November 2013: Kurt Vonnegut

He had one of the highest number of votes I've seen this year (if not the highest!); do you know & love him already? Or is Vonnegut one of those you're "supposed" to have read but haven't gotten his way yet, so now is the time? What are your thoughts on him?

If you've read him, share with us which titles you think we should look into, and which you weren't so thrilled by!

Definitely read his earlier works (pre-1990). I thought that he got a bit didactic toward the end of his writing career.

My favorites are probably Mother Night and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. But I also enjoyed Slaughterhouse Five, The Sirens of Titan and Cat's Cradle.

I have both Mother Night and God Bless You Mr. Rosewater on TBR.
And though it may be sacrilege to say, I didn't really care for Slaughterhouse 5.

I read it earlier this year (Slaughterhouse), was a bit confused on how I felt about it, lol. I didn't dislike it, but it was a bit odd. I've picked up Cat's Cradle at the library today because I'm just sure that I read it when I was 17 or so, but for the life of me I cannot remember any detail at all about it, which is not normal. I mean I may not remember very much of a lot of the books I read back then, but I have a pretty good memory and I at least recall the gist of a story. So I figured it's time to clear up this one once & for all! hahaha.

>3 jldarden:. You may prefer Mother Night then. It is a pretty straightforward story with nary an alien in sight.

i've only read timequake and was really, really disappointed. but i did have awfully high expectations. my feeling about that one won't stop me from being really excited to one day read cat's cradle and slaughterhouse five.

> 1 I had originally nominated Vonnegut because yes, I felt like he was an author I'm "supposed" to read but just haven't gotten around to yet. I'll probably go with either Slaughterhouse-Five or Cat's Cradle since those are his better known works.

>7 sweetiegherkin: hehe, I figured there'd be at least a couple of those votes! :)) I'm only about 1/3rd into it so far, but I think I'd suggest Cat's Cradle over Slaughterhouse; people tend to either love or... well not quite hate but, dislike, are confused by, don't get why it's a thing, etc, that one. It's probably not the best introduction to his work, heh.

I'm going to try for God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and I was surprised to see Kilgore Trout is in it. Now I'm wondering if I need to re-read Slaughterhouse-Five since I sure don't remember much from when I read it in high school.

I just finished Cat's Cradle, it was really great. The end was absolutely perfect, which is one of the things I weigh most heavily, so he definitely won major points with me there. The whole feel/tone of it was right up my ally; well-done satire is amongst my most preferred things to read. :P He's definitely going on my list of -must start reading all the things- hahaha.

> 8 Yes, I looked at the book descriptions a little more closely and decided to start with Cat's Cradle. I put a hold on it via my library so now I'm just waiting for it to come in (oh yeah, and read the other books I already have out from the library!).

I only read Slaughterhouse 5 and I absolutely loved it. Cat's cradle sounds interesting. Surprisingly, librarything is pretty confident that I _won't_ like it...

Eh that algorithm is based on various things and it is definitely a "for fun" tool not to be taken very seriously. It told me a book I gave at least 4.5stars to I wouldn't like. I don't even know why, I'm pretty sure it wasn't such an anomaly from my other books.

Haven't looked at it too recently, but it was pretty spot on for me in the past. But I do agree it's more of a "for fun" tool than anything else.

it thinks i "probably will like" almost everything. i guess i more or less do, but i rate things critically so most things get 2.5 stars, which i would think doesn't mean "likes" to most people, or algorithms.

There's a very specific tool about books you wouldn't like, which is what I assumed chlorine and Polymathicmonkey were referring to above. Yours (available here: http://www.librarything.com/profile/elisa.saphier/recommendations/unsuggester) is similar to what I remember mine being like - lots of very religious texts, which I doubt I would pick up and even more so doubt I would like if I did.

And for what's it worth, I assumed the algorithms just looked at what books were in your collection, not how you rated them. Everyone uses LibraryThing in different ways, but for the people who only catalog what they actually own, I guess the assumption would be you wouldn't own something you didn't like.

good points, both! i had forgotten about the unsuggester, which definitely could have been what they were talking about. and it makes sense that the algorithm for what i was talking about would just look at what your library has in it since that's what the recommender algorithm does. (and i definitely seem to be in the minority of how i use librarything.)

No, I was talking about the "will you like it," which is what I assumed chlorine was talking about given the way she phrased it. It's not based on very reliable methods, as mentioned a large factor is presumably simply whether similar things are in your catalog. Just because someone may not have read something similar before, why on earth would that mean they don't like it?? There's a first time for everything! Hence, it's not a reliable method, merely a -for fun- kind of "tool."

Oh, I completely forgot about the "will you like it" tool! I guess that shows how much stock I put in it ... ;)

Apparently LibraryThing's will you like it? tool says (with very high confidence to boot) that I will not like Cat's Cradle. We'll see ...

Best:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_the_Monkey_House

Ah but Welcome to the Monkey House is short stories, therefore there's no way I'd think it was best. His novels are short enough as it is! lol.

FYI, I stumbled upon this factoid today: On November 10, 1973 copies of Slaughterhouse-Five were burned in North Dakota. So I guess somewhat appropriate we chose Vonnegut for November ?

hah, I love when things like that happen. The random coinciding things, that is, not book burning!

> 24 I'm with you! :)

>23 sweetiegherkin: And it was his birthday this month.

I finished God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. I've been describing it as a delightfully weird read. Mr. Rosewater is the heir to a great fortune and instead of hobnobbing with the elite and giving Rosewater Foundation money to highbrow endeavors, he moves back to rural Indiana (nominally his childhood town), gives up the suits and tuxes, and uses Foundation money to help out the town folk...much to his father's and his wife's dismay, but making the up-and-coming Foundation lawyer giddy with how easy he will now be able to prove Rosewater's insanity.

I totally forgot I wanted to pick up another Vonnegut at the library, durnit! I got so irritated by the shelves being in even worse condition than normal that I just couldn't focus on anything! Oh well, maybe next trip.

>23 sweetiegherkin: About the burning of all copies of Slaughterhouse-Five in the school's furnace ... Just last week, I read this letter from Vonnegut to the head of the school board:

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/i-am-very-real.html

a small part:
(...) If you were to bother to read my books, to behave as educated persons would, you would learn that they are not sexy, and do not argue in favor of wildness of any kind. They beg that people be kinder and more responsible than they often are. It is true that some of the characters speak coarsely. That is because people speak coarsely in real life. Especially soldiers and hardworking men speak coarsely, and even our most sheltered children know that. And we all know, too, that those words really don’t damage children much. They didn’t damage us when we were young. It was evil deeds and lying that hurt us. (...)

That is very awesome.

Powerful stuff. Makes me like Vonnegut even more.

Hi peeps.
Hope you don't mine me sticking my head in the door.
This month I picked up a Vonnegut because it was his birthday the other day and I'd never read one. After a ton of deliberation I chose The Sirens of Titan an while I'm enjoying it for itself, I'm having my heart broken, too. The similarity to Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide series is making me less fond of Adams's work. It's too close. Ripped off? All I can do while reading TSoT is to make comparisons between the two and it's killing me. Adams is..was? a favorite and the amount of joy and just pure silliness in Hitchhikers is forever tarnished. I wish I'd chosen another book and that Hitchhiker's remained a thing of beauty.

>28 fyrfly:, 29 & 30. One of the things that I liked best about Vonnegut was his oft quoted bits of wisdom. Even in the least regarded of his books, he always manages to say one or two things that are arresting with their brilliance and simplicity.

>32 vwinsloe: I don't doubt that! :)

>31 Bookmarque: Everyone is welcome here! :))
hmm. I've only read Slaughterhouse and Cat's Cradle so far, so I can't really chime in with an opinion about that. I'm pretty sure my library has it, maybe I will have to pick that one up so I can see what you're referring to. I enjoyed the Hitchhiker series and found it mostly entertaining and occasionally insightful, but I'm not one of the diehard "towel day"-celebrating fans and all that, so I doubt similarities would bother me. What I can say is that I doubt any similarities were intentional, I don't think that Adams was that kind of person, from what I've read about him. At most I'd guess he may have read it and not remembered but just had some of the bits still floating in his brain, not being aware of their being connected to anything.

Hey thanks.
Actually, Adams admitted The Sirens of Titan was a big influence. The similarities are very, very close. When I review it I'll put some examples up. It's blatant. Not quite plagiarism, but darn close. I'm so incredibly bummed. If you love Adams, don't read Sirens.

In a 1979 interview released in 2007, Douglas Adams discussed Vonnegut as an influence on The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:12

"Sirens of Titan is just one of those books – you read it through the first time and you think it's very loosely, casually written. You think the fact that everything suddenly makes such good sense at the end is almost accidental. And then you read it a few more times, simultaneously finding out more about writing yourself, and you realize what an absolute tour de force it was, making something as beautifully honed as that appear so casual."

I pulled this from wikipedia. Am still trying to find the whole interview.

Found it - http://www.darkermatter.com/issue1/douglas_adams.php

Ah, interesting. Now I'm really curious about it! Just double checked and the library does in fact have it, so as long as I can find it I will definitely pick that up in 2.5wks!

But hey, maybe now you can add another new favorite author to your list? I would definitely suggest checking out more Vonnegut (I'd easily recommend Cat's Cradle), try not to let your disappointment keep you from more great books. :)

I may try another Vonnegut in future. I did like him stylistically and he has some (hopefully) original ideas. It is so difficult to separate my emotions that stem from reading this book though, so it might be a long time before I try again. If I had never read Adams, I think I would have enjoyed Sirens, but as it stands now, it was a heartbreaking experience and mostly negative. Surely not Vonnegut's fault, but serendipity.

Yeah, I get that. Have you ever read Tom Robbins? He also does the whole, crazy story with odd humor, maybe he'd appeal to you, without negative associations?

edited because sometimes touchstones like to not show up first time around >_<

>37 Bookmarque: & 36, For a true mind blower, read Venus on the Half Shell by Kilgore Trout. If you love Vonnegut, you will at first love this book purportedly written by his alter ego character, Kilgore Trout. It is a great read. Classic Vonnegut. Then when you find out the story behind the story, it leaves you feeling sad and confused.

If you go to the touchtone and read a review or two of it, Bookmarque, you will see that people accused Douglas Adams of plagiarizing Venus on the Half Shell which was, itself, a plagiary of Vonnegut.

I really don't see all that much similarity between Adams and Vonnegut, aside from the subject matter. Adams humor was quite British. Vonnegut's is completely American.

I read some Robbins in the early 90s. It was ok, but some of it was just too out there for me to stick with him as an author.

haha, yeah he definitely doesn't write anything run-of-the-mill! I find the wackiness unique and fun, but mostly I really love that he manages to make you truly think about things using such crazy scenarios.

>39 vwinsloe: lol interesting, will keep it in mind :)

I apologize in advance for my late contribution, but I've just joined this site and saw a discussion about Vonnegut. Considering he is one of my favorite authors I just wanted to add my two cents. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater was my favorite Vonnegut of all time and described its message in a way that I found far more palatable than the method used in Slaughterhouse-Five. I would also recommend Slapstick for anyone who is feeling particularly brave.

Hi Snowcat, welcome! You're not late at all, Vonnegut is our author for the month of November, and there's still 1/3rd of it left to go! ;)

Hahaha, oh thank goodness! Well then, I think I'll probably read Player Piano in his honor. Unless someone else has read it and has negative feelings? I've owned it for a while now, but I'm a little uneasy because I've never heard any really solid reviews.

The most 'out there' I get is with Hiaasen who I still enjoy although he hasn't topped Stormy Weather or Tourist Season in my mind. It's kind of like your favorite pair of jeans, you know what you're getting into and they're comfortable so I keep reading them. I just read Sick Puppy and now I've got Strip Tease going in audio.

Maybe I should try a more reality-grounded Vonnegut. Is there such a thing?

No one has mentioned it here in the group so far, but the reviews for Player Piano seem to be all over the board! High, low, and middle scores. Most seem to agree that at least the idea of it was good, though, so since you're already a fan I'd say go for it! :D

>45 Bookmarque: Well Slaughterhouse-Five is based on reality, WWII ...except for where it's not. However, even being based on the events of the war, it's...unique, let's say, lol, and I wouldn't recommend it for someone unsure of him.

Cat's Cradle is a little silly in some ways but it's a semi-realistic scifi story, about a writer looking to do a story on one of the "fathers" of the atom bomb, which takes him to a fictional island. I think it's fairly low-key up until the end, it might be worth a shot. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with more of his work so I can't say if there's any better titles. In looking at his author page and checking on some of the top titles, it looks like maybe Bluebeard might be good for that? The reviews say it's linear and more "plain" for him, and not very science-fictiony, and they praise it. Might be worth a look? I know *I* am curious about it after reading them, hahaha.

>45 Bookmarque:. Mother Night would be your Vonnegut. It is completely reality based, as I recall. One of my favorites.

>46 .Monkey.:. Player Piano was his first novel. It was before he became Kurt Vonnegut really, he was just beginning to find his voice.

Ah, interesting. I would definitely want to read that one, I love to read authors' works chronologically and see how they change over time. :)

Not so much a review as an emotional catharsis. And I've changed my mind.

http://www.librarything.com/work/815646/reviews/103595744

>28 fyrfly: I love that letter. Thanks for reminding me about it.

Wow, I stepped away for a little bit and so much happened on this thread. :) Everyone's comments have been super interesting; makes me want to read even more Vonnegut! I really like learning that Vonnegut was a major influence on Douglas Adams - those kinds of tidbits are always fascinating to me.

>50 Bookmarque: That looks to be a very good review (though I only lightly skimmed because I will read it properly after I've read the book!), so glad that it helped you feel better about it all! :))

>52 sweetiegherkin: I know, isn't it great?! Everyone's making me want to read ALL THE VONNEGUT!! hahaha

>50 Bookmarque: lovely review Bookmarque, thanks for sharing it. I wonder if you have read any Philip K Dick. I read him shortly after Vonnegut, and I noticed quite a few similarities between the two.

hm, I can't say that I see those similarities, personally, but I've only read a small number of each.

Annnd I've picked it up! We were at the uni library this afternoon because Hubs had to return a couple books, so while there i browsed and noticed Sirens of Titan so I grabbed it (along with Native Son and In Cold Blood, two books I've been meaning to read for a long while). :)

Cool. I'd like to hear your thoughts once you've read it...or while your going. I've decided to read it again sometime. Not right away because I've got too much on, but I think it would bear a second reading, this time without my constant Hitchhiker's guide nagging baggage.

I have to read an ER book first (I've been putting it off a bit because it's non-fic and not especially engaging, though interesting info), and then I might try to knock another off my TBR and/or from my 13 in 13, but I'll get to it in the not-so-distant future and report in :))

> 53, 56 Yes, all the Vonnegut indeed :D

It probably sounds crazy to say one loves a book about grizzly murders, but In Cold Blood is one of my favorites. It's so riveting and well-written. If you have any interest in psychology, I recommend the nonfiction Fantasies of Flight by Daniel Ogilvie, which discusses Perry's dream of the bird with the feast in depth (and by doing so, examines Perry's past and his relationship with Capote himself).

haha, it might be crazy but it's nearly always been a ...morbid fascination? of mine. I've been interested in that sort of stuff for ages. I used to watch Court TV (aka TruTV) on the weekends all the time, watching their serial killer documentary things and random other murderer story stuff with their recreations and everything. I think it's mostly because they're a world apart, you know? So it's like, trying to understand it all. Or something. heh.

>60 .Monkey.:. Off the topic here, but I have to ask whether you have ever seen the film "The Thin Blue Line?"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096257/?ref_=nv_sr_2

I generally do not like "that sort of stuff" unless it is done really well (both the film and the book In Cold Blood were done really well.) But my favorite look into the mind of a sociopathic killer is the film,"The Thin Blue Line." It forever changes the way that you think about people. I highly recommend it, if you haven't seen it.

I don't think I've ever heard of it, will have to check into that :))

>62 .Monkey.:. You won't regret it. It's chilling.

> 60 Yeah, I used to read a lot more true crime, especially in junior high. I think you're right; it's the whole world apart thing. I've always been interested in psychology, so I like trying to figure out the mindset behind these things that we think of as completely unbelievable yet have happened.

thanks about the review, polymathicmonkey. I think you thumbed it and so did someone else. Funny.

Strangely even though I read boatloads of thrillers, I started In Cold Blood, but never finished it. I just couldn't get very interested. Maybe because I know how it ends. I still have a copy so can return to it if the mood strikes.

I practically never leave a book unfinished, I just can't do it! lol.

> 65 That's too bad. I guess it's not for everyone. I do highly recommend the audio version, which has a great reader. Sometimes for me I can get through a book via audio that I couldn't get through in print.

> 66 Me too! It's like a sickness sometimes, I'll be sitting there like, 'why can't I just put this down? I hate it so much!' Somehow I always have this faith that the book will rescue itself by the end ... and it usually doesn't.

hahaha, I'm kind of the same, like, Well maybe by the end they will have fixed these glaring issues...... hahaha. I just have to keep going and find out! And I feel like I can't properly criticize the stuff wrong with it if I haven't seen it through to the end; even if I know there's no chance of improvement it just feels wrong to be able to judge it fully without having read it fully. Plus I put a great deal of stock into the ending, a bad ending can kill a an otherwise pretty good book for me and make me "meh" about the whole thing. So if they can manage to make a halfway decent ending I might go slightly easier on the criticism because it helps the experience as a whole, and whatnot. I just have to know for certain!! lol.

yes, exactly!!!

>66 .Monkey.:-69

it's a compulsion for me - if i start a book i can't not finish it. even if i don't care what happens. even if i have to skim it to get it over with. i can't leave it until it's done. partly it's like you said, maybe it'll get better; maybe there will be something redeeming. i used to always say that you can find something worthwhile in every book so maybe i'm trying to make that be true, even though i've come to realize it isn't. maybe more to the point, i'm an obsessive ... well i catalog differently than most on lt do. i keep track of how many books i read each year; if i didn't finish one, how do i count that?? i wouldn't know what to do. so many reasons to just push through. the really good reason not to (that there are so many books to read, why waste my limited time on ones i don't like) is better than all my reasons to keep reading, but i still can't do it. it's a pathology, seriously.

hahaha yes, I am exactly like that!

Not me. If I'm not into it, I bail. Life is way too short to spend doing things I dislike when I have the choice.

i don't disagree. at all. but i can't do it. i think i'm getting closer though.

So I finished Cat's Cradle over the Thanksgiving weekend but didn't get a chance before now to come back here and write about it. I very much enjoyed it. Not a whole lot happened in the beginning as the narrator went about collecting information for a book he attempts to write on one of the father's of the atomic bomb (for the purposes of this book, a fictional person). Nevertheless, the satirical humor combined with the very short chapters made it very readable. Towards the end, a whole lot happens all at once. The book was great for giving tons of food for thought (indeed, I just spent about an hour reading various commentaries/interpretations of the book's meanings) about religion, morality, life and death, etc. I'd definitely recommend it and I'm now more than ever compelled to go read some other works by Vonnegut, particularly Slaughter-House Five and Player Piano. So many books, so little time!

>74 sweetiegherkin: Indeed, it definitely made me want to read a lot more Vonnegut!

Well, this was interesting!

http://io9.com/the-universal-shapes-of-stories-according-to-kurt-vonn-1526559996...

Thanks for sharing that. It's fascinating.

That is really interesting. I would like some kind of app to be able to apply it to any story.

In the meantime, my second outing with Vonnegut has not been successful. I've given up on God Bless You Mr. Rosewater because it is boring me to death. I still have 2 more of his novels in the teetering TBR tower though, so another may work out for me.

> 76 Great food for thought, thanks for sharing!

I enjoyed Vonnegut so much last year that I picked up Player Piano recently and am about 1/3 of the way through. Last year, I read Cat's Cradle, which I thought was a little better, but I am also enjoying Player Piano. Like >48 vwinsloe: said, since Player Piano was Vonnegut's first novel, "It was before he became Kurt Vonnegut really, he was just beginning to find his voice." He's not quite as witty or succinct as he was in Cat's Cradle; it's still a very good book though.

>44 SnowcatCradle: How did you end up liking Player Piano?