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/lit/ - Literature

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8418365 No.8418365 [Reply] [Original]

>start reading pic related
>entire thing revolves around a wild 1000% exaggeration of the casualties of the Dresden bombings
>into the trash it goes

Nah, I'm just about to finish it and it's good, I suppose. But does anyone else detect a slight smugness/arrogance in that sort of 60s-70s American sci-fi? I got the same sense reading Foundation.

>> No.8418369

>>8418365
I'm currently reading Stranger in a Strange Land, an I get what you mean.

>> No.8418382

It was a tough time to be a rational thinking person. Society was going crazy with anti communist Red Scare bullshit while totally oblivious to its own problems and misdeeds and Christian values, and Protestant ones at that, had a strangle hold on culture. This was a time when questioning the Bible, even old testament shit, would have you ostracized.
Of course there was a certain amount of arrogance from those who asked questions.

>> No.8418384
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8418384

>>8418365
Google says between 22000 and 25000. What does Vonnegut say?

>> No.8418394

>>8418384
135,000. He was basing his stuff on The Destruction of Dresden book, now fairly discredited (and being there, of course). Estimates used to be 35,000-500,000 - few years back German (I think) researchers came out with the 18-20,000 figure which is the modern consensus.

>> No.8418404

>>8418394
Kinda neat how those numbers regarding the Dresden casualties were consistently reviewed and revised :^)

>> No.8418423

>>8418404
Saying the figures have been assuaged by Brits/Americans to make themselves look better? Can very much believe that I suppose. I'd have to read more primary accounts of the attacks.

>> No.8418429

>>8418423
>>8418404
Americans don't deny the Hiroshima and Nagasaki numbers. Why would they lie about the Dresden ones?

>> No.8418455

>>8418423
There are other casualty statistics that are sensitive to revisional inquiries

>Never forget the 6 billion

>> No.8418457

>>8418455
No they're not. The Holocaust museum in Israel had the official number at like 4.5 million+.

>> No.8418460

He keeps saying how much worse it was than Hiroshima. The book kind of hangs on this.

>> No.8418467
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8418467

>>8418365

RIP Bomber Harris.

>> No.8418475

Ironic, by the way, that between reading this and Animal Farm I came up with the perfect ending for my time-travel story while reading the preface to the Ukrainean edition of the latter.

>> No.8418477

>>8418457
Yad Vashem still refers to the 6 million estimate, but they have personally identified 4.3 million victims so far.
https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/remembrance/names/pdf/magazine71.pdf

>> No.8418550

Sign number 1 of an author who's far too overconfident - they cross over characters between works.

>> No.8419475

It's a book which very much has a point to make, but any point it had to make has long since seeped into our culture anyway and so it seems rather unnecessary.

>> No.8419711

>>8418550
No?

>> No.8419872

>>8418365
Po-tee-weet shitnhead.

>> No.8419956

I read this back at the end of high school. I never really felt the book hinged so hugely on Dresden specifically, I think Dresden could be replaced by an depressing incident in history.

I took from the book a more sorta positive nihilistic message. Like "yeah, life sucks, bad shit happens, oh well" I didn't really feel the smugness.

Actually I think this book was helpful in getting over that smug pretensions teenage attitude I had about myself. Or at least I read it at the time I started to be more self aware about my shit.

It was like the opposite of what happened when I read 1984 in 8th grade.

>> No.8419968

>>8419956
>It was like the opposite of what happened when I read 1984 in 8th grade.
I was such a douche after reading 1984. Bad times man.

>> No.8420118

cat's cradle is way way better.

>> No.8420154

>>8419872
Ding-a-ling!

>> No.8420184

>>8420118
yeah.

>> No.8420216

>>8420118
Having expected to like Slaughterhouse-Five more, I agree that Cat's Cradle is better.

>> No.8420322

>>8420118
>tfw hoosier

>> No.8420864

>>8419956
this
it doesn't even feel like it's an anti war book.

If anything it feels like a book to help ease the idea of death.

>> No.8421854

How is Breakfast of Champions? I bought it after reading S5 and have yet to start it

>> No.8421885

>>8421854
Better than S5 but the story is a bit meh overall and Vonnegut being meta is annoying. Still worth reading though

>> No.8421976

>>8418429
nazis are evil goy

>> No.8422983

>>8418365

Yep, I had the same response once I read that his numbers were based on lies and all he had to resort to was, "I was there" although his entire book is about how he and everyone else in the Allies didn't know their asses from a hole in the ground.

The man built a career on a lie that required false horror in succeeding at war from people who sympathized with the enemy anyways. He couldn't do that with relatively ho-hum casualty numbers so he did it with lies.

He was a Nazi sympathizer and a liar. Otherwise, I'm sure he was great on the dinner party circuit.

>> No.8422993

>>8422983
another bad post. what's with kurt vonnegt threads and attracting posting like this?

>> No.8423009

>>8422993
Tripfags are uniformly self-important retards. Ignore them and your life will improve fivefold.

>> No.8423031

>>8423009
thanks, I don't see a lot of tripfags on /lit/ so this is new to me.