For me, it was Cat's Cradle. I read it in high school and became a fanboy of Kurt's. I reread it recently and it holds up well. But that documentary about him? He wasn’t the person I wanted him to be.
My 9th grade English teacher was Mr. Baker, who I swear to God, would blow his nose on his tie AND occasionally spit out the window. But I give him full credit for assigning 1984 (sex! Torture!) and for being the first guy who encouraged me as a writer. Still haven’t read any Vonnegut (!) even though I’ve read Paradise Lost and War and Peace twice each. Hope I live a while longer, so I can get to the rest.
If you read those monsters twice, you'll fly through KV's oeuvre in a week. The style is highly approachable, by design. The ideas can rewire the brain depending on its pliability. I read him when I was young. (Now I read him as I'm old.) An elegant, courtly old soul of a writer. A pleasure to read, with ideas and subtexts that grow with you. It's hard to argue with anything he's ever said or written – and there's a TON of it if you become a fan. I guess if you're just gonna dip a toe and see if you like the water, you should probably just go straight to Slaughterhouse 5. I don't know what the prevailing wisdom is on how to get into KV, but I think that if he won a Nobel Prize (he figured he didn't because he worked in PR for Saab - or they were a client - and went on to write about the disingenuousness of that experience, and even used the idea of the automotive assembly line to extrapolate a future of machine dominance in his first major novel Player Piano - and that the Swedes were still pissed at him for that) it would have to be for S5. I'll say it's the only book that I've actually laughed out loud and cried real tears while reading (at different parts). It's a whopper stuffed into under 50k words. I've read extensively on the World Wars, and this book is a perfect companion to all of the non-fiction tomes, or horrible documentary films. It plays the impartial observer while being very partial - not towards a particular nation, side, or ideology - but towards the concepts of impermanence, and peace.
Everything else he wrote is also great. There's no such thing as a bad Kurt Vonnegut book, or speech, or essay, or letter. They can only be ranked relative to each other. A keen and imaginative translator of the human condition on par with Milton, Goethe, Tolstoy, Fitzgerald...the whole constellation. Short doesn't always mean trivial ;-) Good luck! Wishing you many more years to enjoy all of it!
I think we have a lot in common. This essay hits. Your teacher sounds like several of my english teachers. I read BOC when I was 13 - mostly because my camp counselor (one of the coolest guys I ever knew) was reading it and I wanted to be like him. The drawings blew my mind. I didn't know that was allowed in a "serious novel." The next year I included drawings in some of my English class creative writing assignments and I got a B+ from a disinterested teacher with the comment "mostly for the drawings." I appreciated that he had a sense of humor, but also was deeply offended as I thought my writing was particularly impressive ;-) Punchline: I've published dozens of text-only articles with reputable magazines, and even got a few children's books published too (by a reputable publisher). (I also did the drawings ;-) Vonnegut remains my (unwitting...especially now) adoptive granddad and I believe he shaped my moral outlook and compass. My credo comes (I think) from the military and that's "hope for the best, expect the worst." But I have little kids and can't just be a bystander so I pepper in a little of Gandhi's (tired, but true) "be the change...." (and so on...) Thanks for posting this.
For me, it was Cat's Cradle. I read it in high school and became a fanboy of Kurt's. I reread it recently and it holds up well. But that documentary about him? He wasn’t the person I wanted him to be.
I need to read this. The Sirens Of Titan and Cat’s Cradle are favourites so far.
My 9th grade English teacher was Mr. Baker, who I swear to God, would blow his nose on his tie AND occasionally spit out the window. But I give him full credit for assigning 1984 (sex! Torture!) and for being the first guy who encouraged me as a writer. Still haven’t read any Vonnegut (!) even though I’ve read Paradise Lost and War and Peace twice each. Hope I live a while longer, so I can get to the rest.
If you read those monsters twice, you'll fly through KV's oeuvre in a week. The style is highly approachable, by design. The ideas can rewire the brain depending on its pliability. I read him when I was young. (Now I read him as I'm old.) An elegant, courtly old soul of a writer. A pleasure to read, with ideas and subtexts that grow with you. It's hard to argue with anything he's ever said or written – and there's a TON of it if you become a fan. I guess if you're just gonna dip a toe and see if you like the water, you should probably just go straight to Slaughterhouse 5. I don't know what the prevailing wisdom is on how to get into KV, but I think that if he won a Nobel Prize (he figured he didn't because he worked in PR for Saab - or they were a client - and went on to write about the disingenuousness of that experience, and even used the idea of the automotive assembly line to extrapolate a future of machine dominance in his first major novel Player Piano - and that the Swedes were still pissed at him for that) it would have to be for S5. I'll say it's the only book that I've actually laughed out loud and cried real tears while reading (at different parts). It's a whopper stuffed into under 50k words. I've read extensively on the World Wars, and this book is a perfect companion to all of the non-fiction tomes, or horrible documentary films. It plays the impartial observer while being very partial - not towards a particular nation, side, or ideology - but towards the concepts of impermanence, and peace.
Everything else he wrote is also great. There's no such thing as a bad Kurt Vonnegut book, or speech, or essay, or letter. They can only be ranked relative to each other. A keen and imaginative translator of the human condition on par with Milton, Goethe, Tolstoy, Fitzgerald...the whole constellation. Short doesn't always mean trivial ;-) Good luck! Wishing you many more years to enjoy all of it!
I think we have a lot in common. This essay hits. Your teacher sounds like several of my english teachers. I read BOC when I was 13 - mostly because my camp counselor (one of the coolest guys I ever knew) was reading it and I wanted to be like him. The drawings blew my mind. I didn't know that was allowed in a "serious novel." The next year I included drawings in some of my English class creative writing assignments and I got a B+ from a disinterested teacher with the comment "mostly for the drawings." I appreciated that he had a sense of humor, but also was deeply offended as I thought my writing was particularly impressive ;-) Punchline: I've published dozens of text-only articles with reputable magazines, and even got a few children's books published too (by a reputable publisher). (I also did the drawings ;-) Vonnegut remains my (unwitting...especially now) adoptive granddad and I believe he shaped my moral outlook and compass. My credo comes (I think) from the military and that's "hope for the best, expect the worst." But I have little kids and can't just be a bystander so I pepper in a little of Gandhi's (tired, but true) "be the change...." (and so on...) Thanks for posting this.
If that isn't nice, I don't know what is!
Miley Cyrus is a Kikesucking Zionist Ass-Whore . . . Better Halloween Music for 2023 . . . https://cwspangle.substack.com/p/miley-cyrus-is-a-kikesucking-zionist