I recently finished reading I Crawl Through It by A.S. King. In the book, one of the main characters, Stanzi, quotes a favorite moment from the TV show M*A*S*H* when Hawkeye Pierce says, "Without love, what are we worth? Eighty-nine cents. Eighty-nine cents' of chemicals walking around lonely."
That quote and many other moments from King's book made me think of Kurt Vonnegut's writing. In particular, I started thinking about Breakfast of Champions and its pervasive chemicals. From there, I plunged down a research rabbit hole and came up with three more quotes from that book, thanks to Goodreads:
- People took such awful chances with chemicals and their bodies because they wanted the quality of their lives to improve.
- So it is a big temptation to me, when I create a character for a novel, to say that he is what he is because of faulty wiring, or because of microscopic amounts of chemicals which he ate or failed to eat on that particular day.
- The whole city was dangerous—because of chemicals and the uneven distribution of wealth and so on.
So it goes.

This slice has me thinking. I immediately went to my husband's chemo, our new way of shopping for groceries, all the ways that our world is governed by what we put in it. Thank you for inspiring my philosophical side this morning.
ReplyDeleteLove how you used the written word to splice your slice to share with us!
ReplyDeleteSuch an interesting slice you wove based on literature and your real life experience and moments. Hoping your knee feels better soon and with all these crazy, sad things happening in our world...I'm just hoping in general. :)
ReplyDeleteThat Hawkeye quote ... brought me back to MASH in a fun way.
ReplyDeleteKevin