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Kurt Vonnegut

While I can appreciate the piece above, its rhyhm and word choice, I can't say I'd want to read on. It's firmly in my head, after reading Slaughterhouse 5 and that short story (of which I forget the name), that Vonnegut's style is not one for me. I've flicked through a few more books in Borders but none had me wanting to hand over money.
 
Vinsecula said:
I'm a huge Vonnegut fan, although I've only finished one book (Slaughterhouse-Five). I'm a little over mid-way through Hocus Pocus, and I simply adore it. After Hocus Pocus, one of my co-worker's, an English major in college, suggested I pick up Cat's Cradle and Galapagos. After those two, does anybody have any suggestions?
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God Bless you, Dr. Kerovokian. (spelling error perhaps on the name..) short, but i loved it. it was the first Vonnegut book i read
 
Vonnegut tried to commit suicide in 1984 with pills and alcohol, and later on he made jokes about botching the job. His books are thinly disguised vehicles that showed his view on the world.
I read Slaughterhouse Five pretty soon after it first came out. I liked it. Read Breakfast of Champions and thought it was okay. Nothing else, really.
The AP says Vonnegut was always amazed he'd lived so long, being a heavy smoker his whole life.

I'll bet they put 'So It Goes' on his tombstone...
 
"I am not dying," said Rumfoord. "I am merely taking my leave of the solar system. And I am not even doing that. In the grand, in the timeless, in the chronosynclastic infundibulated way of looking at things. I shall always be here. I shall always be wherever I've been.

"Whatever we've said, friends, we're saying still -- such as it was, such as it is, such as it will be."
 
RobertM said:
Vonnegut tried to commit suicide in 1984 with pills and alcohol, and later on he made jokes about botching the job. . . .

The AP says Vonnegut was always amazed he'd lived so long, being a heavy smoker his whole life.
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His attempt at "classy suicide" failed.

I read everything of his I could get my hands on. While his writing was entertaining, I read it more for the fact that it was a sympathetic and reasonable voice. His books made me feel better, even though there was a pessimistic tone.

So it goes.
 
Kurt is up in Heaven now.

I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that functionless capacity. We had a memorial services for Isaac a few years back, and at one point I said, “Isaac is up in Heaven now.” It was the funniest thing I could have said to a group of Humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, “Kurt is up in Heaven now.”
 
I first read Kurt Vonnegut as a twelve, thirteen year old back in the early seventies - around the same time as I picked up LOTR. They were formative to me as a reader and I appreciate them in that respect. I saw him in person at a reading in the early eighties in a crowded hall and he didn't seem particularly comfortable with the total adulation he received. Who knows, could have been anything I guess, but he was in a big hurry to get away like most sensible people would be. Anyhow, so long, sir. Thanks for the stories.
 
Mari said:
Kurt is up in Heaven now
I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov in that functionless capacity. We had a memorial services for Isaac a few years back, and at one point I said, “Isaac is up in Heaven now.” It was the funniest thing I could have said to a group of Humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, “Kurt is up in Heaven now.”
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I just read the news and was coming here to post something along these lines. While I didn't love everything he wrote, I do think that the world has lost a great mind.
 
Well, I just found out that Kurt Vonnegut died today. And I'm ashamed to say that I've only read a short story, none of his novels(although my parents think I'm too young to read them-I won'g 'get them').
 
I think Vonnegut is one of those writers you don't miss until you find out he's gone...
I know that sounds weird, but I think it's true. :cool:
 
HermioneWeasley said:
Well, I just found out that Kurt Vonnegut died today. And I'm ashamed to say that I've only read a short story, none of his novels(although my parents think I'm too young to read them-I won'g 'get them').
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I hear you about the lack of reading his works part. I just went on amazon and purchased three of his books. I will definitely be looking forward to posting about them in a week or so.
 
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.

This is a re-read. I first read it about 15 years ago, and it still holds up. On the one hand, this is a hilarious satire on the cold war and the atom bomb; the weapon everyone wants, but whose use can only mean everybody loses. It certainly has "Dr Strangelove Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb" - the idea of a doomsday weapon that can't NOT be set off - for a cousin. The Cuba crisis looms large.

At the same time, it's a bit more than that. Despite the fact that it's obviously more than 40 years old, Cat's Cradle still feels quite relevant; both in its discussions on American foreign policy
The highest possible form of treason (...) is to say that Americans aren't loved wherever they go, whatever they do.
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and on the whole debate of rationality vs irrationality, science vs religion. People on both sides could do well to read this. As dismissive as Vonnegut is of the idea that science will always make the world perfect - the main target of the satire - his wish isn't a return to superstitoin but an advance to humanism. A large part of the narrative is carried by the fictional religion of Bokononism, a religion that claims as its first gospel that all religions are lies, especially Bokononism, and that the only thing holy is man. Of course it's a crackpot religion, but then again, it's a crackpot mankind.

It wouldn't be Vonnegut if all this wasn't delivered as an absolute farce, where everything goes to hell and nothing's as bleakly funny as the end of the world. The image that has always stuck with me is the one for which the book is named:
Newt remained curled in the chair. He held out his painty hands as though a cat's cradle were strung between them.

"No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's . . ."

"And?"

"No damn cat, and no damn cradle."
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In a world where the alternatives seem to be either blind faith or blind progress, Cat's Cradle is a pratfall of a novel saying HEY! It's just a piece of string! LOOK at it! Look at how the world is made up of PEOPLE, and we've in our infinite wisdom arrived at a point where we need to recognize each other for the ****-ups we are or we'll be laughing ourselves into an early grave. 44 years on, I see no reason to pronounce him wrong.
 
Jailbird isn't Vonnegut's best work by a long shot, but it's interesting. What starts off like an autobiography by the least-known of the people who went to jail after Watergate (Nixon's advisor on youth culture - basically, nobody even cared if he came in to work) turns into a commentary on the "American dream" and capitalism and socialism in the US, containing both a passionate defense of Sacco and Vanzetti and Vonnegut's usual deeply serious silliness, where bagladies can secretly own the entire country and the kindness of strangers ALMOST prevails; he's definitely got a political axe to grind, but he does it with such compassion and such sharp observations that that's not really a problem; the fact that the book isn't quite as funny as it thinks and that the narrative itself is the least interesting part of the story - it's really mostly an excuse to get from one satirical scene to the next. is. It's not his best work, but it's still a great read. 3/5.
 
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