What do you guys think of Vonnegut?

[Anonymous No.7363511]

[Anonymous No.7363522]

>>7363511
I think he is very good, not as good as his fanboys say he is, though.

[Anonymous No.7363529]

Good ideas. Too easy to read or be beautiful.

[Anonymous No.7363553]

Should one start with Slaughterhouse Five? I see it in huge numbers in every bookstore.

[Anonymous No.7363555]

>>7363553
Why not? It's not a difficult book.

[Anonymous No.7363564]

>>7363553
Slaughterhous five is hands down his worst book. Start with Sirens of Titan or Cat's Cradle.

[Anonymous No.7363581]

>>7363553
It's his most popular one so it's a good idea read it to see if you like his writing style.
But if you want incest, read Slapstick

[Anonymous No.7363588]

i don't know, i reread him recently and the writing seemed pretty bad, the narrative disjointed.

[Anonymous No.7363607]

I only liked Harrison Bergeron, to bh

[Anonymous No.7363691]

>>7363511
I've only read Cat's Cradle and that was dogshit.

[Anonymous No.7363715]

>>7363553

Yeah it's short, enjoyable and easy to read

[Anonymous No.7363755]

He's great. Very fun.

[Anonymous No.7363774]

>>7363511
My fav author, no shame

[Anonymous No.7363779]

He writes simply, but I think that he says all he needs to because of that.
Quirky and terribly sad

[Anonymous No.7363783]

>>7363774
OP here - likewise. He has his faults but I can pick up his books at any time absolutely love them

[Anonymous No.7363786]

*

[Anonymous No.7363795]

>>7363564
You're an idiot
Slaughterhouse Five is his best book. Sirens of Titan and Cat's Cradle are both mediocre

[Anonymous No.7364042]

Fellow Hoosier, no complaints here family.

[Anonymous No.7364048]

>>7363795
Great discussion! To-the-point and doesn't even need evidence.

[Anonymous No.7364100]

>Simple, forgettable prose
>Absurdity for the sake of it
>Empty, but hints at having something to say

It's young adult for people who want to feel like they're reading something of substance. Is there any wonder he's Reddit's favourite author?

[Anonymous No.7364212]

All this shit talking yet you idiots voted at least two of his books into that /lit/ book chart
Kill yourselves

[Anonymous No.7364218]

i picked up welcome to the monkey house for like 2 bucks a while ago it had some funny interesting stories for sure

[BurstingFlares !XSCOplnPZ. No.7364251]

I've only read Cat's and Slaughterhouse but I didn't care for his brand of humor

[Anonymous No.7364321]

>>7363511

He isn't a) an ancient Greek, b) Shakespeare, or c) a postmodern author.

Therefore, I'm not allowed to enjoy his work.

[Anonymous No.7364338]

>>7364321
Lots of his writing is generally considered postmodern. His writing just isn't as arcane as so many postmodernists.

I think he's funny and wrote some great stuff. He wrote a lot of shit too.

[Anonymous No.7364340]

>>7364321
He is postmodern tho
Use of "low culture" elements along with metafiction, unreliable narration, experimental form, etc. fit pretty clearly within postmodernism.

[Anonymous No.7365856]

>>7363783
All authors has flaws, all novels are imperfect, you can always find ways to criticise any piece of fiction. Usually criticism towards literature is irrelevant as it more of a reflection of the person critiquing the novel than the novel in and of it self.

[Anonymous No.7365918]

>>7364338
Yeah Galapagos was shitty.

[Anonymous No.7365939]

>>7364100
>simple, forgettable prose
Vonneguts prose is simple, but he uses simple prose in a more elegant way than anyone ive read. Id say its far from forgettable.
>absurdity for the sake of it
Or because a constant recurring theme in a large portion of his works was absurdity in society? He wrote entire books about how he thought belief systems and ideologies made no sense and were meaningless.
>empty, but hints at having something to say
This just sounds like bait, vonnegut is very clear with what hes trying to say in the majority of his novels.

[Anonymous No.7365944]

I like his short stories and his humor; other than that, I think /lit's general critique—that he's too smug and often sarcastic—is fairly spot on. It is hard to find contemporary authors who attempt at serious (or even semi-serious) themes while also being consistently funny, and Vonnegut seems to pull it off somewhat.

[Anonymous No.7366542]

" The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of a zipper on the fly of God Almighty."

This is the quote my 12th grade IB English Teacher discussed with us in class for a minute or two. We discussed the imagery and humor behind it.

He is pretty pleb though. A lot of kids were shocked in the class that he made humor of death.

[Anonymous No.7366551]

His best work is his five second appearance in Rodney Dangerfield's Back to School.

[Anonymous No.7366574]

>>7363553
id say start w cat's cradle but yeah slaughterhouse is still an okay place to start

[Anonymous No.7366587]

Too cutesy and saccharine. If I had a dollar for every brainless hipster who tattooed "So it goes" on their wrist, I would be a millionaire.

Vonnegut is one of the few things that can be accurately judged by its fans. The average Metallica fan is a burnout idiot, but their music is pretty good. However, Vonnegut fans are annoying though tolerable and think themselves smarter or more 'aware' than most people, which describes Vonnegut to a T.
>DUDE LMAO NOTING LE HURT XDDDD

[Anonymous No.7366859]

Vonnegut's a competent writer and he can tell a story pretty well, but does anybody take his ideas seriously?

Also, I think that he has mastered a style of writing where he can create an illusion that he is saying more than he actually is, making his writings seem deep on the surface.

[Anonymous No.7366968]

>>7366587
>memes
>pepe image
>metallica is good
I think you answered OPs question, if you think he sucks he must be amazing by default

[Anonymous No.7366978]

>>7365918
>2015
>not liking galapagos
This guy

[Anonymous No.7367027]

I don't. Because he was mentioned in Footloose and is a book with a banned history, I read Slaughter-House Five to find out why. It was lovely--when I was a minor.

[Anonymous No.7367069]

>OK lit, plz don't kill me
I read cats craddle and pleasures of the damned (collected poems by Bukowski) it struck me how similar both were, in subject and heritage. Two Americans of Germanic descent, melancholic, pointing out the absurdities of life, mixing low and high brow culture, self depreciating. However I always feel Vonnegut is the better writer, Bukowski is the braver one, including himself in the ridicule and not asserting some claim to profound knowledge.

[Anonymous No.7367082]

I grew out of him or something. I read Sirens of Titan recently and I was way less excited by it than I probably would have been if I was in my teens or early twenties. To echo some other posters, it was too cutesy, too disjointed, and stylistically plain. And yeah, he's a favorite of obnoxious hipsters. I remember when I was on okcupid and every girl listed their favorite author as Vonnegut and Bukowski. That said, he still has a little place in my heart and I remember really liking Cat's Cradle when I was younger.

[Anonymous No.7367155]

[Anonymous No.7367173]

I haven't read a single thing of his since I was about 16 but I read 8-9 of his books before then. I think I have one of the ones I never read ("Timequake") in my room somewhere but I'm afraid to open it up and discover that he's actually bad.

[Anonymous No.7367180]

>>7367173
I don't think he's an author that's meant to be reread. He's great as an adolescent and his work will expose you to better literature, but once you get a more refined taste his work won't be as good you remember it to be.

[Anonymous No.7367190]

He's popular, so obviously he's medicore. But, he isn't terrible.

[Anonymous No.7367214]

>>7367155
i am consistently embarrassed for her

it's creepy enough seeing celebs tweeting their HOT OPINIONS about issues from their expertise of being in movies about stoners farting, or seeing public intellectuals whoring for attention and trying to stay relevant to The Meme Generation with soundbites, but something about this old stupid bitch just sitting alone and tweeting her thoughts about shitty news articles makes me sad

die soon joyce, die soon and save your remaining dignity. no one should have grad students publishing their posthumous collected tweets.

[Anonymous No.7367232]

>>7367214
good post this is

[Anonymous No.7367537]

>>7363795
>Cat's Cradle
>mediocre

[Anonymous No.7367545]

>>7363511
always an easy read, which is why he is overlooked by patricians. overrated by plebs tho.

IMO he is a decent thinker, and an easy read. worth the effort, probably wont change your mind. try it out, its not going to waste your time.

[Anonymous No.7367668]

>>7363795
Please. Mother Night is best book.

[Anonymous No.7367724]

>>7367668
are there any other literary authors who cameo their characters in their other books like he did with Campbell in SH-5?

[Anonymous No.7367747]

>>7367724
I always liked that touch. Seemed like every nivel had a character that would pop up in another work. Rabo karabekian showing up in breakfast of champions was among my favorites. Campbell was interesting too because if you only read slaughterhouse five he seems like a random background character.

[Anonymous No.7367857]

>>7366587
Most people who tattoo "So it goes" on their wrist are probably more inclined not to get the satire employed. Like, how a culture that looks at life in that was was supposed to be ridiculous and poke fun at the U.S. in their way of looking at war, not be something to emulate and aspire to live by.

[Anonymous No.7367875]

>>7366859
His self-grading scale is a pretty accurate portrayal of how well he explained his ideas. Like Cat's Cradle and Slaughter house are very concise in there satire, Stuff like BOC and Slapstick were very muddled in how the handled their ideas, though with BOC you could sort of argue that was the whole point of the book, being all the ideas just spewing out on the page.

[Anonymous No.7367897]

>>7367214
I had a literature class in high school where we read "WHERE ARE YOU GOING, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" and it we were supposed to argue whether or not it had been a dream or not in order to support the idea of a religious epiphany.

Anyhow, one smart ass kid decided to email Joyce Carol Oates in order to get his side as the right one. and she fucking said that he was right. Like what the fuck Oates isn't it all supposed to be whatever I want it to be. Like I don't give a fuck what you think is going on, if you wrote it one way and I read it another than I am right because I read it that way. You can't be wrong on a reading of a story you asshole.

Aside: I made that same argument to my teacher and she just looked at me like an asshole so maybe I'm the asshole?

[Anonymous No.7367977]

>>7367897
One time I read on /lit/
>implying the author's intention is relevant

And I never read the same since.

[Anonymous No.7367987]

>>7367897
ur sound like an asshole, but u were right nevertheless

high school literature classes don't really have anything to do with literature

[Anonymous No.7367999]

>>7367747
I had to check and see if he was actually a real person

[Anonymous No.7368039]

>>7367897
What was the correct answer?

She's an atheist, so I can guess.

[Anonymous No.7368047]

>>7368039
She said it was a dream, supporting the fact that she fell asleep and god sent her a vision of what her life was going to become. It was written during the whole "god is dead" phase of the 60s so that's a big influence on it.

[Anonymous No.7368957]

>>7367897
>emailing the author for your homework

Why do I find this funny, that little shit is a genius.

[Anonymous No.7369017]

>>7366587
>think themselves smarter or more 'aware'
projecting H A R D

on the contrary i think vonnegut is very insightful. they're pleasant, imaginative books that explore a load of interesting themes. i really don't know where people draw the line between juvenile and mature reading but it seems to me there'd only be a minor degree of separation between them.
the only thing it comes down to is taste not depth or complexity which can be spiritually unhealthy in heavy doses

[Anonymous No.7369020]

>>7363511

Lovely author, mostly terrible fans.

>>7363529

What does this even mean?

>>7366587

>DUDE LMAO NOTING LE HURT XDDDD

If I recall correctly, this was spoken immediately after intravenous injection of morphine. Knowing that I sound insufferable, most people don't get the gist of the quote. It's not particularly life-affirming, nor is it about the inherent beauty of the world.

[Anonymous No.7369023]

Sirens > Cats Cradle > Mother Night > Slaughterhouse > Breakfast > Rosewater > Slapstick

[Anonymous No.7369095]

>>7364321
Not allowed by whom?

[Anonymous No.7369121]

>>7369020
>What does this even mean?
He writes in a style grounded in granular cliché so idiots can understand his points. Subject verb object. Subject verb preposition object. Bill Pilgram traveled backward in time. He awoke on a cot in Dresden.

[Anonymous No.7369122]

>>7369095
Le patricians. He deals with complex and [post]modern issues in ways us plebs can understand or at least take a little bit away from, therefore he is shit.

[Anonymous No.7369129]

>>7363529
Agreed

[Anonymous No.7369135]

>>7363511
Slaughterhouse 5, what a twist: bombing cities is not ok. A horribly bad book.

[Anonymous No.7369146]

>>7369135
When dose it say it wasn't ok? The book lands on it being ok...

[Anonymous No.7369270]

>>7369135

Crime and Punishment, what a twist: killing people is not ok.

Not comparing them otherwise, but shit man, that critique is inane.

[Anonymous No.7369407]

>>7363511
Reddit tier meme author

I put his books in the trash every time I go to B+N

[Anonymous No.7369463]

>>7363511
read slaughterhouse 5, thought it was shit. is his other stuff better?

[Anonymous No.7369760]

>>7369270
>that critique is inane.
Ok, you're right.

By the time I read SH5, I've already read extensive literature about the second world war, firebombing campaigns, the third reich, the SS etc etc. My point: I already knew about the horrors of war by different sources - and so Vonnegut offered nething new to me. He got it wrong about the soap, the lampshades and the number of casualties (but he couldn't know). SH5's writing was but a gimmick. I read it seven years ago, so no details here. It's overrated.

>>7369407
>>7369463
this

[Anonymous No.7369768]

>>7363511
Slaughterhouse 5 is overrated. Some funny parts, the rest wasn't so great.

[Anonymous No.7369818]

>>7367977

You should read this good essay, which argues the basic version of that

http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/seminar/fallacy.htm

And this other good essay, which argues an even more radical version

http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/Gustafson/FILM%20162.W10/readings/barthes.death.pdf

[Anonymous No.7369831]

>>7367214

A huge portion of her career is her just attaching herself to popular things: a book on Marilyn Monroe, books about feminist ideas, a book about a serial killer, a story maligning Robert Frost, etc.

She's the literary shadow of celebrity. Her books, in the worst way, read like 'important' movies, like Oscar bait.

[Anonymous No.7369845]

The Sirens of Titan made me cry for a thousand years