Kurt Vonnegut

Anyone ever read Hocus Pocus?

I just ordered Mother Night from Amazon. If it arrives by Friday I can take it on holiday.

i need to finish cat's cradle
so it goes

I loved Cat's Cradle. I roll my eyes whenever someone tries to dismiss it as being too cynical or "nihilistic." My favorite of his that I've read so far.

Sirens of Titan was pretty damn impressive for a book written early in his career. Though I could've done without his pessimism for space exploration. The section where Malachi asks Winston where is his friend Stony gets me every time I think about it.

i love his explanation for the meaning of life in sirens of titans
the guy's funny as hell
so it goes

edited 10th Aug '11 7:10:54 AM by CommanderObvious

You don't have to append that to everything you say. Quite apart from anything else, that's not the way it's actually used in the book.

I've read The Sirens Of Titan, Harrison Bergeron, Cats Cradle, Slaughterhouse Five, Wampeters, Foma, & Granfalloons, Galapagos, Timequake, and Look At The Birdie.

Overall, I'd say S5 is my favorite of his works, and Harrison Bergeron my least... Unless you believe the explanation that it's a Stealth Parody of dystopias and Gary Stus, in which case it becomes awesome. However, in school, they told us to take it at face value, which really ruined it for me.

Also, having read that much of his stuff, I agree that he wasn't really a sci-fi writer. Yes, he did write a lot of Sci-Fi, but it was about as hard as milk, and always took a backseat to other genres.

edited 30th Sep '11 2:33:46 PM by Wheezy

Fangirl time.

I absolutely love Kurt Vonnegut. My favorite two books of his are Cat's Cradle and Player Piano, although I also like Slaughterhouse-Five, Mother Night and Slapstick. (Yes, I know Slapstick is considered one of his worst books, even by him. Yes, I know there are squicky bits. I liked it anyway.)

I love his sarcastic, cynical persona, and I really do see his optimism poking through just often enough to avoid giving his works a really hopeless, dystopian feel. I also love his weird touches, the aliens and ice-9 and whatever else he feels like throwing in to give it that distinctly Vonnegut touch. One of my favorite writers of all time.

Bumped.

Intermittently reading Breakfast Of Champions now (in addition to several other things), to my great enjoyment.

I've never read anything by Kurt Vonnegut, but would like to read Breakfast Of Champions in the near future.

I've read about the book on This Very Wiki. What aroused my interest most was a passage that said Breakfast Of Champions violates several essential storytelling rules, such as The Law of Conservation of Detail. I'm very curious as to what a book written without those rules would be like, but now I can't find the passage anywhere in any of the relevant articles. So, can anyone tell me if this is actually true?

Breakfast Of Champions has a lot of unnecessary detail, usually played for comedy, sometimes there to subvert normative expectations. Vonnegut plays Captain Obvious as narrator; for example, every white character is specifically identified as white - not necessarily violating Conservation of Detail, but it's a very profound effect. The illustrations in the book are often there to show what very common and obvious things look like. It also has things like the three measurements for all female characters, and penis sizes for nearly all male characters. (I cannot recall some of the other unnecessary details off the top of my head, but I know there were quite a few.) It's an aggressively experimental book, which is the majority of its charm.

edited 26th Dec '11 2:59:49 PM by TheEvilDrBolty

Ok, thanks a lot! Sounds interesting. I'll check it out sometime, after I've made it through the pile of books I already have to read

It's been ages since I read his books, but Kurt Vonnegut was one of the first authors I got into. I read The Sirens Of Titan, Slaughterhouse Five, Cats Cradle, Breakfast Of Champions, Player Piano, Mother Night, and God Bless You Mr Rosewater when I was about 12 or so. I re-read most of them when I was 15 or 16, but I'm 23 now, so I don't remember very much about most of those books. When I was re-reading them, I also read Galapagos and Time Quake, but I didn't enjoy those two. (I'm putting everything in PotHoles in case it'll inspire someone to write some articles.)

My favourite ones are The Sirens Of Titan, Cats Cradle and God Bless You Mr Rosewater. They're so far superior to the rest, in my opinion, that it's almost as if they're by a different author. But Vonnegut's style, of course, is absolutely unique, so obviously all of his books have the appeal that goes with it.

A year or two ago, I was at a lecture about postmodernism. A slide featured a picture of many prominent postmodernists, and Vonnegut was among them. I hadn't thought about him for a long time, so when I saw his face I damn near cried. My heart is still hurting from his death, though I'm sure he had a laugh or two about the whole thing.

BTW, Vonnegut was a close friend of John Irving, who is also one of my favourite authors.

edited 5th Aug '12 6:55:04 AM by BestOf

How have I been here as long as I have and not thought to check if there was a Kurt Vonnegut thread? *feels stupid*

Ever since I started reading him, I thought Cat's Cradle was the best book he wrote. (Yes, I even think it's better than Slaughterhouse Five!) I like God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. The Sirens Of Titan is just too depressing to be a favourite of mine, though.

There actually is one thing I'm curious about people's opinions on, which is the short story Welcome To The Monkey House. Now, I think Kurt was awesome and I've enjoyed almost every single thing he ever wrote to varying degrees. But that's the exception I have got to wonder what he was thinking when he wrote that particular story. It's the only story of his I haven't read multiple times, because I found the ending so disturbing the first time.