Kurt Vonnegut's A Man Without a Country (2005), edited by Daniel Simon, is a fun little book, 146 pages of art work, observations, quips and musings. Like Jim Jones, Vonnegut (b. 11/11/1922) hails from Indiana, but his form of suicide comes in cigarettes, "a classy way to commit" it.
Vonnegut's view of human progress is not rosy, but it is compassionate.
The book reflects his eclectic approach to art and life. Including this one, he's created a number of memorable works, but two of my favorites are his novels Mother Night (1961) and Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade (1969). The latter inspired me to walk around the ground zero area of the World War Two Dresden aerial bombings. One can still see piles of rubble and debris in the downtown area of the German city, which also housed American POWS (Vonnegut was one of seven who made it out alive).
It's nice to see a writer still working well into his eighties. Something to aim for, especially if the planet hasn't been reduced to ashes by then. Last I heard, he lives primarily in New York City.
Today's Rune: Initiation.
Auf Wiedershehen!
3 comments:
I love Mother Night. It's a brilliant treatise.
Sounds great!
I met Mr. Vonnegut when a friend of mine picked him up at the airport. Mr. V. gave an informal talk at Oakland University about writing fiction. Very funny man. I couldn't tell if he had been drinking prior to his arrival, but it sure seemed like it.
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