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The Vonnegut Statement
With the great popular and critical success of Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat's Cradle, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and his earlier novels, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. has emerged as a major American writer. He has also written plays, films, stories, essays, and personal journalism for McCall's, Colliers, The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, and other popular magazines, all of which are studied here for their contribution to Vonnegut's world.
The Vonnegut Statement confronts the difficult task of explaining a living and productive writer: how his works came into being, why thy became popular, and what may be the clues to their artistic success. Fourteen authorities on different aspects of the writer's career have pooled their efforts to produce a complete and coherent picture of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. as a public figure and as a literary figure, concluding with an assessment of his work. Vonnegut's popular acceptance as a paperback writer, as a nationally prominent personality, and as a hero of college youth is studied with his own development through college and popular magazine writing to his current status as one of the significant novelists of our time.
Jerome Klinkowitz has researched the facts of Vonnegut's publication and popularity. Dan Wakefield has written a personal essay from the view of a fellow writer and friend. The critic Robert Scholes deal with Vonnegut's early writing as an undergraduate, and also conducts an interview with the author. John Somer, with several other contributors, sums up the achievement of Vonnegut's literary art. The Vonnegut Statement begins with a consideration of Kurt Vonnegut himself, the artistic canary in a cathouse; and it concludes with a study of his cry, on the last page of his most recent novel - "Poo-tee-weet?"
The Vonnegut Statement confronts the difficult task of explaining a living and productive writer: how his works came into being, why thy became popular, and what may be the clues to their artistic success. Fourteen authorities on different aspects of the writer's career have pooled their efforts to produce a complete and coherent picture of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. as a public figure and as a literary figure, concluding with an assessment of his work. Vonnegut's popular acceptance as a paperback writer, as a nationally prominent personality, and as a hero of college youth is studied with his own development through college and popular magazine writing to his current status as one of the significant novelists of our time.
Jerome Klinkowitz has researched the facts of Vonnegut's publication and popularity. Dan Wakefield has written a personal essay from the view of a fellow writer and friend. The critic Robert Scholes deal with Vonnegut's early writing as an undergraduate, and also conducts an interview with the author. John Somer, with several other contributors, sums up the achievement of Vonnegut's literary art. The Vonnegut Statement begins with a consideration of Kurt Vonnegut himself, the artistic canary in a cathouse; and it concludes with a study of his cry, on the last page of his most recent novel - "Poo-tee-weet?"
- GenresNonfictionBiography
286 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1973
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 10, 2022
This book collects a number of essays, mostly by academicians, about the work of Kurt Vonnegut up to his 'Breakfast of Champions', itself barely mentioned. While the essays vary, some of them reminded me of how close some literary criticism is to what's taught in philosophy classes.
Several of the authors were acquainted with the novelist. All appreciate him and are at pains to argue for his rightful place in the canon.
Several of the authors were acquainted with the novelist. All appreciate him and are at pains to argue for his rightful place in the canon.
April 16, 2019
Hilariously dated, and so condescending.
March 29, 2019
Oof. This was grueling to chew through. Remind me not to read books written about other books.
These essays are overly analytical and full of self-inflated importance. Most of the claims the various authors make are delusional products of their need to hear their own voices. This pseudo-intellectual style of "deep" over analysis and conjecture is simply applied to Vonnegut in a grasp at notoriety. Many of the points in this collection have been debunked by Vonnegut himself, and given the amount of work published by Vonnegut since these essays (published in 1973) the entire work is hideously dated and null.
Nothing in this book needed to be printed in the first place.
These essays are overly analytical and full of self-inflated importance. Most of the claims the various authors make are delusional products of their need to hear their own voices. This pseudo-intellectual style of "deep" over analysis and conjecture is simply applied to Vonnegut in a grasp at notoriety. Many of the points in this collection have been debunked by Vonnegut himself, and given the amount of work published by Vonnegut since these essays (published in 1973) the entire work is hideously dated and null.
Nothing in this book needed to be printed in the first place.
March 17, 2013
http://andalittlewine.blogspot.com/2012/03/book-11-of-52-vonnegut-statement.html
Old books make fantastic windows. The Vonnegut Statement, published in 1973, collects some of the first essays written about Kurt Vonnegut's works after the publication of Slaughterhouse Five. They seem to alternate between accessible and esoteric, but I found myself nodding along with the broad strokes of the criticism.
I often struggle to put a finger on what draws me to the authors whose body of work speaks to me. I have plenty of books I like by a range of authors, but the authors I like is a very exclusive list: Vonnegut is one, Hemingway and Steinbeck are two others, Philip Roth and Philip Larkin probably round out the top 5.
Over and over, the critics in The Vonnegut Statement return to the idea that as life has become more absurd, art is forced to take new forms. Part of the reason that Vonnegut's characters and scenes often feel like stick figure drawings when compared to the lush realism of Steinbeck or the terse depths of Hemingway is because the world makes so much less sense than it did twenty years before. Vonnegut survived the firebombing of Dresden, and while both Steinbeck and Hemingway came home with war stories and wrote stories about the war and people affected by war, only Vonnegut's characters were fully broken by war because war broke Vonnegut's ideals in a way it didn't affect the other authors.
Somewhere in the back of my head, I've known that.
Is this a book I'd recommend? Meh. You'd have to do a lot of reading, love Vonnegut and enjoy lit crit to make the journey worth it. But it was worth it for me.
Old books make fantastic windows. The Vonnegut Statement, published in 1973, collects some of the first essays written about Kurt Vonnegut's works after the publication of Slaughterhouse Five. They seem to alternate between accessible and esoteric, but I found myself nodding along with the broad strokes of the criticism.
I often struggle to put a finger on what draws me to the authors whose body of work speaks to me. I have plenty of books I like by a range of authors, but the authors I like is a very exclusive list: Vonnegut is one, Hemingway and Steinbeck are two others, Philip Roth and Philip Larkin probably round out the top 5.
Over and over, the critics in The Vonnegut Statement return to the idea that as life has become more absurd, art is forced to take new forms. Part of the reason that Vonnegut's characters and scenes often feel like stick figure drawings when compared to the lush realism of Steinbeck or the terse depths of Hemingway is because the world makes so much less sense than it did twenty years before. Vonnegut survived the firebombing of Dresden, and while both Steinbeck and Hemingway came home with war stories and wrote stories about the war and people affected by war, only Vonnegut's characters were fully broken by war because war broke Vonnegut's ideals in a way it didn't affect the other authors.
Somewhere in the back of my head, I've known that.
Is this a book I'd recommend? Meh. You'd have to do a lot of reading, love Vonnegut and enjoy lit crit to make the journey worth it. But it was worth it for me.
October 6, 2018
Very dated and very mixed. Some quite nice analyses, though often very naive, of Vonnegut's early novels and their resonance with contemporary issues at the time. It is starry eyed a lot of the time though, veering toward hagiography. 2.5
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January 16, 2014An assemblage of over analysis mottled with repeated passages. Just read chapter nine if you're not devoted.
June 29, 2019
I was happy to find an original copy of this in very good condition from 1973 in a used book store since my original copy got borrowed and never returned. Some useful advice there to the uninitiated. Don't lend out the books you really value. You may never see them again.
September 29, 2024
This is a fascinating book of 15 analytical and original essays written early in Kurt Vonnegut’s career by some of the students and college professors who discovered the most memorable American 20th Century author.
I found interesting insights, facts and anecdotes in almost every essay. Only the very last piece in the collection bored me.
The book was published in 1973, after Vonnegut had published his major novels that catapulted him into global fame. Quite a few of the writers showcased herein show up repeatedly over Vonnegut’s life before he died in 2007 in New York. They either continued their Vonnegut scholarship or remained his friend, who always seemed to show up somehow in the worlds he wrote about.
After Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut’s writing became more personal, although he continued to focus on such key philosophies as developing or finding extended families (a karass), being kind to each other, and laughing often.
As his favorite Uncle Alex said: “If this isn’t nice, what is?”
I found interesting insights, facts and anecdotes in almost every essay. Only the very last piece in the collection bored me.
The book was published in 1973, after Vonnegut had published his major novels that catapulted him into global fame. Quite a few of the writers showcased herein show up repeatedly over Vonnegut’s life before he died in 2007 in New York. They either continued their Vonnegut scholarship or remained his friend, who always seemed to show up somehow in the worlds he wrote about.
After Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut’s writing became more personal, although he continued to focus on such key philosophies as developing or finding extended families (a karass), being kind to each other, and laughing often.
As his favorite Uncle Alex said: “If this isn’t nice, what is?”
August 26, 2010
Really enjoying this book. Vonnegut is definitely one of my all-time favorite authors, and most of these essays are superb.
I found a lot of interesting links between the theory in this book and theory I studied in my DIGITAL ART HISTORY course last semester.
I found a lot of interesting links between the theory in this book and theory I studied in my DIGITAL ART HISTORY course last semester.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews