Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1994. [Vol. 2.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 22)
STUDIES - Donald E. Morse: The Joyful Celebration oflJfe. Kurt Vonnegut's Affirmative Vision in Galapagos and Bluebeard
As Galapagos examines the misuse of human reason and invention as the principal danger to life on planet earth, so Bluebeard looks at the misuse of human creativity as endangering true art Karabekian a reformed abstract expressionist painter is a more complex character in Bluebeard than the Rabo Karabekian honored by writer-manque the Midland Arts Festival for artistic achievement together with the writermanque Kilgore Trout ( Breakfast of Champions). When challenged by a cocktail waitress in the earlier novel to defend his painting, The Temptation of St Anthony that consisted of a vertical stripe of Day-Glo orange on a field of green as a work of art, he extravagantly replied: .. the picture your city owns shows everything about life which truly matters, with nothing left out It is a picture of the awareness of every animal. It is the immaterial core of every animal —the 'I am' to which all messages are sent. It is all that is alive in any of us —in a mouse, in a deer, in a cocktail waitress. It is unwavering and pure, no matter what preposterous adventure may befall us." (221) Karabekian's speculations parody much of the criticism of Abstract Expressionism which in a more extreme form appears in Tom Wolfe's spirited, if highly opinionated, book on the necessity of theory for modern art, The Painted WordI 1 0 Although The Temptation of St Anthony has no content, Karabekian ascribes considerable significance to it "A sacred picture of St Anthony alone is one vertical, unwavering and of light If a cockroach were near him, or a cocktail waitress, the picture would show two such bands of light Our awareness of all that is alive and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is dead machinery." (221) Unlike Wolfe, Vonnegut provides an example of a positive, genuine artistic achievement in Karabekian's last painting. 118
