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Behaving Decently: Kurt Vonnegut's Humanism
Kurt Vonnegut and humanism go hand in hand. In BEHAVING 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 "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.
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 "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.
- GenresNonfiction
272 pages, Paperback
Published June 21, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 30, 2022
Great book! Quick read, if you are a Vonnegut fan, (and who isn’t?), you will devour it. I did not learn much new about KV, as his life and works have been a part of my entire adult life.
What is “Humanism”? This is, for some people, not easy to define, or grasp. Read Vonnegut, read this book, and you will have had it pretty comprehensively defined: Behave Decently.
What is “Humanism”? This is, for some people, not easy to define, or grasp. Read Vonnegut, read this book, and you will have had it pretty comprehensively defined: Behave Decently.
August 4, 2022
This survey of Vonnegut’s life, work, and beliefs through the lens of Humanism was immensely gratifying and informative. I have read some Vonnegut over the years and had a vague understanding of Humanism going into this book, but I came out the other side inspired to deepen my understanding of each and continue the journey that started with this book.
Thank you, Wayne Laufert, for putting this into the world.
Thank you, Wayne Laufert, for putting this into the world.
November 24, 2022
“Behaving Decently” is an excellent (and comprehensive!) synthesis of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s fiction and non-fiction writings through the lens of secular humanism. It turns out that this philosophy is much of what drew me to Vonnegut’s writing in the first place and has kept me coming back for decades. As Kurt’s son Mark said, “We are here to help each other through this thing, whatever it is.”
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews