S/D: Kurt Vonnegut

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

I've just finished Breakfast of Champions, which was fantastic and better than Slaughterhouse 5, and now I'm looking to move on to more of his stuff. What should I look for? What should I avoid? What have you particularly enjoyed?

(unintentional rhyme....)

― hejira, Tuesday, 21 February 2006 09:51 (twenty years ago)

Read it all. Figure it out later.

― Paunchy Stratego (kenan), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 09:58 (twenty years ago)

player piano

― peter green, Tuesday, 21 February 2006 10:02 (twenty years ago)

Cat's Cradle
Sirens of Titan
Mother Night

― Paunchy Stratego (kenan), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 10:03 (twenty years ago)

mother night is his best, then S-5. he's best if you read all his stuff at once.

this is the third vonnegut thread to date, i think.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 10:23 (twenty years ago)

timequake!

― the kit! (g-kit), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 10:31 (twenty years ago)

Sorry, obviously didn't look hard enough for the other threads. How come it's best to read all his stuff at once? I'm sadly lacking anything else of his so I might have to go on a Vonnegut-related shopping spree. Has anyone here seen the film? It looks appalling but I'd be very happy if it weren't.

― hejira, Tuesday, 21 February 2006 10:37 (twenty years ago)

How come it's best to read all his stuff at once?

It's not that you have to read it all at once. It's just that, perhaps, you have to read it without first starting an ILE thread about it.

― Paunchy Stratego (kenan), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 11:06 (twenty years ago)

This has to be true of a lot of things. Suddenly I feel like some kinda goddamn zen master.

― Paunchy Stratego (kenan), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 11:10 (twenty years ago)

What would be the point of starting a thread asking what Kurt Vonnegut book would be the best to read if I'd already read them all?

― hejira, Tuesday, 21 February 2006 12:59 (twenty years ago)

Search:
Slaughterhouse 5
Cat's Crade
Slapstick or Lonesome no more
Breakfast of Champions
Sirens of Titans

Destroy:
Galapagos

I like to read all his stuff at the same time.

― jeffrey (johnson), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 14:29 (twenty years ago)

"Here's the news: I am going to sue the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, manufacturers of Pall Mall cigarettes, for a billion bucks! Starting when I was only twelve years old, I have never chain-smoked anything but unfiltered Pall Malls. And for many years now, right on the package, Brown and Williamson have promised to kill me.
But I am now eighty-two. Thanks a lot, you dirty rats. The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon."
-kv from a man without a country

― msp (mspa), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 15:25 (twenty years ago)

when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon.

^^ incredibly lame

― ,,, Tuesday, 21 February 2006 15:31 (twenty years ago)

vonnegut seen at sage francis show wearing
http://www.radioislam.org/bush/buch-chimp/5_files/tshirt12.jpg
tshirt

― ,,, Tuesday, 21 February 2006 15:33 (twenty years ago)

Destroy:
Galapagos

noooooooooooo

― Steely Df'nM (OutDatWay), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:25 (twenty years ago)

I think once you've read about four you realise they're all pretty much the same and move on to something else...I mean, I really like Vonnegut, but he's churned out a lot of books and I really can't be bothered reading any more.

― Cathy (Cathy), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:01 (twenty years ago)

Search:
Welcome To The Monkey House, esp. "Harrison Bergeron"
His story in Dangerous Visions
His cameo in Back To School

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:33 (twenty years ago)

S: "Biafra" in Foma, Wampeters & Granfalloons!

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:43 (twenty years ago)

most importantly his recent interviews and direct demystification of the Psychotic Personality. how good is man without a country?

he used to be on some bullshit for real. moments of lucidity. a truly decent old man.

― PDS, Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:45 (twenty years ago)

Find threads from I Love Everything, containing Vonnegut.
100 results found:

For purposes of comparison:

Find threads from I Love Everything, containing Britney.
100 results found:

― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 18:29 (twenty years ago)

I've Deadeye Dick, Slaughterhouse-5 and Mother Night, and they're all terrific (props to whomever mentioned "Harrison Bergeron), but I don't have any desire to read anything more by KV ever. You'll understand when you've read them! Apparently, Sirens of Titan and Cat's Cradle are also good, tho'.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 18:46 (twenty years ago)

deadeye dick is the worst one I read (and I read all of them up through hocus pocus). mother night, slaughterhouse, cat's cradle, all classic. bluebeard and galapagos classic in another sort of way. i think breakfast, slapstick, deadeye dick, and hocus pocus were pretty bad though.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 18:57 (twenty years ago)

Deadeye Dick was the first KV book I read -- but yeah, once you've read S-5, it does seem like an inessential redux. Indeed, I get the impression most of his post-BoC work is pretty repetetive -- Twain seems like a more ambitious writer (I can't imagine there's anything in KV as batshit-odd as "The Mysterious Stranger"). I'm just sort of glad he's not dead yet.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 20:04 (twenty years ago)

i'm in the middle of player piano right now actually, after having let it sit on the shelf for years now. so far i'd put it somewhere below but nearer to cat's cradle (fave) than breakfast (least fave). but there's several i haven't read.

― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 20:32 (twenty years ago)

Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut - YES or NO?
Is it true that Kurt Vonnegut posts to ILX?

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 20:38 (twenty years ago)

of things not mentioned yet (on this thread anyway), venus on the half-shell (written as kilgore trout) is not classic, but it's funny. and god bless you mr. rosewater is classic-ish.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 20:44 (twenty years ago)

except subsequent research (i.e. google) shows that the trout book is actually by phillip jose farmer! really? i just always naturally assumed it was kv.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 20:47 (twenty years ago)

oh search bluebeard too.

Galapagos might be great in itself etc. but it is the point where i became completely vonnegut'd out so it seems v. poor by comparison.

― jeffrey (johnson), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 21:19 (twenty years ago)

that venus on the half shell book bewildered me for a few years when I found it used in high school (pre-internet days); I don't think I figured out who wrote it until the internet came along, actually.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 21:30 (twenty years ago)

it's a pretty good vonnegut pastiche.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 22:08 (twenty years ago)

i enjoyed vonnegutt's book with lee stringer about writing.

who would you guys see as his peers? (just curious.)

― msp (mspa), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 23:01 (twenty years ago)

i think he's a little hard to place. by being funny and fantastical, he's always flirted with the edge of literary respectability (although i think he's generally regarded as "literature" by now, right?). he doesn't quite belong with pynchon and/or barthelme, but he definitely doesn't sit squarely in sci-fi or any other genre. i think he sees mark twain as his most direct precedent, and i'm willing to give him that.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 23:06 (twenty years ago)

Bluebeard is one of my top 5 novels ever. It also has some responsabilities in the act of bulding my personality in the later years.

― misshajim (strand), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 09:34 (twenty years ago)

Thanks for the recommendations. It's really interesting that people say he gets samey after a while; I think that because I'm only two books in and they were radically different in terms of subject matter (S-5 and B of C) I can't see each new one not being fresh. Ignorance is bliss and all that.

What is it about KV's writing that makes him so hard to put down? With such disjointed a writing style you'd think his novels would never flow, but somehow they do. Does his style get tiresome when you read more of his stuff?

― hejira, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 09:47 (twenty years ago)

On I Love Books I called his novels and stories 'talking animal fables where all the animals happen to be human' and in spite of the obvious reaching for a witty thing to say, there's a kernal of truth there.

Vonnegut's strength is social satire. What changes from book to book is not his point of view, but the particular manifestations of society he has chosen to examine. This does lead to a certain sameness, as the ridiculous aspects of society tend to repeat themselves in endless variations, sui genre, and Vonnegut (rather wisely) does not attempt to vary his sardonic commentary on them. The plot and characters change from book to book, but they are merely peripheral to the matter at hand.

― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 16:43 (twenty years ago)

I am very fond of Vonnegut. He was in fact the first 'adult' author I ever really liked, if he is indeed an 'adult' author.

― the bellefox, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 16:45 (twenty years ago)

huge fan, althopugh i haven't even tried to read half his books...

Faves:

1) player piano (more "traditional" sci fi novel, orwellian + funny ... yet contains just as much inspired madness in the tight structure as his crazy stuff)
2) Breakfast of champions
3) slaughterhouse 5
4) Cat's cradle

Good:

Monkey House
Mr. Rosewater

Disappointed: galapagos

― -rainbow bum- (-rainbow bum-), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 17:04 (twenty years ago)

I tend to prefer his non-Kilgore Trout stuff. I love Deadeye Dick but I think it's a shame there's not more props for Slapstick, which I like more than all his other stuff (maybe a "Scooby Doo" choice). Incestuous neanderthal genius twins! The afterlife as crap (surprise)! Whenever Xtians talk about the family under attack, I always think of the new family system the guy made up that won him the presidential election. I always wanted a Lonsome No More pin. He gave the book a D- in Palm Sunday, even he undersells it (I think cause he wrote Palm Sunday shortly after the press vommed all over Slapstick).

― Abbott (Abbott), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:31 (twenty years ago)

updike loved slapstick, its in his big book of lit reviews

― ,,,,,,,, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:33 (twenty years ago)

maybe not loved but seemed awfully fond of it

― ,,,,,,,,,, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:33 (twenty years ago)

Vonnegut generally seems quite embarrassed of it.

― Abbott (Abbott), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:34 (twenty years ago)

Going in through the out here, what Twain would be a good starting point for a K.V. fan?

― no bones, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:41 (twenty years ago)

Maybe The Mysterious Stranger or Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven - as the first thoughts that pop into my head.

― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:44 (twenty years ago)

who would you guys see as his peers? (just curious.)

age-wise: Updike/Roth/Mailer

stylistically: hard to say. JG Ballard? Kingsley Amis(a scifi fan)??

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:48 (twenty years ago)

in which case the writing of his peers (sans mailer) completely humiliates him

― ,,,,,,,,,,,,, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:49 (twenty years ago)

uh sans ballard as well

― ,,,,,,,,,, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:49 (twenty years ago)

I'd take the best of Mailer and Ballard over Vonnegut as well, though I treasure Kurt as a gateway drug who guided me to all kinds of better books. He was a GODSEND to literary teens in the stoner 70s.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:53 (twenty years ago)

Did you also find time for Richard Brautigan, lovebug?

Kingsley Amis(a scifi fan)??
Martin Amis has said he got the gimmick for Time's Arrow from Slaughterhouse Five.

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:56 (twenty years ago)

xpost

He is a gateway drug to literary stoner teens today. Witness my pal that was a science geex until he discovered Vonnegut, went to Reed College for a lit major, and came home three years later a giant acid burnout. In this case, Vonnegut ended up being more of a gateway drug to grugs than to good authors. My friend did not end up smoking Pall Malls, though.

Vonnegut pointed me straight to Brautigan, who I am mostly disillusioned with today.

― Abbott (Abbott), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 19:58 (twenty years ago)

other relevant twain: letters from the earth, the diaries of adam and eve, helpful hints for good living

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 20:00 (twenty years ago)

(the twain stuff is all public domain and readily available online)

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 20:01 (twenty years ago)

Vonnegut pointed me straight to Brautigan, who I am mostly disillusioned with today.
Well, I haven't read him in twenty-five years, but for some reason, Dreaming Of Babylon was recently translated into Norwegian. You can read it here

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 20:10 (twenty years ago)

I missed out on Brautigan, he always seemed like a 60s phenom, coming just before my time. Maybe he's ahem better in Norwegian?

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 20:14 (twenty years ago)

Maybe, although I remember Dreaming Of Babylon being pretty good, being his take on the hardboiled novel. We'll have to ask teh Øystein.

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 20:18 (twenty years ago)

my favorite was always Jailbird (1980 I think) - it seemed a reallyl even book to me, and emotional in neither a cranky nor over-effusive way. I have a lot of love for some or his other stuff, but yeah, he's a guy who you tend to have a phase with and then move on though I'll take him over dull-as-toast-landed-gentryman Updike any day

― Thomas Tallis (Tommy), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 20:21 (twenty years ago)

yeah updike is awful, the most overrated writer of the last 50 years. i'd rate mailer ahead of vonnegut but he's way more inconsistent. roth is really a light-year or two ahead of these guys.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 21:22 (twenty years ago)

The most overrated writer of the last 50 years is John Irving. Updike's ok if you're Episcopalian.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 21:25 (twenty years ago)

do lit-crits actually rate irving, though?

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 21:31 (twenty years ago)

They do in Europe, the poor fools.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 21:31 (twenty years ago)

they seem to take bret easton ellis a lot more seriously than we do too.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Wednesday, 22 February 2006 21:36 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

Finally saw Slaughterhouse-V(the flick) tonight. I liked it.

― kingfish, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 03:53 (eighteen years ago)

i'm going to see it on wednesday, in a double feature with happy birthday, wanda june.

― get bent, Tuesday, 7 August 2007 04:36 (eighteen years ago)

five years pass...

Just read and loved Mother Night. Better even than S-5 I think. Beautiful prose, tight plotting and a fascinating exploration of moral compromise.

― Get wolves (DL), Tuesday, 9 October 2012 10:08 (thirteen years ago)

Need to re-read that, can hardly remember anything about it.

― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Tuesday, 9 October 2012 10:11 (thirteen years ago)

yeah mother night is way better than s-5.

― barthes simpson, Tuesday, 9 October 2012 12:58 (thirteen years ago)

Hmmm, I feel a poll coming on.

― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Tuesday, 9 October 2012 13:05 (thirteen years ago)

eight months pass...

I just read Slapstick, which I got for 69 cents at a thrift store, bought mainly because the cover looked like weird 70s Clockwork Orange-style pop-art. I quite enjoyed it! Finished it in a few days. Really short chapters, very improvised feel to it. Some parts felt more like reading a comic book than a novel. I read the first half in little bits and pieces here and there and then plowed through the rest today. If you do get this book, I'd recommend reading a chapter or two a day and meditating on the jokes and stuff. Apparently it's one of the least-loved of his books?

Not a whole lot happens, except a lunatic narrating his twisted history leading up to a pretty colorful post-apocalyptic proto-Idiocracy wasteland. It's not a gritty and depressing apocalypse though, mainly people setting up palaces in the floor of the NYSE and calling themselves The King Of New York and stuff. I really enjoyed the pacing of it, so maybe on second thought, yeah just plow through this book if you have nothing to do for 4-5 hours.

And there was a movie of it made in the 80's with Madeline Khan? Has anyone seen it? I read the synopsis on wikipedia before i finished the book and was worried i had spoiled the ending, but in reality it doesn't seem to resemble it all that much.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 28 June 2013 00:02 (twelve years ago)

Hmm ok "the stars are Jerry Lewis, Madeline Kahn and Marty Feldman"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slapstick_of_Another_Kind

Sounds like midnight movie heaven!

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 28 June 2013 00:16 (twelve years ago)

timequake doesn't often get a lot of love. g-kit mentioned it upthread but i am going to put another good word in.

― Treeship, Friday, 28 June 2013 01:25 (twelve years ago)

Slapstick (film) I have seen on a fair smattering of "the worst movies ever" lists. I really love the book, probably biased because it was the first of his I ever read. Vonnegut himself gave all his books letter grades once and rated Slapstick lowest, a D.

― even the beatles had a coinstar machine in their living room (Crabbits), Friday, 28 June 2013 01:32 (twelve years ago)

Also I guess "nothing" "happens" but there was iirc an awful lot of incest in it. Go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. Go take a flying fuck at the moon!

― even the beatles had a coinstar machine in their living room (Crabbits), Friday, 28 June 2013 01:33 (twelve years ago)

The mooooooon!

Hi ho.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Friday, 28 June 2013 03:10 (twelve years ago)

He gives Slaughterhouse 5, Cat's Cradle and Mother Night A+. Very modest of him considering that Cat's Cradle is A+++++.

http://soupsoup.tumblr.com/post/309740529/sarahspy-kurt-vonnegut-rates-his-own-books-on

― Damo Suzuki's Parrot, Friday, 28 June 2013 08:08 (twelve years ago)

weird, just got 'slapstick' at a friend's moving sale. when i bought it, she told me, apologetically: 'it's not his best.'

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, 28 June 2013 08:09 (twelve years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.