Vonnegut

A couple of nights ago, I saw Kurt Vonnegut on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  I was a faithful reader of Vonnegut's novels until about 1980, when my mind wandered on to something else.

He had quite a bit to say, pulling bits of paper out of pockets and pretty much running over Jon Stewart, no easy feat. 

I am ashamed to admit that since I hadn't heard anything about him in years (that I can recall), I thought he had died.

I remember reading Player Piano, Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions, Cat's Cradle and other novels, and loving the fantastic, often bleak and futuristic, but frequently hilarious scenarios he offered. 

Vonnegut himself was a prisoner of war in World War II, and was in incarcerated in a slaughterhouse in Dresden when allied forces bombed , killing 135,000 civilians.  He wrote about these experiences in his most famous novel, Slaughterhouse Five. 

He is a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist.  He has done an advertisement for the American Civil Liberties Union.  He is involved with the World Federalist Movement, a group whose proponents envision a global and humanistic society.

Vonnegut currently writes for a magazine called "In These Times".  A number of his essays from this magazine were published this year as A Man without a Country (here from Amazon), which has become a best seller (where have I been?).

In an essay, Thomas M. Sipos talks about the fact that Vonnegut's best selling books never translated successfully to the screen. Sipos claims that Vonnegut's greatest strength is not in his plots or characters, but his unique authorial voice.

I am inclined to agree.  It is very hard to translate irony and wry, cynical humor into a movie. 

I have often felt that that was the problem with Joseph Heller's Catch-22, one of the bleakest, funniest books ever, and one of the few I have reread several times over the years. (I think it's probably time again.)  The movie captured the misery and horror of World War II pretty well, but missed, entirely, the mitigating touch of humor.

Vonnegut, likewise, is best appreciated on the printed page.

Comments

[Ralph Crawford]

Good article. That being said I just saw the movie Slaughterhouse Five (having read the book decades ago) and really liked it. Probably not as good as the book, but oddly enough I think I understood the point a little better.