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/lit/ - Literature

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2770589 No.2770589[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Sup /lit/
Just read "Slaughterhouse 5" and loved it. I have two more Vonnegut books and was wondering which one I should start next:
Cat's Cradle or Breakfast of Champions?
Reasons would be tremendously helpful

>> No.2770601

Cat's Cradle > any other Vonnegut, though not by much in some cases.

>> No.2770608

read cat's cradle

>> No.2770612

Read them both simultaneonsly.

>> No.2770610

no thank you

>> No.2770620

>>2770608
>>2770601
Alright sweet, I'll start that one. I wanna read Breakfast of Champions, but I got stuff that I think precedes that. I just some more Vonnegut right now to get my fix *sniff*.

>> No.2770625

Slaughterhouse 5 is my favorite, but I don't think I fully appreciated it until I read some other Vonnegut and came back to it.

Mother Night and Jailbird are both pretty good, too.

Teenagers desperately seeking peer approval or self-validation will scoff "lolhipster" at him, but he's an author that came into my life at just the right time. I'll always have a sentimental attachment to his work/personality.

>> No.2770642

Cat's Cradle, easily. Though you should read both.

>> No.2770645

>>2770625
I get it man, this book is sticking with me way more than the other fictions I've been reading over the summer. Can't help but think of time in that "tralfamadorian" way from time to time (no pun intended). I'll look into those, but I think I'm gonna start on Cat's Cradle first.

I'll definitely come back to Slaughterhouse though, it's one of those classics that you just have to keep fresh in your mind. The only other book that I think deserves that that I've read so far is "Of Mice and Men".

>> No.2770656
File: 6 KB, 175x117, your slaw sir..jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2770656

>>2770612

u sir r win.

>> No.2770668

Both.
Alternate between books after completing a page.

>> No.2770676

Breakfast of Champions is funnier if that's your thing. Vonnegut isn't very deep, I see him as a humor author anyways so that'd be my recommendation. He's kind of like the Jon Stewart of literature except smarter.

>> No.2770705

Vonnegut's best are Slaughterhouse, Cat's Cradle, and Mother Night imo.

Just whatever you do, don't bother with Player Piano.

>> No.2770733

>>2770645

Just so you know the "tralfamadorian way" of thinking about time is the schizophrenic way of thinking about time. Billy Pilgrim had a schizophrenic break due to psychological trauma suffered during firebombing of Dresden. If you actually think that Slaughterhouse 5 is a work of science fiction you need to reassess the way you interpret literature.

>> No.2770744

>>2770676
Are people getting a load of this asshole?

>> No.2770753

Cat's Cradle. Like most of Vonnegut, it's deceptively complex. Really easy read you can get through in 2 or 3 hours, but you could spend months analyzing it. Breakfast of Champions, in my opinion, is a little more forgettable.

Try and find Sirens of Titan, if you can. It's in his top 3 best.

>> No.2770774

>>2770733
I never said it was a work of science fiction, faggot, I was just making a reference to the goddam book. If you're trying to tell me that that /isn't/ how Vonnegut described time from the aliens point of view, then you're miserably wrong because that view of time was a recurring notion in the book. Vonnegut didn't want the reader to see death as an end, which is why he took a whole passage to explain exactly what the aliens were talking about. He wants you to see it as banal and constant. It always has happened and always will happen, "so it goes". Don't undermine that whole subtext and just seek to see the fundamental explanation for Pilgrim's mindset. OBVIOUSLY he has a break-down, but that isn't the fucking point at all...Vonnegut didn't write a book about a schizophrenic man, he wrote a book about a victim, always suffering.

Dont "FYI" me unless you can actually read.

>> No.2770777

>>2770753
Whoa, never heard of that but I'm heading out to the bookstore tomorrow, if I see it, I'll get it.

>> No.2770782

>>2770744
Don't even get me started...

>> No.2770804

>>2770774

I can already tell that you are the type to think of "Eternal Recurrence" in Nietzsche as more than just a thought experiment. You should kill yourself now since you obviously will never die and will just start over and over and over and over kind of like how I can already tell that you are the type to think of "Eternal Recurrence" in Nietzsche as more than just a thought experiment. You should kill yourself now since you obviously will never die and will just start over and over and over and over kind of like how I can already tell that you are the type to think of "Eternal Recurrence" in Nietzsche as more than just a thought experiment. You should kill yourself now since you obviously will never die and will just start over and over and over and over kind of like how II...etc

>> No.2770808

Cats Cradle is the place to go.

BOC is shit.

You read his best book, its all downhill from here son.

>> No.2770810

>>2770744

Hah, I don't have anything against Vonnegut, I just think there are more important authors who contributed works of actual intellectual significance.

If Vonnegut wasn't held on some pedestal as a groundbreaking mind by so many retards, and all that PO went into folks respecting him as the clever, comedic that he is I'd never have a bad word to say about him...

The fact remains though, that some people (maybe people in this thread) think he's a literary genius of some sort.

>> No.2770825

>>2770804
I don't believe it, but I acknowledge it as a theme in the book.

...because it's a theme in the book.

>> No.2770830

>>2770676
called satire.
>>2770753
second this.
>>2770777
get it immediately.

>> No.2770836

Breakfast of Champions was pretty cool, in my opinion. A bit of a mind-fuck towards the end, but I always find Kilgore Trout's POV's to be hilarious, particularly his in-universe works.

>> No.2770850

>>2770836
Everybody was leaning to Cat's Cradle until you, have you read CC? I'm not saying it's a bad book, but I was pretty confident in CC over BoC until now...

>> No.2770868

Nobody ever talks about it, but I thought Timequake was definitely a worthwhile read. Galapagos as well.

>> No.2770873

MY VONNEGUT RANKINGS, BASED ON THE NOVELS I'VE READ

1. Cat's Cradle & Slaughter-House Five (tie)
3. The Sirens of Titan
4. Welcome to the Monkey House
5. Timequake
6. Deadeye Dick
7. Slapstick
8. Breakfast of Champions
9. God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

>> No.2770890

>>2770873

Dayum. A high claim to make that CC is on the same level as Slaughterhouse Five, but this just excited me so much that BoC is prolly gonna be collecting dust on my shelves for a bit longer...

>> No.2770899

>>2770890

Cat's Cradle just has a much stronger message, in my opinion. It also touches on so many themes that you would never expect in a Vonnegut work that it thrills me. And again, it's so damn deceptive in its false simplicity. Do some research on what academic scholars have written on him, the guy was very much a virtuoso.

>> No.2770907

>>2770890

Vonnegut, you may be interested to know, once "graded" his own works based on both his opinions on them and those of the critics who read them. It goes like this:

Player Piano: B
The Sirens of Titan: A
Mother Night: A
Cat's Cradle: A-plus
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: A
Slaughterhouse-Five: A-plus
Welcome to the Monkey House: B-minus
Happy Birthday, Wanda June: D
Breakfast of Champions: C
Slapstick: D
Jailbird: A
Palm Sunday: C

>> No.2770911

>>2770907
If that's true, that's damn interesting. Sauce?

>> No.2770919

>>2770907
I know that a lot of authors had different opinions on their own books than the public had. Mark Twain thought his best book was "Joan of Arc."

Yeah, no.

>> No.2770928

>>2770899
Shit, I am so excited now. I hate not being able to discuss a book though, cause that usually adds even more to the book (to see how other people interpret the story), and since no one else I know has read CC yet, I'm prolly just gonna come back for a discussion thread.

>> No.2770941

>>2770911

Chapter 18 of his book Palm Sunday.

He referenced that chapter in many interviews, and when people ask why he gave himself low scores he usually said something to the effect of "critics hated it and it's their job to read books, so they must know what they're talking about."

>> No.2770943

While we're on the subject of discussion, anyone have an opinion on what the barking dog might symbolize in Slaughterhouse? I think it is referring to the big looming "death" in the future, when really Vonnegut wants us to see that it's actually nothing to fear and tries to make us feel almost foolish for being scared of it in the first place.

>> No.2773549

>>2770907
Vonnegut thinks highly of Slaughterhouse Five because it's his most personal book, and Cat's Cradle because it got him his Masters in Anthropology after his final thesis was rejected.

His best book is Sirens of Titan

>> No.2773821

Cannot stress enough, though it's mentioned, how overlooked sirens of titan has been in this thread.