The Egg Said Nothing by Caris O'Malley - Rave

It is not often I give two Raves in one day but this one is special. Coming on the heels of The Dharma Bums, of which Caris loaned me his copy, is The Egg Said Nothing. What do these two titles have in common you might ask? Well if I were to give the answer away completely, you would not read the book. But I will give a sneak preview, a glimpse of what is in store for you.

Had the Egg ever spoken there would not have been a story. It is the mystery of how and why the Egg appears that drives our narrator Manny through the mazes he created for himself.

Now was that compelling enough to get you to order this book?

Of course not. Let me expound some more on what's inside these 84 pages. Caris has managed to create a story that questions our existence as humans as we know it. This my friends is the link to Jack Kerouac's ideas written 50 plus years ago in The Dharma Bums. Everything is everything. The continuum is what we call life. We plod along looking for the answers. Some of us look for the answers in science, others in religions and still others in philosophies etc. There is no answer and there are many answers. Which is right and which are wrong?

Caris is much too young to have watched anything but syndicated re-runs of episodes of Rod Sterling's Twilight Zone. But inside these 84 pages is an un-aired episode of this classic show. And given Caris's penchant for horror films it is no wonder this title, The Egg Said Nothing, fills the bill.

Rave Once Again For Kurt Vonnegut's 'A Man Without A Country'

It was George Carlin who said in one of his last tours, if I may paraphrase, 'You can do anything when you get old.' His comments were a satire on a culture, us, that basically tries to put our elderly behind them  ignoring their behavior and justify it as they are simply getting old. George was 70 when he did that routine and I think that George's satire parallels that found here in Kurt's work of 'A Man Without a Country'.

Kurt Vonnegut was age 82 when he published 'A Man Without A Country'. I think he and George Carlin were thinking just alike about aging, society and our behavior. Kurt openly speaks his mind as he always has, but in 'A Man Without A Country' he tends to let it all out in his cynical and humorous methods.

What he give us in these pages is his inner thoughts on his work, on the world and his bleak vision of our species future. I can't totally agree with him on everything in this regard but it was interesting nonetheless.

George and Kurt found a way to the same viewpoints on society by very different paths. I rave and applaud both of them. Read their stories and listen to what they say especially what they say.

If someone has never read any of Kurt's work before, they should start with this title. A peek into how he feels and thinks will open the passages like never possible without these insights first. I want to re-read them all again as if I had never read them before.