This is vintage Vonnegut: a collection of sketches and stories that were previously unpublished. Unfortunately, except for the opening letter (1945) and the speech (2007), none of them are dated. Most of the sketches and stories knock on the same door. They are reminiscent of his days as a prisoner of war in Germany and his subsequent liberation. As an avid fan, I recognize in them many of his oft-stated views of life, war, politics, etc. The final item, that lends title to the volume, seems a bit more pessimistic: more like his essays in A Man Without a Country. The reader is also treated to several of his drawings and quips including his self-portrait and his infamous asterisk from Breakfast of Champions.
This collection of short works by Kurt Vonnegut was released on the first anniversary of his death, and includes a poignant, if unconventional tribute, written by his son, the Doctor Vonnegut, who was an author in his own right. This eclectic collection includes letters, speeches and short stories generally centered around the theme of war, hence the title, but the last short story, written from the perspective of the future, bears this title as well.
This collection includes stories with a much more broad time frame than we are used to seeing from KV. It features scenes from the more familiar ones, but also one from a post-Hastings world, in the wake of the Norman conquest of England (the Unicorn Trap), and, as stated, the last one from the future, in a post-Armageddon world where war has taken on a very interesting form (time travel to a devastating battle during WWI). KV once said through one of his characters, "I would have given anything to die in a war that meaningful," and I wonder if he really meant it. As I have stated in other reviews, the trauma of Dresden never left him, but he channeled his clear case of PTS(d) into a prolific body of work which explored the human psyche in the wake of warfare. The message is clear: don't. And, from some things, there is no return. I think KV spent the rest of his life reading of others' experiences to try to comprehend his own.
That said, this volume may not resonate with those unfamiliar with KV's work, but, having quite a few of his novels under my belt, I'm very glad that this unpublished material was made accessible for his fans. The stories are short, but no less profound.
--------Notable Passages--------
In my early-to-mid-twenties he let is slip that he was afraid that therapy might make him normal and well-adjusted, and that would be the end of his writing. I tried to reassure him that psychiatrists weren't nearly that good.
Reading and writing are in themselves subversive cts. What they subvert is the notion tht things have to be the way they are, that you are alone, that no one has ever felt the way you have. What occurs to people when they read Kurt is that things are much more up for grabs than they thought they were. zte world is a slightly different place just because they read a damn book. Imagine that.
If anyone here should wind up on a gurney in a lethal-injection facility, maybe the one at Terre Haute, here is what your last words should be: "This will certainly teach me a lesson."
The physical anthropologists, who had studied human skulls going back thousands of yeras, said we were only supposed to live for thirty-five yeras or so, because that's how long our teeth lasted without modern dentistr. Weren't those the good old days: thirty-five years and we were out of here. Talk about intelligent design! Now all the Baby Boomers who can affod dentistry and health insurnce, poor bastards, are going to live to be a hundred!
My advice to writers just starting out? Don't use semi-colons! They are transvestite hermaphrodites, representing exactly nothing. All they do is suggest you might have gone to college.
This collection includes stories with a much more broad time frame than we are used to seeing from KV. It features scenes from the more familiar ones, but also one from a post-Hastings world, in the wake of the Norman conquest of England (the Unicorn Trap), and, as stated, the last one from the future, in a post-Armageddon world where war has taken on a very interesting form (time travel to a devastating battle during WWI). KV once said through one of his characters, "I would have given anything to die in a war that meaningful," and I wonder if he really meant it. As I have stated in other reviews, the trauma of Dresden never left him, but he channeled his clear case of PTS(d) into a prolific body of work which explored the human psyche in the wake of warfare. The message is clear: don't. And, from some things, there is no return. I think KV spent the rest of his life reading of others' experiences to try to comprehend his own.
That said, this volume may not resonate with those unfamiliar with KV's work, but, having quite a few of his novels under my belt, I'm very glad that this unpublished material was made accessible for his fans. The stories are short, but no less profound.
--------Notable Passages--------
In my early-to-mid-twenties he let is slip that he was afraid that therapy might make him normal and well-adjusted, and that would be the end of his writing. I tried to reassure him that psychiatrists weren't nearly that good.
Reading and writing are in themselves subversive cts. What they subvert is the notion tht things have to be the way they are, that you are alone, that no one has ever felt the way you have. What occurs to people when they read Kurt is that things are much more up for grabs than they thought they were. zte world is a slightly different place just because they read a damn book. Imagine that.
If anyone here should wind up on a gurney in a lethal-injection facility, maybe the one at Terre Haute, here is what your last words should be: "This will certainly teach me a lesson."
The physical anthropologists, who had studied human skulls going back thousands of yeras, said we were only supposed to live for thirty-five yeras or so, because that's how long our teeth lasted without modern dentistr. Weren't those the good old days: thirty-five years and we were out of here. Talk about intelligent design! Now all the Baby Boomers who can affod dentistry and health insurnce, poor bastards, are going to live to be a hundred!
My advice to writers just starting out? Don't use semi-colons! They are transvestite hermaphrodites, representing exactly nothing. All they do is suggest you might have gone to college.
Well, that was different. Different, but good. If you love Vonnegut for who he is and what he writes you'll enjoy it. Yet, these short stories are different. Published posthumously they're not necessarily the normal stories you'd see -- perhaps he'd never meant for them to be published. Yet, I'm glad they were and to see this side of Vonnegut.
