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/lit/ - Literature

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1181899 No.1181899 [Reply] [Original]

Does /lit/ like Kurt Vonnegut?

I just started Breakfast for Champions, and the book is hilarious.

>> No.1181904

I really like man without a country as well as other vonnegut books I actually am going to buy Breakfast of Champions first edition pretty soon here

>> No.1181906

>>1181904
I haven't heard of that one. This is only the second book of his I've read, the other being Slaughterhouse-Five. Does he use Kilgore Trout in all his books?

>> No.1181910

It's sort of his alter ego in slaughter house 5 there's a reference to a book he read but Man without a Country is like a collection of personal thoughts by Vonnegut idk kind of see the inner-thoughts of the man it's a quick read but quiet good i think my personal favorite is time quake and man without a country

>> No.1181921

>>1181910
Oh okay, that's basically what I thought the entire time.

>> No.1181925

Yeah I mean Kilgore Trout is the main character of Time Quake but Vonnegut is really good I'm glad you like him :] fucking brilliant

>> No.1181930

>>1181925
Oh wow, that's next on my list then. I have Cat's Cradle too, but one at a time, lol.

>> No.1181969

Breakfast of Champions is an amazing book, it's one of those stories you begin love more and more after you read it.
I'd also highly recommend reading The Sirens of Titan and Slapstick. Slapstick to me is seminal Vonnegut and you should read it after reading a few of his works and The Sirens of Titan is one of his earliest novels which also just has an amazing Vonnegut-tastic plot

>> No.1181973

literally any vonnegut you get you will not be dissapoint

>> No.1181983

Cat's Cradle is the god tier of Vonnegut.

>> No.1182000

>>1181983


Just finished Cat's Cradle. Will read it again tomorrow. Vonnegut is my nomination for best human being ever.

>> No.1182002

>>1182000
You read it all in a single day?

Man, I must be a slow reader. I guess if I just sat down and read non stop from start to finish, I could finish it in a day.

>> No.1182012

>>1182002

Vonnegut is a pretty easy read compared to Cormac McCarthy, who I just finished reading the day before.

Plus, Cat's Cradle is just one of those books I can't put down for anything.

>> No.1182028

>>1182012
I feel the same way.
I just read it all in one sitting.

>> No.1182043

>>1182012
I just finished reading Blood Meridian for the first time. McCarthy is AMAZING, I was awed by that book. I've never read anything as beautiful and brutal as that.

>> No.1182098

Sirens of Titan was fucking incredible definitely read that next.

>> No.1182244

>>1182043

Beautiful and brutal is a good way to put it. That's the one I just finished as well. It was hands down the single most savage and beautiful book I've ever read.

>> No.1182282

>>1181930

Kilgore Trout is mentioned in many (but not all) of Vonnegut's books. He usually doesn't appear directly, but Vonnegut will give brief summaries of novels & short stories he was supposed to have written. I always really enjoyed these summaries--for me they were the high point of his novels when I first started reading him. Slaughterhouse-Five and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater feature a lot of Trout's stories. Timequake uses Trout as the main character, but that book is actually mostly about Vonnegut himself, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as the next to try if you want more Trout.

>> No.1183836

Player Piano is in my opinion his best. Welcome to the Monkey House is a great introduction to him. All short stories so easy to digest in pieces.

>> No.1183843

Kilgore Trout is a thinly-veiled analogue of Theodore Sturgeon (except that Ted Sturgeon was actually a brilliant writer)

Read Ted Sturgeon if you like Vonnegut

>> No.1183868

>Does /lit/ like Kurt Vonnegut?
I am not American and I do not find his diatribes about what the marxists called hollow bourgeois semantics great or funny. Yes, it is "Baroque Hocus Pocus", yes you may glean about the "founding fathers" being an American nobility, you may glean over the concept of a "God", or of a "just war" but don't expect it to work on someone who was not indoctrinated in McCarthian US-America, anon. To us those are plattitudes no matter how eloquently you put them. We know what was supposedly wrong and he isn't dropping a single word on how to bend it right.

>> No.1183874

>>1182098
For me, The Sirens of Titan is the only book to explain technology.

>> No.1183878

>>1181899
Hey OP. I'm in the middle of Breakfast of Champions too. I like his brand of dark humor. You can laugh, but deep down, you know the point he's getting at is so depressing you could just cry. Very sardonic.

>> No.1183902

Never been to /lit/ before but I started reading Slaughterhouse 5 and was about to ask the same question OP asked

>> No.1183905

>>1181899
I'm pretty sure you can't not like Kurt Vonnegut, even the people who claim that they hate him smile inside when they read his books.

On a side not read Cat's Cradle, and can't believe he never answered the fucking question DOES A TURTLE"S SPINE BUCKLE OR CONTRACT????