Deadeye Dick

One of the philosophies KV introduces in this book is that of life being a peephole. It didn't stick with me as much as some of the others I've read in his books, but it's an interesting idea.

Deadeye Dick: A Novel 
By Kurt Vonnegut

KV throwing out the main symbols of the book - a bizarre self-spark noting at the beginning of a novel:

I will explain the main symbols in this book. There is an unappreciated, empty arts center in the shape of a sphere. This is my head as my sixtieth birthday beckons to me. There is a neutron bomb explosion in a populated area. This is the disappearance of so many people I cared about in Indianapolis when I was starting out to be a writer. Indianapolis is there, but the people are gone. Haiti is New York City, where I live now. The neutered pharmacist who tells the tale is my declining sexuality. The crime he committed in childhood is all the bad things I have done.

It's funny, I was just talking to a friend about how good it feels to do work that produces something - cleaning, cooking, making anything. Our society rarely appreciates or values labor unless you are the pinnacle example of it, and yet it is so fulfilling and truly vital. And though the goal seems to be success as defined by money and independence, are we often happier than when surrounded by people we love or are at least familiar with, talking, laughing, and eating?

It was surely then that I formed the opinion that the servants were my closest relatives. I aspired to do what they did so well—to cook and bake and wash dishes, and to make the beds and wash and iron and spade the garden, and so on. It still makes me as happy as I can be to prepare a good meal in a house which, because of me, is sparkling clean.

 And on cold days, and even on days that weren’t all that cold, the rest of the servants, the yardman and the upstairs maid and so on, all black, would crowd into the kitchen with the cook and me. They liked being crowded together. When they were little, they told me, they slept in beds with a whole lot of brothers and sisters. That sounded like a lot of fun to me. It still sounds like a lot of fun to me. There in the crowded kitchen, everybody would talk and talk and talk so easily, just blather and blather and laugh and laugh. I was included in the conversation. I was a nice little boy. Everybody liked me.

I thought this was a really interesting take on being a beautiful young woman. Certainly there are women who feel this way, particular the more unavoidably desirable. What is so upsetting and disturbing is the line about what men want to do to her and how ashamed it makes her feel. This is certainly not an outdated sentiment or problem - we have all sorts of issues with rape, and even in small communities of higher education. In college, they teach seminars to incoming freshmen on how to avoid being raped. Yet, as a friend pointed out, we don't teach men not to rape. We don't strictly punish that most despicable of actions, and we often excuse the situation because the girl was drunk or in a dress or flirted. It's somehow easier for us to blame her for being and wanting to be beautiful and friendly and even sexy, and to say that she can't be that way and not expect men to force themselves upon her and violate her. And society compounds that rape by making her feel ashamed and to blame and that she should be quiet about it and let it haunt her nightmares. It's all so disturbing and disgusting and disappointing.

This was a goddess who could not dance, would not dance, and hated everybody at the high school. She would like to claw away her face, she told us, so that people would stop seeing things in it that had nothing to do with what she was like inside. She was ready to die at any time, she said, because what men and boys thought about her and tried to do to her made her so ashamed. One of the first things she was going to do when she got to heaven, she said, was to ask somebody what was written on her face and why had it been put there.

And because the main character learned how to cook from the servants and loved it so much, there are several recipes throughout the book. A couple:

Polka-dot brownies: Melt half a cup of butter and a pound of light-brown sugar in a two-quart saucepan. Stir over a low fire until just bubbly. Cool to room temperature. Beat in two eggs and a teaspoon of vanilla. Stir in a cup of sifted flour, a half teaspoon of salt, a cup of chopped filberts, and a cup of semisweet chocolate in small chunks. Spread into a well-greased nine-by-eleven baking pan. Bake at two hundred and thirty-five degrees for about thirty-five minutes. Cool to room temperature, and cut into squares with a well-greased knife.

Linzer torte (from the Bugle-Observer): Mix half a cup of sugar with a cup of butter until fluffy. Beat in two egg yolks and half a teaspoon of grated lemon rind. Sift a cup of flour together with a quarter teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of cinnamon, and a quarter teaspoon of cloves. Add this to the sugar-and-butter mixture. Add one cup of unblanched almonds and one cup of toasted filberts, both chopped fine. Roll out two-thirds of the dough until a quarter of an inch thick. Line the bottom and sides of an eight-inch pan with dough. Slather in a cup and a half of raspberry jam. Roll out the rest of the dough, make it into eight thin pencil shapes about ten inches long. Twist them a little, and lay them across the top in a decorative manner. Crimp the edges. Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for about an hour, and then cool at room temperature. A great favorite in Vienna, Austria, before the First World War!

How to make Mary Hoobler’s barbecue sauce: Sauté a cup of chopped onions and three chopped garlic cloves in a quarter of a pound of butter until tender. Add a half cup of catsup, a quarter cup of brown sugar, a teaspoon of salt, two teaspoons of freshly ground pepper, a dash of Tabasco, a tablespoon of lemon juice, a teaspoon of basil, and a tablespoon of chili powder. Bring to a boil and simmer for five minutes.