Download or read book Kurt Vonnegut and the Centrifugal Force of Fate written by Gary McMahon and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2009 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He was a Merlin among Men of Letters. Open any Kurt Vonnegut book and the words come to life in rapport with the reader like broomsticks enthralled by a book of spells. How did he do it? Through early drafts of projects like Breakfast of Champions, Slaughterhouse 5 and Harrison Bergeron, sensationally different from the published stories, Gary McMahon peers over the shoulder of a man without a country and an American institution. We get to see the original manuscripts and spend time with the complete works, from Player Piano to Armageddon in Retrospect, including a rare comparison of Vonnegut's journalism with peers like Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe.
Download or read book Twentieth Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context 4 volumes written by Linda De Roche and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-06-04 with total page 1563 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This four-volume reference work surveys American literature from the early 20th century to the present day, featuring a diverse range of American works and authors and an expansive selection of primary source materials. Bringing useful and engaging material into the classroom, this four-volume set covers more than a century of American literary history—from 1900 to the present. Twentieth-Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context profiles authors and their works and provides overviews of literary movements and genres through which readers will understand the historical, cultural, and political contexts that have shaped American writing. Twentieth-Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context provides wide coverage of authors, works, genres, and movements that are emblematic of the diversity of modern America. Not only are major literary movements represented, such as the Beats, but this work also highlights the emergence and development of modern Native American literature, African American literature, and other representative groups that showcase the diversity of American letters. A rich selection of primary documents and background material provides indispensable information for student research.
Download or read book Behaving Decently written by Wayne Laufert and published by Humanist Press. This book was released on 2022-06-21 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kurt Vonnegut and humanism go hand in hand. In Behaving Decently: Kurt Vonnegut’s Humanism, Wayne Laufert examines how Vonnegut revealed his moral philosophy through the themes and characters in his work and through his public comments. Topic by topic, Vonnegut’s written and spoken views are explored, from his first novel, Player Piano (1952), through his antiwar masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), to the collections of his fiction and nonfiction that appear up till today, long after his death in 2007. His speeches, essays, interviews, and journalism, which support and expand upon the sentiments in his novels, receive proper consideration in this conversational overview of Vonnegut’s life and career. Religion, war, politics, science, art—these subjects and more are seen through Vonnegut’s perspective and are placed within a larger humanistic outlook. His most famous creation, the old science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, gets his own chapter too. Vonnegut called himself a “Christ-worshiping agnostic,” a term that Behaving Decently analyzes in the context of his upbringing as a freethinker, his wartime experience, his time in the corporate world, and other factors that formed his values. Those values are perhaps best expressed by his character Eliot Rosewater, the damaged, super-rich philanthropist: “God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” Vonnegut’s real and imagined selves were incorporated into Kurt Vonnegut the author, the public speaker, the interview subject, and even the character that appears in some of his books. After all, he wrote, “I myself am a work of fiction.” That funny, wise, sometimes depressed persona was humanistic. Behaving Decently shows the reader how Kurt Vonnegut reminded us to take small steps along hopeful paths to kindness and community and dignity and art—and farting around.
Download or read book Pop Goes the Decade written by Martin Kich and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzing complex social and political issues through their manifestations in popular culture, this book provides readers a strong foundational knowledge of the 1960s as a decade. 1969 went out in a way that could never have been imagined in 1960. While the president at the end of the decade had been vice president at the start, the intervening years permanently changed American culture. Pop Goes the Decade: The Sixties explores the cultural and social framework of the 1960s, addressing film, television, sports, technology, media/advertising, fashion, art, and more. Entries are presented in encyclopedic fashion, organized into such categories as controversies in pop culture, game changers, technology, and the decade's legacy. A timeline highlights significant cultural moments, while an introduction and a conclusion place those moments within the contexts of preceding and subsequent decades. Attention to the decade's most prominent influencers allows readers to understand the movements with which these figures are associated, and discussion of controversies and social change enables readers to gain a stronger understanding of evolving American social values.
Download or read book Lucky Mud Other Foma written by Christina Jarvis and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2022-11-22 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating deep dive into Kurt Vonnegut’s oeuvre and legacy, illuminating his unique perspective on environmental stewardship and our shared connections as humans, Earthlings, and stardust. Vonnegut’s major apocalyptic trio—Cat’s Cradle, Slapstick, and Galápagos—prompt broad global, national, and species-level thinking about environmental issues through dramatic and fantastic scenarios. This book, Lucky Mud and Other Foma, tells the story of the origins and legacy of what Kurt Vonnegut understood as “planetary citizenship” and explores key roots, influences, literary techniques, and artistic expressions of his interest in environmental activism through his writing. Vonnegut saw writing itself as an act of good citizenship, as a way of “poisoning” the minds of young people “with humanity . . . to encourage them to make a better world.” Often that literary activism meant addressing real social and environmental problems—polluted water, soil, and air; racial and economic injustice; isolating and dehumanizing technologies; and lives and landscapes desolated by war. Vonnegut’s remedies took many forms, from the redemptive power of the arts to artificial extended families to vital communities and engaged democracies. Reminding us of our shared connections as humans, as Earthlings, as stardust, Lucky Mud helps fans, scholars, and book lovers of all kinds experience how Vonnegut’s writings purposely challenge readers to think, create, and love.
Download or read book Kurt Vonnegut s America written by Jerome Klinkowitz and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A definitive look at the symbiotic relationship between Vonnegut's writing and American culture. Kurt Vonnegut's death in 2007 marked the passing of a major force in American life and letters. Jerome Klinkowitz, one of the earliest and most prolific authorities on Vonnegut, examines the long dialogue between the author and American culture—a conversation that produced fourteen novels and hundreds of short stories and essays. Kurt Vonnegut's America integrates discussion of the fiction, essays, and lectures with personal exchanges and biographical sketches to map the complex symbiotic relationship between Vonnegut's work and the cultural context from which it emerged—and which it in turn helped shape. Following an introduction characterizing Vonnegut as Klinkowitz came to know him over the course of their friendship, this study charts the impact of Vonnegut on American society and of that society on Vonnegut for more than a half-century to illustrate how each informed the other. Among his artistic peers, Vonnegut was uniquely gifted at anticipating and articulating the changing course of American culture. Kurt Vonnegut's America shows us that Vonnegut achieved greatness by passing his own test—opening the eyes of his audience to help them better understand their roles and possibilities in the common culture they both shared and crafted.
Download or read book Fates Worse Than Death written by Kurt Vonnegut and published by Berkley. This book was released on 1992-09 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this revealing collection of essays, Vonnegut examines the issues and events (both personal and social) that shaped the last decade. Ranging from an intimate portrait of his family to a biting commentary of ex-son-in-law Geraldo Rivera to the 1945 firebombing of Dresden, Germany, where he was a POW, this book "offers a rare insight into an author who has customarily hidden his heart" (New York Times).
Download or read book 2 B R 0 2 B Unabridged written by Kurt Vonnegut and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2024-06-26 with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagine a world without sickness, poverty, or even death. Sounds perfect, right? Welcome to the future of Kurt Vonnegut's "2 B R 0 2 B." In this darkly satirical audiobook, humanity has conquered aging, but paradise comes at a cost. Overcrowding forces a chilling new law: "Life for Life." When it's your turn to make way for the next generation, a knock on the door could be your invitation to a horrifying end. Will you choose to comply or defy a system that seems designed to keep you utterly alive, but never truly living? Strap in for a twisted journey through a future both utopian and terrifying in "2 B R 0 2 B" by Kurt Vonnegut.
Download or read book Summary and Analysis of Slaughterhouse Five written by Worth Books and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of Slaughterhouse-Five tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Kurt Vonnegut’s book. Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader. This short summary and analysis of Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut includes: Historical context Chapter-by-chapter summaries Analysis of the main characters Themes and symbols Important quotes Fascinating trivia Glossary of terms Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work About Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut: Kurt Vonnegut’s New York Times–bestselling novel is one of the twentieth century’s great anti-war novels. It tells the story of Billy Pilgrim, an American soldier in World War II, who survives the firebombing of Dresden. More than a satire of the effects of war, Slaughterhouse-Five is journey through space and time, challenging our perceptions of humanity, free will, and the universe itself. The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of fiction.
Download or read book The Vonnegut Effect written by Jerome Klinkowitz and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A defining analysis of the entire span of Kurt Vonnegut's fiction Kurt Vonnegut is one of the few American writers since Mark Twain to have won and sustained a great popular acceptance while boldly introducing new themes and forms on the literary cutting edge. This is the "Vonnegut effect" that Jerome Klinkowitz finds unique among postmodernist authors. In this innovative study of the author's fiction, Klinkowitz examines the forces in American life that have made Vonnegut's works possible. Vonnegut shared with readers a world that includes the expansive timeline from the Great Depression, during which his family lost their economic support, through the countercultural revolt of the 1960s, during which his fiction first gained prominence. Vonnegut also explored the growth in recent decades of America's sway in art, which his fiction celebrates, and geopolitics, which his novels question. A pioneer in Vonnegut studies, Jerome Klinkowitz offers The Vonnegut Effect as a thorough treatment of the author's fiction—a canon covering more than a half century and comprising twenty books. Considering both Vonnegut's methods and the cultural needs they have served, Klinkowitz explains how those works came to be written and concludes with an assessment of the author's place in American fiction.
Download or read book Kurt Vonnegut s Slaughterhouse five written by Harold Bloom and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the characters, plot and writing of Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut. Includes critical essays on the novel and a brief biography of the author.
Download or read book Unstuck in Time written by Gregory D. Sumner and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2011-11-08 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Unstuck in Time, Gregory Sumner guides us, with insight and passion, through a biography of fifteen of Kurt Vonnegut’s best known works, his fourteen novels starting with Player Piano (1952) all the way to an epilogue on his last book, A Man Without a Country (2005), to illustrate the quintessential American writer’s profound engagement with the "American Dream" in its various forms. Sumner gives us a poignant portrait of Vonnegut and his resistance to celebrating the traditional values associated with the American Dream: grandiose ambition, unbridled material success, rugged individualism, and "winners" over "losers." Instead of a celebration of these values, we read and share Vonnegut’s outrage, his brokenhearted empathy for those who struggle under the ethos of survival-of-the-fittest in the frontier mentality—something he once memorably described as "an impossibly tough-minded experiment in loneliness." Heroic and tragic, Vonnegut’s novels reflect the pain of his own life’s experiences, relieved by small acts of kindness, friendship, and love that exemplify another way of living, another sort of human utopia, an alternative American Dream, and the reason we always return to his books.
Download or read book Kurt Vonnegut written by John Tomedi and published by Infobase Learning. This book was released on 2013 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the twentieth century's most preeminent novelists, Vonnegut satirically explored the wrongs of humanity, most notably in;Slaughterhouse-Five;and;Cat's Cradle.
Download or read book Kurt Vonnegut Jr written by Peter J. Reed and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book At Millennium s End written by Kevin Alexander Boon and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2001-03-29 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collected essays by noted scholars covering the breadth and influence of Kurt Vonnegut's literature.
Download or read book Kurt Vonnegut written by Kurt Vonnegut and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 2012-10-30 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Newsweek/The Daily Beast • The Huffington Post • Kansas City Star • Time Out New York • Kirkus Reviews This extraordinary collection of personal correspondence has all the hallmarks of Kurt Vonnegut’s fiction. Written over a sixty-year period, these letters, the vast majority of them never before published, are funny, moving, and full of the same uncanny wisdom that has endeared his work to readers worldwide. Included in this comprehensive volume: the letter a twenty-two-year-old Vonnegut wrote home immediately upon being freed from a German POW camp, recounting the ghastly firebombing of Dresden that would be the subject of his masterpiece Slaughterhouse-Five; wry dispatches from Vonnegut’s years as a struggling writer slowly finding an audience and then dealing with sudden international fame in middle age; righteously angry letters of protest to local school boards that tried to ban his work; intimate remembrances penned to high school classmates, fellow veterans, friends, and family; and letters of commiseration and encouragement to such contemporaries as Gail Godwin, Günter Grass, and Bernard Malamud. Vonnegut’s unmediated observations on science, art, and commerce prove to be just as inventive as any found in his novels—from a crackpot scheme for manufacturing “atomic” bow ties to a tongue-in-cheek proposal that publishers be allowed to trade authors like baseball players. (“Knopf, for example, might give John Updike’s contract to Simon and Schuster, and receive Joan Didion’s contract in return.”) Taken together, these letters add considerable depth to our understanding of this one-of-a-kind literary icon, in both his public and private lives. Each letter brims with the mordant humor and openhearted humanism upon which he built his legend. And virtually every page contains a quotable nugget that will make its way into the permanent Vonnegut lexicon. • On a job he had as a young man: “Hell is running an elevator throughout eternity in a building with only six floors.” • To a relative who calls him a “great literary figure”: “I am an American fad—of a slightly higher order than the hula hoop.” • To his daughter Nanny: “Most letters from a parent contain a parent’s own lost dreams disguised as good advice.” • To Norman Mailer: “I am cuter than you are.” Sometimes biting and ironical, sometimes achingly sweet, and always alive with the unique point of view that made him the true cultural heir to Mark Twain, these letters comprise the autobiography Kurt Vonnegut never wrote. Praise for Kurt Vonnegut: Letters “Splendidly assembled . . . familiar, funny, cranky . . . chronicling [Vonnegut’s] life in real time.”—Kurt Andersen, The New York Times Book Review “[This collection is] by turns hilarious, heartbreaking and mundane. . . . Vonnegut himself is a near-perfect example of the same flawed, wonderful humanity that he loved and despaired over his entire life.”—NPR “Congenial, whimsical and often insightful missives . . . one of [Vonnegut’s] very best.”—Newsday “These letters display all the hallmarks of Vonnegut’s fiction—smart, hilarious and heartbreaking.”—The New York Times Book Review
Download or read book Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut written by Kurt Vonnegut and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 1988 with total page 10 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gathers interviews with Vonnegut from each period of his career and offers a brief profile of his life and accomplishments.
