Kurt Vonnegut

[IronParrot]

I'm sure other people here are familiar with his works, right? What do you think of his stuff in general? From a scholarly perspective, I know everybody brings up Slaughterhouse-Five all the time, and the acclaim is deserved, but his works span such a broad range. You've got the topical, pseudo-sci-fi satire on one hand, and then you have the outrageous comedy he unleashes from time to time. I can say that there are few books that got me laughing out loud as much or as hard as I did during Breakfast of Champions, for example.

Discuss. :)

[Amandil]

I got Slaughterhouse-5 for a buck in one of those bargain bins and laughed my ass off reading that book three years ago. Bizzare that a book about being in the bombing of Dresden can be hilarious. That's all I've read, and I haven't got any more pithy comments either. :)

[francod]

He is very funny, his two best are Player Piano and Mother Night. The first half of Slapstick and Deadeye Dick are great also.

[IronParrot]

I think he's definitely one of the prime satirists of 20th-century literature, just in the way he uses the language to portray the absurd.

[gdl96]

A friend of mine turned me on to Breakfast of Champions earlier this year, and since then, I have read Slaughterhouse 5, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, Slapstick, Welcome to the Monkey House, and Galapagos.

[zinnite]

I've read pretty much everything of his, except for some of the stories in 'Welcome to the Monkeyhouse.' Unlike most other very prolific authors, there's a not a single novel of his that I do not love. I guess my favorites would be 'God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater,' 'Slapstick,' Galapagos,' and 'Timequake.'

I think what I love the most about his writing is how he effortlessly writes himself into his stories, and how he can make the most mundane, ordinary, and even pathetic character into the world's greatest hero.

[The Gaffer]

Here's a funny, true, Vonnegut related story.

I used to work with an eminent academic doctor. In the 60s/70s, he was part of a very active group of about 5 folks doing lots of research and publishing lots of papers.

They used to take it in turns to be lead author. However, when they got to their 6th paper, they didn't know what to do so they invented a 6th author: Kilgore Trout, apparently named after a Vonnegut character.

Time went on, and every time there was a need for an extra author, Trout K would get the credit. Soon, he had a fairly impressive list of publications and was getting invited to give talks at conferences etc. They made up stationery ("from the desk of Kilgore Trout") so the myth was continued.

Anyway. ahem, apologies for that. I've read Slaughterhouse 5, but really need to get into the rest. Breakfast of Champions sounds good.

[Elfhelm]

There is another Trout tale. Phillip Jose Farmer is a writer who is a little overboard in his hero-worship. He wrote Venus on a Halfshell and signed it Kilgore Trout and sent it to KV along with a request for permission to publish it. Permission was granted. I lost my copy and I am not sure if it can still be purchased. But I can promise you, if you find it, that you will laugh. But be forewarned, it is everything you'd expect from Trout, so some people should just not open it. ;)

[brownjenkins]

vonnegut's one of my favorites... two other books of his i like and didn't see mentioned above:

Cat's Cradle (one of my all-time favorite books)

Bluebeard (more story than wit, as compared with his other books)

[webwizard333]

I know most people seem to prefer Slaughterhouse 5 but personally I enjoyed Mother Night much more. I just found it more interesting in the moral dilemma of the protagonist over his radio broadcasts for Nazi Germany, and whether or not what he did was right.

I have noticed however a tendancy to look down on his work for beign too popular (similar to some critics' issue with Stephen King). My Norton Anthology for my English class, seems to classify him as a middle of the road author.