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Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
- Thread starter cmccarten
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Having had the privilege to meet both Vonnegut and DeLillo -- not to mention the pleasure of reading their work -- I can only dismiss the reasoning, to be polite, that must have gone into your thought-provoking comment.
So not only do you admit to not knowing about two of the finest writers of the 20th century, you discount one of the others with "ewwwwww."
PM me your address, and I will send you one of his last and one of his finest books. I live in Chicago, so I am more than happy to share a book of good quality with a fellow Illinois-ian(?). [What exactly are we called?]
Vonnegut's incisive wit and unending humanity leave me using adjectives to describe what an insightful writer we should remember him to be. And, to quote, I think, Mark Twain (the Vonnegut of the 19th century), "An adjective is a good word wasted." Or did Twain say that about golf? "Golf is a good walk wasted."
Anywho, the book is yours if you want it. It's part fiction and part autobiography, but all Vonnegut.
Tom Robbins is a good Vonnegut surrogate, certainly NO replacement, but dark off the wall humor.
You can do no wrong with:
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Still Life with Woodpecker
You can do no wrong with:
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Still Life with Woodpecker
I believe I'm allowed to dislike Delillo's work. I think it's nice that you come from a country where people are free to make pointless, unrelated political jabs left and right despite not being relevent to the conversation at all. Good for you, man. Exercise that right..
You're right. You are allowed to dislike DeLillo's work, and I shouldn't have made a stupid political jab. I removed it from my comment, and I publicly apologize for making an irrelevant statement.
And as an act of courtesy, I deleted my response to what you said, along with the quote, so that nobody has to know about a moody comment you made, the type of comment that we've all made in the past here, maybe without even knowing it.
Of course, by deleting my response to what you said, I am only left with what appears to be a spam post.
Of course, by deleting my response to what you said, I am only left with what appears to be a spam post.
a few months ago, I started reading Slaughterhouse 5 and was instantly hooked. After I finished it, I decided to read it again to gain a better understanding. Strange thing is, I finished reading it the second time the same day he died. I'm certainly not saying there is any connection, but I did find it ironic.
I have read a little about Vonnegut, and I know he tried to commit suicide in '84. Reading SH5, I got the feeling he didn't see a distinction between war and everyday living when it comes to human misery. What did you think when you read it?
I have read a little about Vonnegut, and I know he tried to commit suicide in '84. Reading SH5, I got the feeling he didn't see a distinction between war and everyday living when it comes to human misery. What did you think when you read it?
I feel like I might cry.
I just bought three Vonnegut books Tuesday at Shakespeare and Company in Paris. I was so excited to have some more books of his to read...
Ah man...
I just bought three Vonnegut books Tuesday at Shakespeare and Company in Paris. I was so excited to have some more books of his to read...
Ah man...
duh!
my sig used to be :
"Well, here we are Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why..."
I regret changing it.
my sig used to be :
"Well, here we are Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why..."
I regret changing it.
I know, right? I was about to buy a bunch more also. I'll be doing that this weekend, reading them all summer long.
That is a good quote, one that stuck with me. I often think of it, though nearly 20 years have passed since I read the book.
The first time I read it, I was flat out astounded with it's simplicity but it's ability to explain EVERYTHING. I'm a science geek, and I'm obsessed with randomness, true randomness. The "trapped in amber" phrase says to me that things happen:we can't calculate them and we can't predict them, just like truly random events in nature. "there is no why"... beautiful!
The closest living author who speaks to me in the same tenor if not the same words is Paul Auster. While I agree Delillo and the other authors have that black humor, Auster gives me the same feeling of displacement.
If you haven't already, you might also try Milan Kundera. The book of his that for me had some of the same qualities as Vonnegut is "Immortality."
Thanks for reminding me of the Eastern European writers. From Kafka on, there were conditions in that part of the world that begged to be read as altered states.
If you like your humor dark, Eastern Europe is the place to look. I've tried reading some of Kundera's other novels without much success -- I think the outlook is just too bleak and nihilistic for most American readers to appreciate (for me anyhow). I think most Vonnegut fans would appreciate "Immortality" though. I also need to pick up Kundera's "Unbearable Lightness of Being" some time. Never read that one.
I read a Paul Auster book a couple of years back, the name of which escapes me. The opening half of the book wherein the man gets trapped in the fallout shelter sometimes comes back into memory--just in time to creep me out so I can't fall asleep.
I read a Paul Ulster book a couple of years back, the name of which escapes me. The opening half of the book wherein the man gets trapped in the fallout shelter sometimes comes back into memory--just in time to creep me out so I can't fall asleep.
Paul Auster, Oracle Night.
Sweet dreams.
This book absolutely broke my heart. I mean, just so ... almost unreadably emotional. It's a thin book but was a real slow go (which isn't an insult -- it's a wonderful book).
It's beautiful, in craft and in content ... everything about it is beautiful. But it's palpably painful, too.
A Quasi-Eulogy In Memory of Kurt Vonnegut
In 1959, the year I joined the Bahai Faith, the year I turned 15, Kurt Vonnegut published his second novel The Sirens of Titan. By the late 1960s this novel had become a cult-book of the counter-culture. The genre is novel, sci-fi, space-opera, black humour, satire and fabulation. The story-line, the narrative is based on a world where machines have taken over. The story is told by a future historian. Faith in science, technology and progress is undermined as is humankinds ability to shape its future. Vonnegut questions the very nature of reality and argues that individuals have the ineluctable responsibility to make meaning out of their lives by looking within not without at organized religions. Looking back after more than forty years, I would place Vonnegut among the first of a "New Wave" of science fiction writers who appeared in the 1960s and who have inhabited one of the many backdrops of my life.-Ron Price with thanks to Herbert G. Klein, "Kurt Vonneguts The Sirens of Titan and the Question of Genre," EESE 5/98.
I had heard those enchanting sirens1
back in the fifties; little did I know
about their sharp rocks, the perils
of chronic and committed rapture,
growing dedication, deeper belief--
that would be later.
Ive seen many draw near
to those voices and, yes,
Ive seen them shipwrecked.
For these sirens were daughters
(so the myth goes)2 of the sea
and river gods, Nymphs partly
bird and partly human.
Yes, their voices enchant,
but be warned: this journey
to their island home is not
for the timid & overwrought,
not for the vainly pious,
the pusillanimous of spirit,
not for those who think this
is some kind of vacation,
who seem somehow to have
missed the point that:
this ardent, often tiring, voyage
on this unvariable storm-lashed brig
with the unseasonable rains,
the sweet song of the dove,
the bird, the clear beauty
of the sirens notes is mostly distant,
on some far-off island, faintly heard,
but they sweep me out to sea
and in full consent I drown,
though I do not like all the journey.3
I wish you well, Kurt, in your journey
which, as Shelley called it, now goes
to that undiscovered country.
____________________________
1 I first heard the Bahai Writings in the years 1953 to 1959. These are the sirens, for me.
2 This poem also draws on the Greek myth of the Sirens, part bird and part human.
3 I thank Roger White and his poems "Parable for the Wrong People" and "Sightseeing"(Pebbles, pp.69-75) for some of his phraseology.
Ron Price
December 20th 2004
Updated: 13/4/07.
In 1959, the year I joined the Bahai Faith, the year I turned 15, Kurt Vonnegut published his second novel The Sirens of Titan. By the late 1960s this novel had become a cult-book of the counter-culture. The genre is novel, sci-fi, space-opera, black humour, satire and fabulation. The story-line, the narrative is based on a world where machines have taken over. The story is told by a future historian. Faith in science, technology and progress is undermined as is humankinds ability to shape its future. Vonnegut questions the very nature of reality and argues that individuals have the ineluctable responsibility to make meaning out of their lives by looking within not without at organized religions. Looking back after more than forty years, I would place Vonnegut among the first of a "New Wave" of science fiction writers who appeared in the 1960s and who have inhabited one of the many backdrops of my life.-Ron Price with thanks to Herbert G. Klein, "Kurt Vonneguts The Sirens of Titan and the Question of Genre," EESE 5/98.
I had heard those enchanting sirens1
back in the fifties; little did I know
about their sharp rocks, the perils
of chronic and committed rapture,
growing dedication, deeper belief--
that would be later.
Ive seen many draw near
to those voices and, yes,
Ive seen them shipwrecked.
For these sirens were daughters
(so the myth goes)2 of the sea
and river gods, Nymphs partly
bird and partly human.
Yes, their voices enchant,
but be warned: this journey
to their island home is not
for the timid & overwrought,
not for the vainly pious,
the pusillanimous of spirit,
not for those who think this
is some kind of vacation,
who seem somehow to have
missed the point that:
this ardent, often tiring, voyage
on this unvariable storm-lashed brig
with the unseasonable rains,
the sweet song of the dove,
the bird, the clear beauty
of the sirens notes is mostly distant,
on some far-off island, faintly heard,
but they sweep me out to sea
and in full consent I drown,
though I do not like all the journey.3
I wish you well, Kurt, in your journey
which, as Shelley called it, now goes
to that undiscovered country.
____________________________
1 I first heard the Bahai Writings in the years 1953 to 1959. These are the sirens, for me.
2 This poem also draws on the Greek myth of the Sirens, part bird and part human.
3 I thank Roger White and his poems "Parable for the Wrong People" and "Sightseeing"(Pebbles, pp.69-75) for some of his phraseology.
Ron Price
December 20th 2004
Updated: 13/4/07.