Tag Archives: Kurt Vonnegut

BOOK REVIEW: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut

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God Bless You, Mr. RosewaterGod Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This novel presents a satire of American socio-economic existence. It spends much of its time poking fun at old money folk (trust fund kids, as they’d be called today,) but the book has plenty of barbs to go around. The story centers on Eliot Rosewater, the head of the Rosewater Foundation, the charitable arm of an old money robber-baron kind of family corporation. Eliot is cut from different cloth, however. He’s in love with the work-a-day blue collar American, and does everything in his power to eliminate his separation from such people, including obsessively working with volunteer fire departments, setting up his foundation in his hometown (Rosewater, Indiana,) and making the Foundation an extremely personal organization that gives what would today be called micro-grants to ordinary citizens for ordinary uses.

Opposing Eliot Rosewater is a lawyer named Norman Mushari who’s made it his mission in life to have Eliot proven insane so that he can have the Rosewater Foundation fortune shifted to Fred Rosewater (of the middle-class Rhode Island Rosewaters.) The challenge is knowing whether Eliot is truly insane or not, even Eliot, himself, doesn’t always seem clear on the matter. For many, such as Mushari, just the fact that Eliot is acting in opposition to the societal norm (e.g. setting up in Rosewater, Indiana v. New York or Chicago and not making big grants to corporations and colossal NGO’s but rather giving a few hundred dollars at a time to residents of Rosewater) is proof enough. And, if Eliot is crazy, is it because there’s something wrong with him, or that there’s something wrong with the world.

This book is hilarious, and the last chapter leaves the reader with a great deal to mull over. I’d highly recommend this book for all fiction readers.


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BOOK REVIEW: The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

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The Sirens of TitanThe Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This classic Vonnegut novel stresses the existentialist notion that whatever meaning is to be had in life is up to the individual to find. (And they’re likely to find that it’s to love whoever is around to love.) Vonnegut rejects the entrenched view that a human is master of his/her domain and that we exist as part of a deep and well-reasoned plan. Vonnegut’s protagonist, Malachi Constant (a.k.a. Unk,) spends much of the story, literally, being controlled by unknown forces via the combination of a brain-shocking device and memory erasure.

The book is as humorous as it is philosophical, though it’s dark humor, e.g. the humor of an invading army that suicides itself without realizing that’s what it’s doing. [i.e. a bit like Monty Python’s Black Knight sketch, but on a planetary scale.]

The backstory of the Tralfamadorians in this book offers a great metaphor for the book’s theme. (Note: the Tralfamadorians morph a bit between the various books that they appear in, or at least different information is revealed as is relevant to the story at hand. In “Slaughterhouse-Five,” the emphasis is on the fact that this alien race sees all time simultaneously.) While the Tralfamadorians here still see all of time simultaneously, what is emphasized is that they’re a species of robots that came about when the original (biological) Tralfamadorians kept off-loading less meaningful work to robots. But biological Tralfamadorians would always come to believe that whatever work remained didn’t feel sufficiently meaningful. When they finally asked an AI to calculate the absolute most meaningful work there is, they were told that there is no meaningful work, and so they have the robots end their existence.

Vonnegut’s wild creativity can have the flipside of being challenging to follow. Fortunately, understanding of this novel doesn’t rest on understanding the workings of the “chrono-synclastic infundibulum,” but rather on much simpler and more humorous concepts. Like “Cat’s Cradle,” I found this novel easier to follow than Vonnegut’s time-jumping masterwork “Slaughterhouse-Five.”

This is a hilarious and thought-provoking book. I’d highly recommend it for all readers.


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2015 Book Riot Read Harder Challenge

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From Goobe's Books, one of my favorite local bookstores in Bangalore

From Goobe’s Books, one of my favorite local bookstores in Bangalore

Recently, a FaceBook friend posted a link for the 2015 Book Riot Read Harder Challenge. This is a scavenger hunt for readers. There are 24 categories for which one should read at least one book each. For many categories there are also links to posts that will provide some recommendations.

 

While I’m not particularly good at planning out my reading, I thought it would be fun to give it a try.

 

What follows are my choices in each category.

1.) Author was under 25 years old:  The Icarus Girl  by Helen Oyeyemi

or possibly Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

2.) The author was over 65 years old: All That Is by James Salter

3.) A short story collection or anthology: 999: New Stories of Horror and Suspense ed. Al Sarrantonia

4.) Indie press published book: I Have Blinded Myself Writing This by Jess Stoner (and, incidentally, SF/LD [Short Flight / Long Drive] Press)

or, alternatively: Go the Fuck to Sleep by Adam Mansbach (published by Akashic Books)

5.) By or about someone who identifies as LGBTQ: Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima

6.) A book by someone of the opposite gender: House of Bathory by Linda Lafferty, or The Tale of the Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

7.) Book takes place in Asia: My Boyhood Days by Rabindranath Tagore

or, possibly, Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, or  Underground by Haruki Murakami. I’ll likely read several books in this category.

8.) Author is from Africa: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

9.) Book by or about someone from an aboriginal culture: Lightfinder by Aaron Paquette

10.) A microhistory: Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World by Dan Koeppel

or The Emperor of Maladies by Siddartha Mukherjee, or The Pirate Coast by Richard Zacks,

but–most likely– Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice by Mark Singleton (Which I just realized qualified and I already have queued up to read soon.)

11.) A YA novel: Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

12.) A Sci-fi novel: The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, or Wild Seed by Octavia Butler, or Tears in Rain by Rosa Montero, or Under the Empyrian Sky by Chuck Wendig. I’ll likely read several books in this category.

13.) A romance novel: Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James

14.) A recent winner of the National Book Award, the Man Booker Prize, or a Pulitzer: Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo (2012 National Book Award) or The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (2014 Pulitzer)

15.) A retelling of a classic tale: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski (of Hamlet), or Going Bovine by Libba Bray (of Don Quixote.)

16.) An audiobook: (Truth be told, I probably won’t listen to any books this year. I used to get audiobooks all the time when I had a commute, but it’s not so convenient anymore. However, to play the game to its fullest): All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

17.) A collection of poetry: Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

18.) A book someone has recommended for you: It may be cheating because I already have it down, but so far the only book I’ve had recommended for me recently (that I haven’t yet read) is Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

If you want to keep me from being a dirty cheat, feel free to make me a recommendation.

19.) A book originally published in another language: Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, or Thirukkural by Thiruvalluvar

20.) A graphic novel or comic collection: Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh, or Serenity: Leaves on Wind by Zach Whedon

21.) A guilty pleasure read: Never Go Back by Lee Child, or Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann, or Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

22.) A book published before 1850: The Aeneid by Virgil (19 B.C.), or Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes (1605)

23.) A book published in 2014: Station Eleven  by Emily St. John Mandel, or The Martian by Andy Weir

24.) A self-improvement / self-help book: A Conversation with Fear by Mermer Blakeslee, or Golden Cloud, Silver Lining by Ashok Chopra

 

Well, there’s my list. Now I’ve got to go get cracking on doing the reading.

CLASSIC WORKS: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

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Slaughterhouse-FiveSlaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

If you’re like me, you had to read this in high school. I reread it as an adult because the first time its awesomeness was tarnished by the fact that it was mandatory. Being a pessimistic youth, my thought was, “How good could it be if they are making me read it?” They don’t make you read Batman; they make you read Moby Dick. I’m glad I reread it as an adult. Little did I realize, my knee-jerk rejection of the book as something forced upon me, beyond my control, was mirrored by the theme of the book.

Slaughterhouse-Five tells the story of Billy Pilgrim, an optometrist who survived the Dresden fire-bombings was abducted by an alien race and became “unstuck in time.” If you didn’t get this impression, the book is strange. As the term “unstuck in time” suggests, there isn’t a chronological sequencing of events. Instead, the story leaps around from Pilgrim’s adult life as an optometrist to his time as a young soldier in the military to his time as an exhibit in a Tralfamadorian Zoo.

While the novel covers a lot of life, many of the important themes are seen in protagonist’s war experience. It should be noted that there is an autobiographical component to this book. Vonnegut was a prisoner of war who was ordered to help dig for survivors in the wake of the fire-bombing of Dresden. This gave Vonnegut a unique perspective of war and how similarly it is experienced by the enemy. An important line of tension in the book is between Pilgrim’s character and that of the jingoistic Roland Weary.

The Tralfamadorian subplot has a lot to do with being out of control, and learning that perceptions of control are illusory. This is exemplified by the time jumps, which leave Pilgrim completely unable to predict what will happen next. Then there is Pilgrim’s experience being exhibited in an alien zoo, what  could be less in control than that.

Like most of Vonnegut’s work, Slaughterhouse-Five is a dark comedy. There is humor throughout, but humor wrapped in the macabre. For example, whenever anyone dies there is a chorus of “So it goes.”

Everyone should read this, and reread it if necessary.

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BOOK REVIEW: Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

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Cat's CradleCat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Cat’s Cradle is Vonnegut at his most brilliant and witty.

The book follows a writer, John/Jonah, as he does research for a book on the Hiroshima A-bomb. To learn about the (fictitious) inventor of the bomb, the deceased Felix Hoenikker, he interviews  Hoenikker’s children and former supervisor. In the process he becomes entangled in global catastrophe in a way he couldn’t have imagined.

As it turns out, Hoenikker had invented another weapon of mass destruction, one that would make the H-bomb look like a firecracker. However, ice-9, as the weapon was designated, wasn’t intended as a weapon at all. Ice-9 turns all water into ice at temperatures below 114 degrees Fahrenheit. The idea was to make marshes crossable by Marine Corps units. It’s the failure to anticipate the ramifications of using such a chemical, i.e. the hydrologic cycle, that’s the central premise of this book.

A lot of the book deals with a fictitious religion called Bokononism. Bokononism is the cynical faith of the Island of San Lorenzo, and it perfectly reflects Vonnegut’s mildly misanthropic attitudes. The first sentence of the Book of Bokonon says it all, “All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies.”

At the beginning of Cat’s Cradle we find out that John is a Bokononist, but that he’d grown up a Christian. Bokononism is prohibited on the island by the dictator, Papa Manzano. The reader comes to discover that not only is the prohibition a fraud designed to give the religion more sex appeal, but also that Manzano is a practitioner himself. This is just one of the quirky oddities that defines life on San Lorenzo.

It’s when John and all the Hoenikker children are assembled in San Lorenzo that the action really unfolds. Manzano is dying and turns the presidency over to Franklin Hoenikker (the non-midget son of the father of the bomb); Manzano later commits suicide in the oddest imaginable way. Franklin convinces John to take the presidency, but it becomes moot as the book approaches climax.

I’ll leave you with my favorite piece of Bokononist wisdom, “Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.” By the way, you should go to San Felix island off the coast of Chile. [Picked via a spinning globe.]

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Book Review: 2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut

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2BR02B2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Many parents of twins or triplets probably feel an odd mix of joy and terror, but what if you had to find someone to agree to die for ever child you brought into the world? What would you do if you were then surprised by twins? This is the clever premise of Vonnegut’s short story / novella. It’s set in a future where people can live forever unless they voluntarily decide to take themselves from the world.

It is typical Vonnegut, written with humor and a touch of darkness.

It’s a great read.

FYI – Pronounce 0 (zero) as “naught” and the name will make sense.

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