Chapter 81: A White Bride for the Son of a Pullman Porter to Chapter 108: Frank Tells Us What to Do
Pages 180-240
My Recap:
Angela is crazy good at violin. Papa is dying. Jonah is told of his fate. Jonah gets a Book of Bokonon. Angela and Newt both care about their ice-nine enough that its the only thing they save. Jonah's cut of jib is good enough for Frank to ask him to be president. Frank was actually screwing Jack from the hobby shops wife. Jonah agrees to be president. Jonah gets engage to Mona. They do the weird foot thing. Jonah already gets jealous. Papa's last wish is that Bokonon is killed. Papa is also a Bokononist (riddle me that Batman). Papa gets his last Bokononist rights. Elaborate festivities for the Day of the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy. Jonah thinks about his future as president. Papa is deadsies. Killed himself with ice-nine. Jonah gets pissed at Hoenikkers about ice-nine debacle. Newt pukes. The end.
My thoughts and experience:
The usual. Lots to discuss. I would say most of the central action happens during this section. While a multitude of different stories and actions take place in the other sections, there is pretty minimal development of the central story, especially when compared to other novels that are strictly one story. In this section, this is not so much the case. There is some other stories of random people doing random things that while enjoyable and having a meaning within Vonnegut's criticism of humanity, are, as I said, COMPLETELY RANDOM. And I love that, but I also desperately want to know about the central story but I have to pace myself with my blog. Its a struggle. But yes, sorry for the tangent, many things happen in this section dealing directly with the main story. I outlined most of them in my very abbreviated recap.
El Presidente?
No lie, I totally saw this coming. Once Papa was dying and all that jazz and Frank says, "Zah-mah-ki-bo" (Vonnegut 184). That means fate to those not up to date of the Bokononist words. So yay finally got a guess right!
(<----Thats a picture of my victory lap).
So that's where it all starts. Frank tells Jonah he has some sort of destiny and then hangs up on him. When Franklin finally comes to speak to Jonah, he pulls him away from the rest and says, '"I like the cut of your jib!'" (Vonnegut 194). Essentially that means I like your style, according to urban dictionary (I know not the most reliable source) and developed along nautical lines. Frank then explains how he needs, basically, a figure head, saying, '"You're a worldly person, used to meeting the public; and I'm a technical person, used to working behind the scenes, making things go"' (Vonnegut 196). Frank needs someone so he can be his usual, antisocial self and avoid talking to and dealing with the needs of the actual people. So Frank offers him the wages and tells him to do so he would have to do '"Practically nothing. And you'd drink out of goblets every night and eat off gold plates and have a palace all your own"'' (Vonnegut 197). Way to bury the lead Frank.
Finally, Franklin reveals to Jonah that he would be president and Jonah is just like:
(<----Thats a picture of my victory lap).
So that's where it all starts. Frank tells Jonah he has some sort of destiny and then hangs up on him. When Franklin finally comes to speak to Jonah, he pulls him away from the rest and says, '"I like the cut of your jib!'" (Vonnegut 194). Essentially that means I like your style, according to urban dictionary (I know not the most reliable source) and developed along nautical lines. Frank then explains how he needs, basically, a figure head, saying, '"You're a worldly person, used to meeting the public; and I'm a technical person, used to working behind the scenes, making things go"' (Vonnegut 196). Frank needs someone so he can be his usual, antisocial self and avoid talking to and dealing with the needs of the actual people. So Frank offers him the wages and tells him to do so he would have to do '"Practically nothing. And you'd drink out of goblets every night and eat off gold plates and have a palace all your own"'' (Vonnegut 197). Way to bury the lead Frank.
Finally, Franklin reveals to Jonah that he would be president and Jonah is just like:
Well, technically he says, '"Nuts!'" (Vonnegut 197). But I like to imagine that this was the face he made when he said it. Jonah's biggest issue with becoming president is that he might get assassinated, but then Frank offers up marriage to Mona to sweeten the deal and, like an obnoxious love sick puppy, he's all like:
It isn't until later on, when he actually has to deal with, ya know, presidenting, that he's like oh wait! I have no clue what I'm doing. So then, when Papa is slowly dying, Jonah promises to kill Bokonon, which is a whole other thing that I will get to. And thats how Jonah became President of a country he has been in for like a day.
Flashback to Things Changing But Not Really
In the first section, I talked about how things and places would change but not change. This is shown again in this section, on page 214, when they are in the castle and Jonah asks if the room was a torture chamber. It was but did it ever really change? I don't think so, because it is the palace run by Papa and horrible things still happen there. Just keeping up with original topics.
Bokonon Anon
Bokonon is everywhere now. The first allusion to the book of Bokonon is when Jonah asks how anyone could understand anything in life and Castle responds with another Calypso, "Tiger go to hunt,/ Bird got to fly;/ Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?'/ Tiger got to sleep,/ Bird got to land;/ Man got to tell himself to understand'" (Vonnegut 182). Essentially Vonnegut is commenting on how humanity does not just survive, by hunting/sleeping/flying/landing, but he thinks on his purpose and spends his time pondering why he is alive.
At one point, Jonah does get a Book of Bokonon to hunt for the meaning of zah-mah-ki-bo. His search for the meaning is a struggle because there is no order or index so he is just fumbling around the ramblings of Bokonon. In this exploration of the Books, Jonah reveals the Bokononist cosmology creation story. The suns name was Borasis and he held the moon, Pabu, in his arms and the sun wanted the moon to have his hot children (direct quote is "fiery child" but whatever). Then little Pabu gives birth to the planets and nothing particularly hot so the sun threw them away. Pabu then gets rightly angry at Borasis, gets out of his arms, and lives with her favorite child, the Earth, because us (humanity) is her. We are the most important thing in the universe to our mother....aw! Too bad our father hated us. Oh and thats all "A pack of foma" (Vonnegut 191) according to Bokonon. LIIIEEESS
At one point, Jonah does get a Book of Bokonon to hunt for the meaning of zah-mah-ki-bo. His search for the meaning is a struggle because there is no order or index so he is just fumbling around the ramblings of Bokonon. In this exploration of the Books, Jonah reveals the Bokononist cosmology creation story. The suns name was Borasis and he held the moon, Pabu, in his arms and the sun wanted the moon to have his hot children (direct quote is "fiery child" but whatever). Then little Pabu gives birth to the planets and nothing particularly hot so the sun threw them away. Pabu then gets rightly angry at Borasis, gets out of his arms, and lives with her favorite child, the Earth, because us (humanity) is her. We are the most important thing in the universe to our mother....aw! Too bad our father hated us. Oh and thats all "A pack of foma" (Vonnegut 191) according to Bokonon. LIIIEEESS
Next, we are told of what Bokonon thinks of maturity. '"Maturity,' Bokonon tells us, 'is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything"' (Vonnegut 198). So being mature is a bad thing and we should all remain immature, glad Bokonon agrees with my lifestyle.
Ok and then Jonah and Mona do boko-maru and its honestly just so uncomfortable. Like talk about sexual inuendo. So weird. He writes a poem about it, and admittedly its a cute poem, but still come on Vonnegut. After they finish with the weird foot thing Jonah gets all jealous over how she does that with random strangers. Then she gets all defensive and the couple of 5 minutes has their first big fight. She claims her foot rubbing makes other people happy and he's all like "You my woman. I man. Rawr." She calls him a "sin-wat" which is an offensive term for someone that wants all someones love. Then they make up because she's pretty and he's lovesick and they are all good again.
So, Jonah asks a great question on page 211, "'What is sacred to the Bokononists?'" (Vonnegut 211). And Frank tells him, "'Man...That's all. Just man'"(Vonnegut 211). And that's kind of cool that Bokononists only really make man sacred, no symbols or anything.
Then the most ironic part. Papa is dying and his last words to Frank and Jonah are about how he wants them to find and kill Bokonon. And then right after that, Papa is asking for his last rights to be read to him. But not just any last rights, THE BOKONON LAST RIGHTS! The last rights are repeated statements of how god made everything and had mud rise, it became man, man became Papa, life was great, and now he is going back to being mud.
Ok and now for Bokonon the actual person. When Jonah becomes prez and he considers asking Bokonon to join the government but then he realizes that he will need an evil to fight, and that is what Bokonon is to the San Lorenzo government. "So good and evil had to remain separate; good in the jungle, and evil in the palace. Whatever entertainment there was in that was about that was about all we had to give the people" (Vonnegut 226). So Jonah decides to continue the lies to make the lives of the San Lorenzans better.
On the topic of liars, Bokonon believes that all lovers are liars, saying, ''A lover's a liar,/ To himself he lies./ The truthful are loveless,/ Like oysters their eyes!" (Vonnegut 233).
Ok and then Jonah and Mona do boko-maru and its honestly just so uncomfortable. Like talk about sexual inuendo. So weird. He writes a poem about it, and admittedly its a cute poem, but still come on Vonnegut. After they finish with the weird foot thing Jonah gets all jealous over how she does that with random strangers. Then she gets all defensive and the couple of 5 minutes has their first big fight. She claims her foot rubbing makes other people happy and he's all like "You my woman. I man. Rawr." She calls him a "sin-wat" which is an offensive term for someone that wants all someones love. Then they make up because she's pretty and he's lovesick and they are all good again.
So, Jonah asks a great question on page 211, "'What is sacred to the Bokononists?'" (Vonnegut 211). And Frank tells him, "'Man...That's all. Just man'"(Vonnegut 211). And that's kind of cool that Bokononists only really make man sacred, no symbols or anything.
Then the most ironic part. Papa is dying and his last words to Frank and Jonah are about how he wants them to find and kill Bokonon. And then right after that, Papa is asking for his last rights to be read to him. But not just any last rights, THE BOKONON LAST RIGHTS! The last rights are repeated statements of how god made everything and had mud rise, it became man, man became Papa, life was great, and now he is going back to being mud.
Ok and now for Bokonon the actual person. When Jonah becomes prez and he considers asking Bokonon to join the government but then he realizes that he will need an evil to fight, and that is what Bokonon is to the San Lorenzo government. "So good and evil had to remain separate; good in the jungle, and evil in the palace. Whatever entertainment there was in that was about that was about all we had to give the people" (Vonnegut 226). So Jonah decides to continue the lies to make the lives of the San Lorenzans better.
On the topic of liars, Bokonon believes that all lovers are liars, saying, ''A lover's a liar,/ To himself he lies./ The truthful are loveless,/ Like oysters their eyes!" (Vonnegut 233).
Strike of the Writers
When Jonah is talking to the younger Castle, Castle tells him, '"I'm thinking of calling a general strike of all writers until mankind finally comes to its senses. Would you support it?'" (Vonnegut 231). To which Jonah responds, '"That would be like the police or the firemen walking out...Or the college professors'...'No =, I don't think my conscience would let me support a strike like that. When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed'" (Vonnegut 231). I mean, this entire section is basically giving props to writers and naming them as necessary and sacred, not that I disagree. I just like how Vonnegut makes a whole chapter in a book he wrote about how great writers are. It's fantastically overconfident. He continues on about how great they are, how people would go mad without their works, showing how he feels that humanity benefits from every written work and they don't appreciate writers as they should. Another classic example of Vonnegut criticizing humanity. My favorite part of this whole section is when Jonah asks Castle, '"Sir, how does a man die when he's deprived of the consolations of literature?' 'In one of two ways....petrescence of the heart or atrophy of the nervous system'" (Vonnegut 232). That could very well be my favorite line in the whole book.
The Ice-Nine Debacle
Side Note: DO NOT SEARCH ICE NINE KILLS ON GOOGLE IMAGES!!!! CREEPTACULAR! DON'T DO IT.
Anyhow, at this point we know that all the kids of Felix Hoenniker have a sliver of ice-nine in their possession. So when they are awakened in the middle of the night by a horrible noise, both Angela and Newt grab their thermoses with ice nine in them. Thats what they grab when their lives and possessions are in danger.
So that just leaves Frank's ice nine. And that gets hinted to when Papa is dying. He keeps whimpering ice but doesn't want ice, in the normal sense. So then, during Jonah's first day as president, Papa kills himself and its pretty odd. He is a frozen arc. So obviously I knew it was ice-nine, but Jonah was still kind of iffy on the whole situation. So they take a chip of something out of Papa's mouth and it expands, and then the doctor is infected and BOOOM! Deadsies.
After that Jonah kind of freaks out on the Hoenniker kids and he's like "You see what you did?" And then Newt throws up and the section ends there.
Anyhow, at this point we know that all the kids of Felix Hoenniker have a sliver of ice-nine in their possession. So when they are awakened in the middle of the night by a horrible noise, both Angela and Newt grab their thermoses with ice nine in them. Thats what they grab when their lives and possessions are in danger.
So that just leaves Frank's ice nine. And that gets hinted to when Papa is dying. He keeps whimpering ice but doesn't want ice, in the normal sense. So then, during Jonah's first day as president, Papa kills himself and its pretty odd. He is a frozen arc. So obviously I knew it was ice-nine, but Jonah was still kind of iffy on the whole situation. So they take a chip of something out of Papa's mouth and it expands, and then the doctor is infected and BOOOM! Deadsies.
After that Jonah kind of freaks out on the Hoenniker kids and he's like "You see what you did?" And then Newt throws up and the section ends there.
Quotes I adore
"Such music from such a woman could only be a case of schizophrenia or demonic possession" (Vonnegut 182).
"When the music was done, I shrieked at Julian Castle, who was transfixed, too, 'My God--life! Who can understand even one little minute of it?'" (Vonnegut 182).
"Having a yacht is a reason for being more cheerful than most, too" (Vonnegut 186).
"'He was in the S.S. for fourteen years. He was a camp physician at Auschwitz for six of those years.'... 'Doing penance at the House of Hope and Mercy is he?' 'Yes...and making great strides, too, saving lives right and left'...'If he keeps going at the present rate, working night and day, the number of people he's saved will equal the number of people he let die--in the year 3010'" (Vonnegut 187).
'"Maturity,' Bokonon tells us, 'is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything"' (Vonnegut 198).
"'Love is good, not bad"' (Vonnegut 207).
"'It posed the question posed by all such stone piles: how had puny men moved stones so big? And, like all such stone piles, it answered the question itself. Dumb terror had moved those stones so big" (Vonnegut 212).
"'Science is magic that works'" (Vonnegut 218).
"'I agree with one Bokononist idea. I agree that all religions, including Bokononism, are nothing but lies"' (Vonnegut 219).
"When the music was done, I shrieked at Julian Castle, who was transfixed, too, 'My God--life! Who can understand even one little minute of it?'" (Vonnegut 182).
"Having a yacht is a reason for being more cheerful than most, too" (Vonnegut 186).
"'He was in the S.S. for fourteen years. He was a camp physician at Auschwitz for six of those years.'... 'Doing penance at the House of Hope and Mercy is he?' 'Yes...and making great strides, too, saving lives right and left'...'If he keeps going at the present rate, working night and day, the number of people he's saved will equal the number of people he let die--in the year 3010'" (Vonnegut 187).
'"Maturity,' Bokonon tells us, 'is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything"' (Vonnegut 198).
"'Love is good, not bad"' (Vonnegut 207).
"'It posed the question posed by all such stone piles: how had puny men moved stones so big? And, like all such stone piles, it answered the question itself. Dumb terror had moved those stones so big" (Vonnegut 212).
"'Science is magic that works'" (Vonnegut 218).
"'I agree with one Bokononist idea. I agree that all religions, including Bokononism, are nothing but lies"' (Vonnegut 219).