Best author ever, let us discuss. Favorite three: Cat's Cradle Breakfast of Champions The Sirens of Titan I've read them all except for God Bless You Mr. Rosewater
i've read Sirens of Titan, Breakfast of Champions, God Bless You Mr Rosewater and Bluebeard. really liked all of them. any time i see one of his books that i haven't read yet i pick it up now.
Slaughterhouse Five changed my life and Sirens of Titan gave me a new outlook on humanity. Kurt Vonnegut is the best author ever.
I love Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five. My friend who is a Vonnegut enthusiast recently bought a hardcover version of A Man Without a Country and gave me his old one, so I'll probably read that sometime.
A Man Without a Country is one of his lesser works. Too much ranting, though it's quite funny at times.
I've only read 'Slaughterhouse Five', which I thought was massively creative. I will probably try to read BoC and CC this year. lately I've been going to the bookstore with the intent to grab one of these books, but always end up with something else
Best author ever? That's a bit of a stretch. I enjoyed Slaughterhouse Five a lot. For some hidden gems, look to some of his later works - Galapagos and Timequake are both pretty good. I think his best line ever comes from Timequake: "You want to know why I don’t have AIDS, why I'm not HIV-positive like so many other people? I don’t fuck around. It’s as simple as that."
Timequake is kinda meh, but I've always loved Galapagos. Also, Jailbird never seems to be discussed, but it's great, as is Deadeye Dick. Also, can't go without mentioning the masterpiece that is Mother Night. For the record, Kurt Vonnegut is the best author ever in the same way that Kayo Dot is the best band ever: both are my favorite in their respective fields.
My favorite author, and the author I most emulate. I have some of his writing on writing pinned to my wall. Sirens of Titan is possibly my favorite book ever.
I've read Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions. Both were very fun to read and certainly exhibit his tremendous abilities as a writer and storyteller.
Definitely read Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle, and Mother Night. Those three (as with the above two) are all masterpieces.
Kurt Vonnegut books rated: Novels: Player Piano - C The Sirens of Titan - A Mother Night - A Cat's Cradle - A+ God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater - ? Slaughterhouse Five - A Breakfast of Champions - A+ Slapstick - B Jailbird - A- Deadeye Dick - B+ Galapagos - B+ Bluebeard - B+ Hocus Pocus - A- Timequake - B- Other: Welcome to the Monkey House (short stories) - B+ Bagombo Snuff Box (short stories) - B Palm Sunday (assorted) - A- A Man Without a Country - C+
I've read Breakfast of Champions and absolutely loved it. I own Slaughterhouse Five but haven't read it, certainly plan to get around to it this summer.
Yes. Favorite author. I need to get around to reading more of his stuff. The last one I read was Galapagos, which was fairly interesting. I think Breakfast of Champions still remains my favorite, though.
Am i the only one who finds Breakfast of Champions really depressing. I know there are some parts that are funny but I find the whole mood of it really brings me down. Maybe it's because i just did a huge essay on him and his writing so I kind of know the circumstances that it was written under. I still think I enjoy Galapagos the most though.
I've read Slaughterhouse Five, Cat's Cradle and Breakfast of Champions and BoC was my favorite by far.
Yeah, I think I'll do it on that, seeing as I'm sure everyone else in the class will do it on the war-satire thing.
I did seriously try to help, but I haven't read it in so long that that was all I could remember off the top of my head. Oh well, at least now there's motivation for me to read it again.
Looking to pick up some new books in the next couple days, and wanted to get some more Vonnegut (I've only read Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions), but I'm torn between Cat's Cradle, Galapagos and Timequake. Any suggestions?
Cat's Cradle is much, much better than either of the other two. Galapagos is decent, and Timequake should be one of the last Vonnegut books you read, and you should really only read it if you plan on reading all of his novels. Cat's Cradles, Mother Night, and Sirens of Titan are the essential books of his you haven't read.
I'm about halfway through Galapagos right now. Cat's Cradle is my staff pick at the bookstore I work at. Mother Night is my favourite 'serious' novel of his. Slaughterhouse-Five was ok. Not all too amazing. I'm glad I started with Cradle, because if I started with Five, he wouldn't be dominating my bookshelf like he has been. I'm moving to Sirens when I get through my Gaiman and Kay books.
They didn't have Cat's Cradle where I was, so I picked up Galapagos (as well as Jose Saramago's Blindness)
Probably one of my favourite authors too, and I've still only read Galapagos and Cat's Cradle (in that order).
Breakfast of Champions and Slaughterhouse-Five are two of my favorite novels. Cat's Cradle was great, quite witty but it didn't hit me as hard (although the ending was everything I wanted covered in chocolate jizz). I inherited an old copy of Player Piano from my mom and I guess I'll read that next? Or is that the worst thing I could ever do??
I started to read Player Piano and it kinda derailed my Vonnegut reading because I was not a fan at all. I should get back on that.
Since my last post, I've read Galapagos a couple times, but it's never really blown me away like the others have. Kind of want to check out Timequake.
Gotta give some love to Hocus Pocus. Loved Cat's Cradle too, but had trouble getting into Breakfeast of Champions and Slaughterhouse Five.
He's fine, but I've become much more sensitive since then to the way sentences are constructed and interrelated, and he isn't really all that good on those lines. He's a good storyteller with good stories and I enjoy reading him, but that's about it.
If you're criticizing Vonnegut as a stylist, I can somewhat relate. His writing is simple and factual. However, I think that's key to why his writing works. The stuff he states as simple 'facts' is unexpected, insightful, and hilarious. I wouldn't critique his sentence construction because, even though it's not exciting, its essential to his tone/humour. I'd probably exclude him from Favourite Writer Ever because the novels of his I've read don't strike me emotionally. Then I'd feel a little dirty for criticizing someone for something he wasn't trying to do.
I'm more in the wog camp on this one. While I agree Vonnegut's storytelling is stronger than his writing - the two are definitely separate - I think his style complimented his substance wonderfully and the only real negative effect of his use of language is that all of his books read like one homogenous satire. Hence I only read about a Vonnegut a year so I don't have room to get sick of him.
Just finished Slaughterhouse Five the other day, great read and a nice change of pace from all the overly-eloquent British classics I've been reading. One thing that blew my mind while reading it was: The part where Billy found the dead hobo lying on the ground at the train station, in a spooning position with "blue and ivory" feet because his boots were stolen This passage seemed extremely familiar, like I had read or heard it before, and it turns out I did. (2:20) It's not a great song or anything, but the death described at 2:20 stuck with me somehow, not knowing the whole song was based on Slaughterhouse Five. In retrospect it's painfully obvious, but if nothing else it's a testament to how poignant Vonnegut's writing can be thanks to his simplisitc writing style.
Oh, I'm not denying at all that Vonnegut's style complements his writing. It's just that he isn't a great stylist, and I generally prefer great style to exciting plot/a good story. Great style can make a boring story into a tremendously exciting one. Ulysses is the perfect example of this: a dude wakes up, wanders around Dublin for a day, and then goes to bed. That's all that happens, really. But the way the story is told makes it an epic plot (literally).
