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A review by zamyatins_fears
Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So by Mark Vonnegut
1.0
Mark Vonnegut’s literary voice sounds much like that of his father, Kurt Vonnegut. He clearly inherited some of the same sense of humor and picked up some of his father’s particular vernacular, while having a style all his own. I picked up this book after it was mentioned in the biography And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life by Charles Shields. I wanted to learn more about Mark, as he seemed to be a free spirited adventurer with his own dark sides to battle.
However, I was unable to finish the book, which is a rarity for me. I usually find that I can learn something from even the dullest of books, and Mark certainly isn’t a dull person. I did try - he had some wonderful insights sprinkled throughout, but I just couldn’t get through.
It starts out funny and a little sad, a series of random anecdotes about his life. He touches on being in a hippie commune in Canada; his various institutionalizations; becoming a doctor; the horrible parts of the medical industry; a little bit about his family and much more. However, he lightly touches on each subject, often coming back to the same few subjects randomly - there seems to be little organization to the book. A more casual style is expected in the memoir genre - but this was simply too disjointed to enjoy.
I found myself in a cycle of avoiding the book, eventually picking it up and reading a few pages and within a few minutes I was off doing something else again. This book really just couldn’t engage me.
I think Mark is the type of man I’d love to sit down over coffee with and just let him talk. He seems to have a lot he wants to say and I think his experiences would be worth listening to, but this is simply not the proper channel for his ideas, in my opinion.
However, I was unable to finish the book, which is a rarity for me. I usually find that I can learn something from even the dullest of books, and Mark certainly isn’t a dull person. I did try - he had some wonderful insights sprinkled throughout, but I just couldn’t get through.
It starts out funny and a little sad, a series of random anecdotes about his life. He touches on being in a hippie commune in Canada; his various institutionalizations; becoming a doctor; the horrible parts of the medical industry; a little bit about his family and much more. However, he lightly touches on each subject, often coming back to the same few subjects randomly - there seems to be little organization to the book. A more casual style is expected in the memoir genre - but this was simply too disjointed to enjoy.
I found myself in a cycle of avoiding the book, eventually picking it up and reading a few pages and within a few minutes I was off doing something else again. This book really just couldn’t engage me.
I think Mark is the type of man I’d love to sit down over coffee with and just let him talk. He seems to have a lot he wants to say and I think his experiences would be worth listening to, but this is simply not the proper channel for his ideas, in my opinion.