Kurt Vonnegut - YES or NO?

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So. kurt Vonnegut.

YES?

Or perhaps -

NO?

Choose now.

― Al Ewing (Al Ewing), Thursday, 3 April 2003 21:31 (twenty-two years ago)

yes.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Thursday, 3 April 2003 21:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes.

He's probably going to
die in the next seven
months. He's a good
person and a nice guy.

― d k (d k), Thursday, 3 April 2003 21:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I say yes too, but I didn't know about the seven months stuff. He writes fantastic books. He sounds nice in them.

― Al Ewing (Al Ewing), Thursday, 3 April 2003 21:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes
But for some odd reason I can never fiish one of his books. It's not that i don't like them, I just can't seem to finish one.

― brg30 (brg30), Thursday, 3 April 2003 21:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes
But for some odd reason I can never finish one of his books. It's not that i don't like them, I just can't seem to finish one.

― brg30 (brg30), Thursday, 3 April 2003 21:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes....but as his books are such an eyeful, to read them isn't for the faint of heart.

― Nichole Graham (Nichole Graham), Thursday, 3 April 2003 21:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm sorry, brg30, but that makes you a 'no'.

Take your place behind the white line, please.

― Al Ewing (Al Ewing), Thursday, 3 April 2003 22:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Vonnegut the novelist, yes.
Vonnegut the fictional sunscreen endorser, more yes.
Vonnegut the what? American Express? pitchman, yes yes yes.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 3 April 2003 22:31 (twenty-two years ago)

non-smartass answer:
if it wasn't for Vonnegut, my brilliant but dyslexic kid brother would never have discovered that reading could be fun/joy/recreation/whatever, so big ups on behalf of J-Dogg.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 3 April 2003 22:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Slaughterhouse-Five
Breakfast of Champions
Bluebeard
These are the ones I've read. I've been meaning to start Slapstick but can't due to my steady, determined yet hell-ishly dull trek through Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.
Vonnegut? Yes indeed. Great imagination, funny satire. Check out the way he incorporates elements of sci-fi and history into his work.

"Causin' Hocus Pocus Like my man Kurt Vonnegut"
- Professor Murder

― theodore fogelsanger, Thursday, 3 April 2003 22:34 (twenty-two years ago)

To be non-smartass for a second (although you are still AGAINST US and not WITH US brg30 you FIEND) I should make the confession that starting this thread was a result of a rush of adrenaline on reading Slaughterhouse 5, Timequake and expecially, especially Breakfast of Champions, which has informed me in a lot of ways for close on two years - although I didn't explore further from that into Vonnegut until about two days ago.

The point here is that I've yet to read a Vonnegut novel that doesn't feature Kilgore Trout. I feel I'm missing something.

I'm off to fetch Cat's Cradle from the library in a couple of days. Recommendations beyond that?

― Al Ewing (Al Ewing), Thursday, 3 April 2003 22:38 (twenty-two years ago)

slaughterhouse five: YES

everything else: NO

breakfast of champions: especially NO

― geeta (geeta), Thursday, 3 April 2003 22:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Vonnegut: No.
Trout: Yes. (AKA Farmer)

― Dave Fischer, Friday, 4 April 2003 02:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Some more recs for Al: "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater", "Deadeye Dick", "Jailbird", "Galapagos", "Bluebeard" - but definitely start with "Cat's Cradle" (the apex of Vonnegutism, IMHO).

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 4 April 2003 02:13 (twenty-two years ago)

I hate it when I start a thread and no one responds, and then six months later someone starts a thread on the exact same topic and a million people respond. It makes me feel...um....cursed, somehow.

anyway, I'll just repeat what I said six months ago: Slaugterhouse-5 is funny and brilliant, Cat's Cradle is funny, Mother Night is brilliant and disturbing (maybe too much so, since no one ever lists it as a favorite), and Breakfast of Champions is like eating five straight bowls of Vonnegutian sugar cereal: fun but kinda yucky too.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 4 April 2003 07:15 (twenty-two years ago)

yes for cat's cradle. there is a vonnegut thread.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 4 April 2003 07:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I fourth Cat's Cradle. Do not go and see the film The Recruit by the way. It thinks it is so clever for its constant Vonnegut references that it has to explain them to the audience. Pah.

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 4 April 2003 07:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes. Another vote for CCradle. I really liked Slapstick, everything seemed to come together on that one. I would recommend Welcome to the Monkey House, a collection of short fiction. I likes them short fictions.

― weatheringdaleson (weatheringdaleson), Friday, 4 April 2003 07:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Definate Yes. There's something so natural and human about his writing. Cat's Cradle is great. I also really enjoyed reading Bagombo Snuff Box, a collection of his early magazine fiction.

― Simeon (Simeon), Friday, 4 April 2003 07:52 (twenty-two years ago)

read them all. probably read them again. actually i'm reading all of them right now

― b pilgrim, Friday, 4 April 2003 08:17 (twenty-two years ago)

yes
and i recommend bluebeard...

― robin (robin), Friday, 4 April 2003 14:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I haven't read him in ages. I think I went off him for the occasional bit of simple-minded but smug philosophising (see also Tom Robbins).

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 4 April 2003 17:18 (twenty-two years ago)

I loved Vonnegut as an angsty teenager, but haven't really paid much attention since, for pretty much the same reason Martin cited so succinctly. Wait, I take that back...I saw the Mother Night movie, which actually was not bad.

Vonnegut is very anti-technology, a stance which is cute, but ultimately it's kind of annoying, because, well, I LIKE TECHNOLOGY. I started reading Player Piano a few years ago, and I couldn't even finish it. The theme (replacing people with machines = BAD) is just reiterated over and over, and I got sick of it. I mean, geez, what is his stance on the cotton gin?

So, read Vonnegut for his sense of humor - which still has its charm.

― Ernest P. (ernestp), Saturday, 5 April 2003 03:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Man, I think Player Piano would have been the best short story, but it's my least favorite of his novels.

― Fivvy (Fivvy), Saturday, 5 April 2003 18:15 (twenty-two years ago)

If someone asked me, i'd have said i'd only read a couple of his books, but looking at the various titles listed above, it seems i've read, and enjoyed nearly all of them. YES from me. I especially liked slaughterhouse5 and actually i really liked galapagos as well. I might pivk up a few paperbacks to check them out again actually. all i seem to be doing at the moment is reading a coupla chapters ov "the manuscript found in saragossa" (nb not by vonnegut, o no), losing the thread, picking it up again, reading the same coupl ov chapters, losing the thread....perhaps I should start getting the bus into work again, so I can read more stuff.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Saturday, 5 April 2003 18:45 (twenty-two years ago)

all i seem to be doing at the moment is reading a coupla chapters ov "the manuscript found in saragossa"

Absolutely brilliant book, that one.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 5 April 2003 18:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes

― luna (luna.c), Saturday, 5 April 2003 19:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Absolutely brilliant book, that one.

God, isn't it? I read this review of it in "The Observer" years ago, when it got reprinted, which basically raved over it. It took me something like 2 yrs to find a copy (it was like "Omon Ra" in that no bookseller I tried seemed to have heard of it) so I had 2 yrs of building it up in my mind, and it was still better than I expected when I finally found one. Considering how long ago it was written, it's really contemporary in places, in the way it reads (admittedly, this could just be a good translation, but still...)

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Saturday, 5 April 2003 19:19 (twenty-two years ago)

yes

― Clare (not entirely unhappy), Sunday, 6 April 2003 06:21 (twenty-two years ago)

two years pass...

Has anyone read A Man without a Country?

"I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened instead is that it was taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d'etat imaginable...

"I know there is not a chance in hell of America becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts us absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many lifeless bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas."

http://counterpunch.org/swanson12272005.html

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 17:06 (twenty years ago)

i pissed next to him at a rest area on the merritt parkway over thanksgiving. small splash.

― Jams Murphy (ystrickler), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 17:14 (twenty years ago)

Yes, if only for the fact I did a group project on Cat's Cradle in a college sci-fi literature class. Out of three students, one of our group members was apparently the dumbest person in the entire class. Not only did he misunderstand the entire plot of the book, he had a lot of blatant misinformation in his part of the paper we had to do. I think we ended up doing a quick rewrite but kept the original because it was absolutely hilarious. The professor understood since apparently all of the papers he turned in during the class were incoherent.

― mike h. (mike h.), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 17:19 (twenty years ago)

No one mentioned Sirens of Titan three years ago. Such a brilliantly unhinged book, a bit like a madder, more metaphysical Douglas Adams, only twenty years earlier. His most atypical novel, and one of my favourites.

― chap who would dare to tell uninteresting celeb spotting stories (chap), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 17:28 (twenty years ago)

breakfast of champions is great

― don't start a RYE-OTT! (plsmith), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 17:29 (twenty years ago)

i learnt that beaver = vagina from breakfast at champions

― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 18:44 (twenty years ago)

mike h, repost all the bad parts of that guy's paper!

― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 18:47 (twenty years ago)

saw him speak my freshman year in college and it left a mark. he's been one of my heroes ever since.

"get yourself a gang"
m.

― msp (mspa), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 20:02 (twenty years ago)

Yes. I loved slaughterhouse, cat's cradle, breakfast of champions and sirens of titans, not so much 'god bless you dr. kevorkian. I am excited to read more.

― jeffrey (johnson), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 20:15 (twenty years ago)

slapstick

― Jeff-Beetle (Jeff), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 20:19 (twenty years ago)

KV YES, for the novels, but also for "The Big Space Fuck."

― truck-patch pixel farmer (Rock Hardy), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 20:21 (twenty years ago)

He taught me how to draw an asshole. Bless.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 20:26 (twenty years ago)

i love his description of the star spangled banner - "gibberish sprinkled with question marks."

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 22:06 (twenty years ago)

Why, yes. Yes! Of course: YES.

― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 22:15 (twenty years ago)

I say yes. I went through a several year 'no' phase because I had read a handful of his books and got sick of their sameyness, plus I was an English major and decided he wasn't sufficiently literary. But fuck that, he's great.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 23:45 (twenty years ago)

so important to me in high school, but I haven't read him since; similarly I went on to study literature and felt the same way, that it wasn't up to standards....but lately I've had the bug to read them all again after finding my box of paperbacks. maybe I will.

― kyle (akmonday), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 23:48 (twenty years ago)

Yes. I read and loved CC, Sh5, SoT, MN in highschool. I went through a similar phase to Abbadavid, when I thought he was beneath my attention. Since then I've ended up reading a few later ones (titles forgotten) at people's houses or from the thrift shop for a plane/train trip and they're pretty good if you don't expect much. My brother (in AA) says Kurt (big deal in AA) lost some of his gift for humor with sobriety.

― steve ketchup, Thursday, 29 December 2005 05:52 (twenty years ago)

i think bluebeard was the last good one I read.

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 29 December 2005 05:56 (twenty years ago)

i loved breakfast of champions and i liked god bless you dr kevorkian. i need to read more.

― tres letraj (tehresa), Thursday, 29 December 2005 07:38 (twenty years ago)

YES. although i havent read him since being an angsty teenager either.

― AaronK (AaronK), Thursday, 29 December 2005 14:10 (twenty years ago)

ranking the ones i've read from best to worst:

slaughterhouse five
bluebeard
sirens of titan
mother night
cat's cradle
slapstick
god bless you, mr. rosewater
breakfast of champions
jailbird
deadeye dick

and "harrison bergeron" from Welcome to the Monkey House is awesome. it's probably the most stereotypical (and probably the best) high school short story outside of "the most dangerous game" or "flowers for algernon" or "the secret life of walter mitty" or something.

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Friday, 30 December 2005 03:37 (twenty years ago)

although i havent read him since being an angsty teenager either.

haha, exactly

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Friday, 30 December 2005 03:38 (twenty years ago)

i read about half of Slaughterhouse5 but thought it was like chinese water torture. "so it goes"... "so it goes"... "so it goes"... "so it goes"... oh I GET IT, fuck off.

i'm sure it's good though :)

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 30 December 2005 04:03 (twenty years ago)

slapstick and deadeye dick were pretty bad. I don't remember Hocus Pocus at all. I liked Jailbird but I think that was the first one I read, weirdly enough.

I stood in line for three hours to get him to sign Fates Worse Than Death, and he stopped signing the second my book got to him because he couldn't sit any longer, he had a bad back! I was gutted. I made up for it by finding relatively inexpensive signed copies of Galapagos a month later though.

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 30 December 2005 20:16 (twenty years ago)

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