may be my favorite Bokonon word. Oh! and this section is a bit shorter because I can't do math and apparently 290 divided by 5 is not exactly 60, but whatever this is english and not math for a reason.
The End of Bokononism
Literally the end. Sad.
The first idea that is brought up in this section is the pool-pah (so great). It means either shit storm or wrath of God, but aren't they really the same thing? It's about how everything is falling apart after Papa kills himself with ice-nine. Anyway, I'm definitely saying this from now on.
Bokonon gives us another remark on humanity, a whole book worth, asking, in the title "'What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?"' (Vonnegut 245). The answer lies simply within the book, "'Nothing"' (Vonnegut 245). That's just Vonnegut flicking off all of humanity and human history, saying nothing good can come of us. Can't say I agree or disagree. He degrades human history again, saying, "'History!...Read it and weep!"' (Vonnegut 252). We are depicted so badly, the curse of the earth. Once again, can't say I agree or disagree.
Then we go to the eminent death of every person. He calls it a time out, saying "'Any man can call time out, but no man can say how long the time out will be"' (Vonnegut 248). This is after Dr. Hoenikker takes his longest time out ever by dying. By describing death as a time out, he alludes that its something he may come out of, although we can't be sure of that because Bokonon is a dirty liar.
Then from death we go to pain. Cheery. Bokonon tells us, "'If I am ever put to death on the hook...expect a very human performance" (Vonnegut 263). Same, Bok, same. Bokonon does not pretend to be a martyr, dying silently for his belief, but will kick and scream his way, and this I doubt is a lie.
We also get some more of the creation myth. Basically, God got lonely and was like lets make everything out of mud and let the hairless monkeys talk! Then the human asks what the purpose of it all was, to which God countered "'Everything must have a purpose?"' (Vonnegut 265). Mans all like, AH DUH! So God goes, "'Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this"' (Vonnegut). Another restatement of how man has made up everything about the purpose in the world.
After the world freezes, and the people struggle to survive, Jonah discovers a Bokononist Calypso painted at the base of the arch. It says:
The first idea that is brought up in this section is the pool-pah (so great). It means either shit storm or wrath of God, but aren't they really the same thing? It's about how everything is falling apart after Papa kills himself with ice-nine. Anyway, I'm definitely saying this from now on.
Bokonon gives us another remark on humanity, a whole book worth, asking, in the title "'What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?"' (Vonnegut 245). The answer lies simply within the book, "'Nothing"' (Vonnegut 245). That's just Vonnegut flicking off all of humanity and human history, saying nothing good can come of us. Can't say I agree or disagree. He degrades human history again, saying, "'History!...Read it and weep!"' (Vonnegut 252). We are depicted so badly, the curse of the earth. Once again, can't say I agree or disagree.
Then we go to the eminent death of every person. He calls it a time out, saying "'Any man can call time out, but no man can say how long the time out will be"' (Vonnegut 248). This is after Dr. Hoenikker takes his longest time out ever by dying. By describing death as a time out, he alludes that its something he may come out of, although we can't be sure of that because Bokonon is a dirty liar.
Then from death we go to pain. Cheery. Bokonon tells us, "'If I am ever put to death on the hook...expect a very human performance" (Vonnegut 263). Same, Bok, same. Bokonon does not pretend to be a martyr, dying silently for his belief, but will kick and scream his way, and this I doubt is a lie.
We also get some more of the creation myth. Basically, God got lonely and was like lets make everything out of mud and let the hairless monkeys talk! Then the human asks what the purpose of it all was, to which God countered "'Everything must have a purpose?"' (Vonnegut 265). Mans all like, AH DUH! So God goes, "'Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this"' (Vonnegut). Another restatement of how man has made up everything about the purpose in the world.
After the world freezes, and the people struggle to survive, Jonah discovers a Bokononist Calypso painted at the base of the arch. It says:
Jonah continues on his trek, searching for life among the ice, and comes upon the horror. Upon the mountain are thousands and thousands of frozen corpses of San Lorenzans. In the center was left this note from Bokonon:
This, this shows so much. First of all, it shows the willingness of all San Lorenzans and believers to do what Bokonon says. He was their controller and they did what their prophet told them. I was angry at first, angry that he told them to kill themselves and they all just listened. Then, I realized what was waiting for them in the world, and that was a frozen nothingness. But the fact that Bokonon didn't even die with them just grinned my gears, until Mona explained it by saying, "'He always said he would never take his own advice, because he knew it was worthless"' (Vonnegut 273). He never lied to them about his intentions, and that is why I came to reason with Bokonon's abandonment of the suicide pact he inspired.
On knowledge and ignorance, Bokonon tells us, "'Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before....He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by the ignorance the hard way"' (Vonnegut 281). Essentially, we are warned against those who are angered by the fact that they find no wisdom in knowledge and that others don't try to get this wisdom at all. What I am getting is "Beware of hypocrites."
Now, in Chapter 126, Bokonon has the best idea for a nation ever. He says "The hand that stocks the drug stores rules the world. Let us start our Republic with a chain of drug stores, a chain of grocery stores, a chain of gas chambers, and a national game. After that, we can write our Constitution" (Vonnegut 285). No clue what to make of that but it sounds so.....BOKONON!
Speaking of Bokonon, we finally meet him. Writing his last words and providing the entire story line in a few sentences:
On knowledge and ignorance, Bokonon tells us, "'Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before....He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by the ignorance the hard way"' (Vonnegut 281). Essentially, we are warned against those who are angered by the fact that they find no wisdom in knowledge and that others don't try to get this wisdom at all. What I am getting is "Beware of hypocrites."
Now, in Chapter 126, Bokonon has the best idea for a nation ever. He says "The hand that stocks the drug stores rules the world. Let us start our Republic with a chain of drug stores, a chain of grocery stores, a chain of gas chambers, and a national game. After that, we can write our Constitution" (Vonnegut 285). No clue what to make of that but it sounds so.....BOKONON!
Speaking of Bokonon, we finally meet him. Writing his last words and providing the entire story line in a few sentences:
THIS IS THE STORY OF HUMAN STUPIDITY!!!!! JONAH IS A YOUNGER MAN WHO TAKES THE TIME TO WRITE IT AND THATS WHAT HE HAS AS A SYMBOL IN HIS HAND AS HE DIES!!!!!!!!!!!!! THATS JONAHS COOL WAY TO DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT WAS BLOODY BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM NERDING OUT OVER THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FSDFKSDFJADSIFEFNAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"...and thumbing my nose at You Know Who." Voldy (You-Know-Who) doesn't like when you bring up the whole thumb thing. I'm sorry, I know it was written way before Harry Potter, but it is just the most perfect accidental reference and its how the whole book ends. I laughed for like five minutes about this. |
How Ice-Nine Ends the World
So, ice-nine ends the world be freezing everything, and I can't help thinking "Did the whole world just turn into Syracuse?" Answer: basically. And here's how it happened:
So as we found out in last section, Papa killed himself with ice-nine and that in turn killed Von Koenigswald. After that, the Hoenikkers and Jonah are all like AHHHH and throw up (weenies). Then they all start talking and Newt goes "'Like the dog''' (Vonnegut 241). He proceeds to tell us of the story of the night their father died. The kids had been in town and their father had been at the house, toying with ice-nine. When they returned there were pans filled with ice-nine all about, but none knew what they were, so Newt "held it out to the dog, and the dog licked it. And the dog froze stiff" (Vonnegut 250). When Newt went in to tell his father about the mystery of the frozen dog, he found "his father was stiff, too" (Vonnegut 250). They then cleaned up the mess and organized it so they each had a bit of ice-nine.
In this section, we also learn what each child did with their ice-nine. Frank reveals all when he says, "I bought myself a job, just the way you bought yourself a tomcat husband, just the way Newt bought himself a week on Cape Cod with a Russian midget!" (Vonnegut 243). Throwing it out there, I totally called that Angela's husband was not sticking around just for her (not so) pretty face.
And that is how it came to be that, not only did San Lorenzo have ice-nine, but so did the United States, via Angela's hubby, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, via Newt's Russian midget fling.
That's how the rest of the world came to have ice-nine, but here's how the world got frozen by it. Post Papa and Von Koenigswald becoming popsicles, the Hoenikkers and Jonah do their best to clean up the room, but don't have time for a funeral pyre because it is the day of the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy. So they leave Papa popsicle in his golden boat and Von Koenigswald popsicle gets shoved in the closet. All is fine and dandy until bam! One of the celebratory planes crashes into the cliff under the castle and the bombs and fuel it held explodes. As soon as this happened I was just like *%^! @$%!!! "One great tower of 'Papa's' castle...crashed down to the sea" (Vonnegut 258). So everything proceeds to fall out of the castle into the ocean until the golden boat (which I predicted, but thats next section) slid out and into the sea, with Papasicle still in it.
"There was a sound like that of a gentle closing of a portal as big as the sky, the great door of heaven being closed softly. It was a grand AH-WHOOM....and all the sea was ice-nine. The moist green earth was a blue white pearl. The sky darkened. Borasisi, the sun, became a sickly yellow ball, tiny and cruel. The sky was filled with worms. The worms were tornadoes" (Vonnegut 261). And that is how Vonnegut ends the world, with worms. Can't help thinking how terrifying that would be to Anna. Anyway, a very dramatic, yet very short way to end it all.
Jonah and Mona hide from it all in a bomb shelter and chill there awhile because they think everyone else is dead, and they basically are. When they venture to Mount McCabe, "In that bowl were thousands upon thousands of dead. On the lips of each decedent was the blue-white frost of ice-nine. That's the suicide pact I talked about in the last section. All left alive are Jonah, H. Lowe Crosby, Hazel, and Newt. And Bokonon, for a while. And that's where we are left.
So as we found out in last section, Papa killed himself with ice-nine and that in turn killed Von Koenigswald. After that, the Hoenikkers and Jonah are all like AHHHH and throw up (weenies). Then they all start talking and Newt goes "'Like the dog''' (Vonnegut 241). He proceeds to tell us of the story of the night their father died. The kids had been in town and their father had been at the house, toying with ice-nine. When they returned there were pans filled with ice-nine all about, but none knew what they were, so Newt "held it out to the dog, and the dog licked it. And the dog froze stiff" (Vonnegut 250). When Newt went in to tell his father about the mystery of the frozen dog, he found "his father was stiff, too" (Vonnegut 250). They then cleaned up the mess and organized it so they each had a bit of ice-nine.
In this section, we also learn what each child did with their ice-nine. Frank reveals all when he says, "I bought myself a job, just the way you bought yourself a tomcat husband, just the way Newt bought himself a week on Cape Cod with a Russian midget!" (Vonnegut 243). Throwing it out there, I totally called that Angela's husband was not sticking around just for her (not so) pretty face.
And that is how it came to be that, not only did San Lorenzo have ice-nine, but so did the United States, via Angela's hubby, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, via Newt's Russian midget fling.
That's how the rest of the world came to have ice-nine, but here's how the world got frozen by it. Post Papa and Von Koenigswald becoming popsicles, the Hoenikkers and Jonah do their best to clean up the room, but don't have time for a funeral pyre because it is the day of the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy. So they leave Papa popsicle in his golden boat and Von Koenigswald popsicle gets shoved in the closet. All is fine and dandy until bam! One of the celebratory planes crashes into the cliff under the castle and the bombs and fuel it held explodes. As soon as this happened I was just like *%^! @$%!!! "One great tower of 'Papa's' castle...crashed down to the sea" (Vonnegut 258). So everything proceeds to fall out of the castle into the ocean until the golden boat (which I predicted, but thats next section) slid out and into the sea, with Papasicle still in it.
"There was a sound like that of a gentle closing of a portal as big as the sky, the great door of heaven being closed softly. It was a grand AH-WHOOM....and all the sea was ice-nine. The moist green earth was a blue white pearl. The sky darkened. Borasisi, the sun, became a sickly yellow ball, tiny and cruel. The sky was filled with worms. The worms were tornadoes" (Vonnegut 261). And that is how Vonnegut ends the world, with worms. Can't help thinking how terrifying that would be to Anna. Anyway, a very dramatic, yet very short way to end it all.
Jonah and Mona hide from it all in a bomb shelter and chill there awhile because they think everyone else is dead, and they basically are. When they venture to Mount McCabe, "In that bowl were thousands upon thousands of dead. On the lips of each decedent was the blue-white frost of ice-nine. That's the suicide pact I talked about in the last section. All left alive are Jonah, H. Lowe Crosby, Hazel, and Newt. And Bokonon, for a while. And that's where we are left.
The Golden Boat
So, as I predicted, the golden boat once again sails. In Chapter 49: A Fish Pitched Up By an Angry Sea, the tail of Bokonon coming to San Lorenzo in the golden boat is told and he prophesied "that the golden boat will sail again when the end of the world is near" (Vonnegut 109). So some very clear foreshadowing is present and it all falls into place as Papa dies infected with ice-nine in his golden boat/bed, his palace is destroyed, and he, the boat and the ice-nine fall into the sea, and then comes the end of the world. Busy, busy, busy, Vonnegut.
Chap 114 the speech
So, its the day of the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy and everything is going so far down hill, yet Vonnegut throws in this speech by Ambassador Minton. Obviously, Vonnegut wants to get this point across, and I got it! So Minton had written a speech but wholly gave up on it because a total of like 5 people spoke english. He discusses what a shame it is that all these men, really children, died for war. He calls them children because "in the same war in which lo Hoon-yera Mora-toorz tut Zamoo-cratz-ya died, my[his] own son died" (Vonnegut 253). Critical of the wars that take the lives of innocence for the sake of countries. On this, he further comments "...they are murdered children all the same" (Vonnegut 254). They die in war, but in his mind it is murder, the word that jumps from that sentence, not casualties of war. Continuing on he says, what I think, is the best comment in this section, "I propose to you that if we are to pay our sincere respects to the hundred lost children on San Lorenzo, that we might best spend the day despising what killed them; which is to say, the stupidity and viciousness of all mankind" (Vonnegut 254). In his usual satirical way, Vonnegut tells us off the terribleness of humanity, how it is humanity that kills the children and nothing else. We must improve upon the state of our humanity, "working consciously and tirelessly to reduce the stupidity and viciousness of ourselves and of all mankind" (Vonnegut 255).
So, its the day of the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy and everything is going so far down hill, yet Vonnegut throws in this speech by Ambassador Minton. Obviously, Vonnegut wants to get this point across, and I got it! So Minton had written a speech but wholly gave up on it because a total of like 5 people spoke english. He discusses what a shame it is that all these men, really children, died for war. He calls them children because "in the same war in which lo Hoon-yera Mora-toorz tut Zamoo-cratz-ya died, my[his] own son died" (Vonnegut 253). Critical of the wars that take the lives of innocence for the sake of countries. On this, he further comments "...they are murdered children all the same" (Vonnegut 254). They die in war, but in his mind it is murder, the word that jumps from that sentence, not casualties of war. Continuing on he says, what I think, is the best comment in this section, "I propose to you that if we are to pay our sincere respects to the hundred lost children on San Lorenzo, that we might best spend the day despising what killed them; which is to say, the stupidity and viciousness of all mankind" (Vonnegut 254). In his usual satirical way, Vonnegut tells us off the terribleness of humanity, how it is humanity that kills the children and nothing else. We must improve upon the state of our humanity, "working consciously and tirelessly to reduce the stupidity and viciousness of ourselves and of all mankind" (Vonnegut 255). This is Vonnegut's advice to humanity, we must improve ourselves and in turn, all of humanity.
Then we go into the story of PRO PATRIA:
Then we go into the story of PRO PATRIA:
This poem teaches us what it is all about, and also tears the heart out of your chest.
Minton concludes the poem by saying "'They mean, 'For one's country'....'Any country at all"' (Vonnegut 256). It is the sadness that comes from dying for one's country, noble, yet so, so sad.
This is what the speech teaches us.
Minton concludes the poem by saying "'They mean, 'For one's country'....'Any country at all"' (Vonnegut 256). It is the sadness that comes from dying for one's country, noble, yet so, so sad.
This is what the speech teaches us.
Ants
Ants survive the snowpocolypse by cooperation. "...they did it by forming with their bodies tight balls around grains of ice-nine. They would generate enough heat at the center to kill half their number and produce one bead of dew. The dew was drinkable. The corpses were edible" (Vonnegut 280). A horribly wonderful way to survive. Is it worth the sacrifice for the trade off? Isn't everything going to die? Maybe. But they are surviving anyway possible and that is the point.
Quotes
"The brainless serenity of charwomen and janitors working late at night came over us. In a messy world we were at least making our little corner clean" (Vonnegut 246).
"Think of what a paradise this world would be if men were kind and wise" (Vonnegut 256).
"'I am about to say something that must have been said by men to women several times before...However, I don't believe that these words have ever carried quite the freight they carry now.... Here we are"' (Vonnegut 263).
'"Mother Earth--she isn't a very good mother anymore"' (Vonnegut 269).
"'As the poet said, Mom, 'Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, 'It might have been' '" (Vonnegut 279).
"Well, maybe you can find some neat way to die, too" (Vonnegut 285).
"Think of what a paradise this world would be if men were kind and wise" (Vonnegut 256).
"'I am about to say something that must have been said by men to women several times before...However, I don't believe that these words have ever carried quite the freight they carry now.... Here we are"' (Vonnegut 263).
'"Mother Earth--she isn't a very good mother anymore"' (Vonnegut 269).
"'As the poet said, Mom, 'Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, 'It might have been' '" (Vonnegut 279).
"Well, maybe you can find some neat way to die, too" (Vonnegut 285).
ALL DONE!
Mixed feelings about that. It was stressful, but awesome and I am sad I finished the book. I will probably read it again (and again and again).
Peace out Bloggosphere!