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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Reading this in your mid 20s is a spiritual experience. Vonnegut can be both hopeful and nihilistic in a way that makes you fall in love with life again. I recommend reading, but with breaks to digest the profound questions it poses!!
Some good stuff in here, as I've come to expect from old KV; but mostly just a garbled mess
I've now read two Vonnegut books. I dont get it. They come off as drunken ramblings. There was no plot...no story. Just ramblings
funny
3.5/5
Like a Vonnegutian White Album. It’s all a bit of a mess really, but it contains more than enough nuggets of unadulterated KV brilliance to give it immense value.
It’s also a profoundly sad read, despite its flickering glimmers of joy. Vonnegut’s writing has always, first and foremost, evoked for me a passage from Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend: a young Elena has just read her friend Lila’s book for the first time, and she is struck by something which she is only able to articulate with the passage of time: “even before I was overwhelmed by the contents, what struck me was that the writing contained Lila’s voice…she left no trace of effort, you weren’t aware of the artifice of the written word.”
This ability remained intact right through to the end, but here the effect is different. Vonnegut’s weariness and sense of resignation at this stage of his life is palpable throughout. His was never the most upbeat of worldviews, but by this point the spring seems to have left his step (save for when he’s running errands). The voice in this book is melancholy in a much more vulnerable way than his earlier work.
He’s still having a laugh at the absurdities of the world and those who inhabit it, but it’s a bitter, rueful laugh. It’s a testament to the writer and the man that it is still laugh out loud funny.
Like a Vonnegutian White Album. It’s all a bit of a mess really, but it contains more than enough nuggets of unadulterated KV brilliance to give it immense value.
It’s also a profoundly sad read, despite its flickering glimmers of joy. Vonnegut’s writing has always, first and foremost, evoked for me a passage from Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend: a young Elena has just read her friend Lila’s book for the first time, and she is struck by something which she is only able to articulate with the passage of time: “even before I was overwhelmed by the contents, what struck me was that the writing contained Lila’s voice…she left no trace of effort, you weren’t aware of the artifice of the written word.”
This ability remained intact right through to the end, but here the effect is different. Vonnegut’s weariness and sense of resignation at this stage of his life is palpable throughout. His was never the most upbeat of worldviews, but by this point the spring seems to have left his step (save for when he’s running errands). The voice in this book is melancholy in a much more vulnerable way than his earlier work.
He’s still having a laugh at the absurdities of the world and those who inhabit it, but it’s a bitter, rueful laugh. It’s a testament to the writer and the man that it is still laugh out loud funny.
Quite absurd, meta, and jumping between different tangents from paragraph to paragraph. A very fun read, and the writing style kept me engaged. Fell off a bit at the end, but overall very entertaining.
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No