When I was in Grade 12, I took an english speaking class. In high school, you had to take 5 english credits to graduate, so my ‘extra’ class had to be english writing or a ‘public speaking’ class. Every week for 20 weeks we had to write a one page speech and say it in front of the class. We also did stuff like a book report etc. Our novel study was on Flowers for Algernon and my friend Goat and I did it ‘together’ – while plagarism could be used here, we actually both worked on the whole thing together and turned it in seperately. We got busted, but since neither of us had actually copied it from the other, they couldn’t give us the standard punishment. We ended up having to do an individual novel study each, with different books. The book that I got was The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut I found it unbelievably profound. I think it was the first time (since reading I Had Trouble In Getting To Solla Sollew) that I was really amazed by a book. It’s a series of stories about different people in different phases of their life. A soldier, A disabled man, etc, and at the end I finally realized that they were all about the same man, and it was like I had been struck by an idea (a 1.21 Gigawatt idea!). It was one of the most moving literary moments of my life. So today, I take a moment and remember the gift that Kurt Vonnegut gave me.

Later…
OK I went and read the summary of this book from Wikipedia and It’s nothing like what I remember. All that stuff is still true.. I just don’t know what book I’m thinking about.