Born on Armistice Day, Kurt Vonnegut April 12, 2007
Posted by caveblogem in Books, literature, Other, writing.trackback
He is gone, my favorite anti-war humanist humorist author. I reviewed his most recent book last year on his birthday (here). In that book he recounts his remarks to some fellow humanists about Isaac Asimov, another favorite humanist, after Asimov’s death. “Isaac is up in Heaven now.” Cracked everybody up, of course. So let me be one of the first to say it: “Kurt is up in Heaven now.”
Pretty Good on Paper 
It sucks. So which one of his fiction books is your favorite?
strugglingwriter,
Like with Asimov, some of his non-fiction is the most memorable.
My favorite of Vonnegut’s fiction tends to be whatever I read most recently, except for Player Piano and Sirens of Titan, neither of which I care for. Cat’s Cradle, Galapagos, Slaughterhouse Five, Bluebeard, and Timequake are the ones that spring to mind though.
What about you?
My favorite of his works remains Slaughterhouse-Five. Don’t exactly know why, though — but there it is. So long, Kurt. Thanks for your wit and wisdom.
I actually haven’t read any of his works in full, just interviews and excerpts here and there. I’m seriously considering picking up Slaughterhouse-5 today, though.
R. Thanks for stopping by. An interesting blog you run. I hadn’t seen it before. Slaughterhouse Five is an amazing book. The interaction between the fictional elements and Vonnegut’s life experience make it extraordinary, but it is also such an accessible-yet-deep book.
strugglingwriter, S5 is a great way to discover whether you like Vonnegut. If you don’t like it you wouldn’t like most of his other stuff either. And it is tremendously well-written. Seems like I read it the first time in one sitting.
So tragic…I nearly cried when my friend told me today.
I thought of the same joke when I first read of his passing this morning. Since you blogged it first, I linked to your post in mine.
As for good books by Vonnegut, Slapstick always falls out of people’s lists, but I love how incredibly sweet this tribute to his sister was.
Of course, they pretty much all make the cut. Even Sirens of Titan, for me, as that was the first one I read of his. There was enough to it to make me seek out more, and then Breakfast of Champions and Cat’s Cradle changed my life forever.
silverneurotic, yeah, a lot of us will miss him. The blogosphere was certainly full of Vonnegut yesterday. Made me wonder if he enjoyed this kind of popularity and reknown in the general reading public.
Moon Topples,
Slapstick was the first of his novels I ever read. I couldn’t get enough of him after that. I suspect that I read one of his short stories in a science fiction anthology of some sort before that, “The Report on the Barnhouse Effect,” an amazing apocalyptic tale that is the only one I remember from the collection.
Cave: I think he did enjoy that sort of popularity, even outside the reading public. I heard people who don’t really “like books” discussing his death on Thursday.
I have to admit, it kind of weirded me out a little.
the vocab on your site is very nice