Books: Mod Scientist

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"Love Yourself" Less fascinating than these witty, horrific, social criticisms—bleak Utopias all—but often more convincing and moving, are Vonnegut's stories on contemporary themes. They concern, among others, a half-Negro war orphan searching for his father, and a dedicated music teacher trying to soften the heart of a hardened juvenile delinquent. These tales forcibly demonstrate humanity at its best—people trying to cope with the painful present instead of escaping into an anesthetized future.

It is this struggle that Vonnegut most affirms. Even at the farthest reaches of his time-machine trip, his characters rebel and fight to salvage something human from the automated junk heap of tomorrow. As Helmholtz the music teacher says to Jim Donnini the delinquent, in an effort to explain how one might bring beauty into the world: "Love yourself and make your instrument sing about it." Though Vonnegut's performance is occasionally a little slick or a little sloppy, he does succeed in making his literary instrument sing.