Novels & Stories 1963–1973: Cat’s Cradle / God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater / Slaughterhouse-Five / Breakfast of Champions / Stories

by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Sidney Offit (Editor)

Like his idol Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut was a sly and skeptical Midwestern everyman outraged by the depravity of the damned human race. A consummate entertainer—few storytellers are as dependably funny—he was also a clear-eyed critic of American life. Among the targets of his ridicule were the exploiters, the despoilers, and the soulless parasitic moneymakers, but he reserved his hottest anger for that tribe of scientists and merchants of war who conjure up genies of mass destruction without a thought to what happens once they’re out of their bottles. Yet his works are remarkably free of villains, being rich instead in dangerous, not-quite-unlovable sinners who may yet be redeemed.

This volume, the first in a multi-volume edition of his enduring fiction, captures Vonnegut at the pyrotechnic height of his powers. It opens with Cat’s Cradle (1963), perhaps his most exhilarating performance, in which a would-be historian of the bombing of Hiroshima finds himself a privileged witness to the icy end of the world.

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965) chronicles the alcoholic unraveling and spiritual rebirth of a good-hearted dreamer tormented by the question “What are people for?”

Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)—the book that earned Vonnegut worldwide fame, and one of the great antiwar novels in literature—is the jump-cutting saga of Billy Pilgrim, who, having come unstuck in time, is doomed to relive continually both the destruction of Dresden and his abduction by space aliens.

In a text enhanced by the author’s spirited line drawings, Breakfast of Champions (1973) describes the fateful meeting of a luckless science-fiction writer and an unhinged Pontiac dealer who disastrously believes that everyone but himself is a robot.

Rounding out the volume are three brilliant short stories—including the classic fantasy “Welcome to the Monkey House”—and moving autobiographical accounts of Vonnegut’s experience of war that shed light on events imaginatively treated in Slaughterhouse-Five.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Classics, Short Stories, Literature, Novels, Speculative Fiction

851 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Kurt Vonnegut, Junior was an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. He was recognized as New York State Author for 2001-2003.

He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journalist before joining the U.S. Army and serving in World War II.

After the war, he attended University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York in public relations for General Electric. He attributed his unadorned writing style to his reporting work.

His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge, and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. This event would also form the core of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five, the book which would make him a millionaire. This acerbic 200-page book is what most people mean when they describe a work as "Vonnegutian" in scope.

Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973)

Reviews

[Max Nemtsov · Rating 5 out of 5]

четыре лучших романа сразу, небывалая концентрация классики под одной обложкой.

* * *

"Кошачья колыбелька" - гениальный текст, которого я совершенно не помню, потому что читал когда-то давно уродский урезанный перевод. но даже в таком виде он подарил нам как минимум понятия искусственного и естественного прайдов. но роман в переводе был совершенно о чем-то другом, и в нем не было той непростительной насмешливой лёгкости, что в оригинале. ну поскольку "Улитка на склоне" писалась через два года после выхода КК, можно уверенно спекулировать, что вся эта линия "Перец попятился и повалил Венеру на Таннгейзера" попячена АБС из КК (братья ж неглупым людьми были, наверняка читали новинки). поэма Вознесенского "Лёд 69" (1970) и вовсе прямое заимствование идеи. (а сам его замысел заимствован Воннегутом у того химика, который развлекал Уэллза, как известно).

* * *

"Благослови вас боже, мистер Розоводер" - по сути тот же самый роман, который Воннегут писал всю жизнь (ну, за исключением "Пианолы", разве что). этот роман стоит сейчас читать тем, кто удивляется, с какого это перепугу в Америке сейчас воцарилось оранжевое чучело. а вот с такого. там там было примерно всегда. это, пожалуй, самый "антикапиталистический" роман Воннегута, насколько мне помнится. кроме этого, он в теории был бы способен научить нынешние "белые польта с кровавым подбоем" правильному различению в том, что касается "расчеловечивания", да только эти субъекты необучаемы в принципе, так что все зря. вот и говори о роли литературы после этого.

сопоставлять с "переводом" РРК я старался не, но в одном месте не выдержал:

...There is a message written with a ballpoint pen on the little gray shelf.”
“And what does it say?”
“Sheila Taylor is a cock-teaser”. I'm sure it’s true.”
There was an arrogant blat from Eliot’s end.

...На этой же серенькой полочке еще написано одно сообщение – вечным пером.
– О чем это?
– «Шейла Тэйлор – зануда – подразнит – и не даст!» Похоже на правду!
В трубке послышался нахальный гудок.

ну и тут из одного эпизода про теннис в дурдоме (и из одной фразы Бекетта, конечно, которая и тут лежит в основе), как мы знаем, унылый графоман ДФУ умудрился раздуть половино своего непристойно огромного ёвря

* * *

"Бойня-Пять" роман гениальный, но, насколько я помню, вполне испорченный в переводе этим бабьим заунывным причитанием. т.е. Воннегут, конечно, слезливо-пафосен порой, но все ж не настолько. отдельные места в нем пересказаны своими словами, потому что РРК плевать хотела на детали. получилось дурно и неестественно, скучная и не изобретательная словесная жвачка. начиная с тупой присказки "такие дела", которая искажает весь сарказм автора. но до сих пор это один из лучших текстов человечества об истинном гуманизме, а не об завываниях БПсКП. немного есть текстов в мировой литературе, где война вообще выставлена такой нечеловеческой нелепицей и таким абсурдом.

* * *

"Завтрак чемпионов". и опять ничего не помню, хотя, конечно, читал когда-то совецкой издание, потому что книжка безнадежно загублена чудовищным старушечьим переводом, начиная c дебильного предлога "для" в названии, искажающего смысл, и слова "задик" на первых же страницах, не говоря уже об этих кошмарно фальшивых "норках нараспашку". ну и люди там *спариваются*, блядь, а гомосексуалисты называются "однополыми". короче, в русскую версию этого романа "моего друга" ((с) РРК) лучше тоже не заглядывать. ну вот к примеру:

Listen: Bunny Hoover went to Prairie Military Academy for eight years of uninterrupted sports, buggery and Fascism. Buggery consisted of sticking one’s penis in somebody else’s asshole or mouth, or having it done to one by somebody else.
Fascism was a fairly popular political philosophy which made sacred whatever nation and race the philosopher happened to belong to. It called for an autocratic, centralized government, headed up by a dictator. The dictator had to be obeyed, no matter what he told somebody to do.

Слушайте: Кролик Гувер восемь лет учился в военной школе спорту, разврату и фашизму. Развратом занимались мальчишки друг с другом. Фашизм был довольно популярной политической философией, которая объявляла священной только ту расу и ту нацию, к которой принадлежал данный философ. Фашисты проповедовали автократическое централизованное управление страной, где во главе правительства должен стоять диктатор. И все должны были безоговорочно слушаться такого диктатора, чего бы он там ни велел делать.

или вот:

He missed that papery voice. He missed the clash of steel doors. He missed the bread and the stew and the pitchers of milk and coffee. He missed fucking other men in the mouth and the asshole, and being fucked in the mouth and the ass- hole, and jerking off—and fucking cows in the prison dairy, all events in a normal sex life on the planet, as far as he knew.

Вейн скучал без этого шуршащего голоса. Он скучал без грохота стальных дверей. Он скучал без хлеба и супа, без полных кружек кофе с молоком. Он скучал и без всяких извращений, без всего того, что с ним вытворяли его сокамерники и что он вытворял с ними и даже с коровами на скотном дворе, — для него это все и было нормальной жизнью на нашей планете.

но роман, похоже, самый анти-американски-ценностный у автора, помимо того, что самый покамест сложно организованный. яд из него так и хлещет. сарказм автора запросто убирает праведное негодование нынешних пробуднутых, хотя пишут они примерно об одном и том же - о системе общественных ценностей. с одной лишь разницей: Воннегут делал это гораздо лучше и гораздо раньше. и уж, конечно, намного талантливее этих ваших нынешних "властителей дум".

вольная экранизация Алана Рудольфа с Брюсом Уиллисом, кстати, довольно дрянная, хотя как кино само по себе смотрелось нормально. но к роману имеет мало отношения, ибо сплющено асфальтовым катком.

* * *

рассказы у него, конечно, милые, но всем фантастическим премисам недостает изящества, они слишком уж конволютные и грубые. это же, понятно, касается, и сюжетов Килгора Фореля. хотя. как зерна фантазии для фильмов они хороши, конечно, да и прогностическая ценность их велика. фактически мы сейчас живём в мире, над которым Воннегут посмеивался более полувека назад (взять тот же рассказ "Большая космическая ебля", например, в котором дети привлекают к суду родителей за то, что те их отшлепали в 4 года). вообще такое ощущение, что мир начитался Воннегута и сказал: а это идея. (в России, конечно, это ещё и Сорокин). чего-то изящнее мир просто не заслужил.

[Roxanna López · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book that is difficult to evaluate because of the disparity between the quality of the writing and the content. I wanted to like it more just because the stories are so brilliantly written, but the effect they had on me was depressing. I wished that in his writing, he would have shown women, people of color, and people with disabilities the same compassion he showed for the people of Dresden but that is not the case.

I thought Cat’s Craddle was brilliantly written and thought-provoking, 4 stars; I really liked God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, 4 stars; I absolutely despised Breakfast of Champions: although the writing is still brilliant, in this one he really indulged in racist, chavinistic, and profoundly unkind rethoric against people with disabilities without any balancing redemption, 1 star; Slaughter-House Five, rather on the fence, 3 stars. I think it was a bad idea to read an 800+ pages compilation of his work in one sitting; his pace is relentless and there is just enough of the prejudices of his time reflected on his writing to make it exhausting for me. The short stories included at the end of the book were nothing special; not as well written as the other work and still more despicable, 2 stars.

[Fred Adkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read everything by Kurt Vonnegut. Excited about the re-issue of novels and stories. I hope Vonnegut is never lost to this and future generations. He captured the spirit of the times with his strange mix of times, planets and characters. He caught the horror of war in Slaughterhouse 5. For years nobody could pigeonhole him.. he transcended that fate and became a voice of his time.

[H. P. Reed · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've finished that exceedingly bleak book Cat's Cradle and have a belly full of worms because of it. I have the option to go on through this compilation - everything from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater to Slaughterhouse 5 and beyond. But I'm done. Kurt Vonnegut may or may not be a great writer. I have no idea. I feel like a cat that has been offered the business end of a catnip toy more than once only to have it snatched away again and again. Only it isn't catnip I'm being denied but something to understand in the writing. What little I do understand in the story is appalling. We have a narrator, a writer, that takes us though his research into the life of a pure scientist, one who answers to nothing but his own whimsical interests. This scientist is scarcely human, has no need for other human beings (other than to take care of his physical needs) and who is infinitely self-absorbed. He creates a substance for his own amusement that eventually freezes everything it touches, thus murdering the entire planet. There re no heroes in Cat's Cradle, no one even marginally admirable. I suppose that's the point. As Vonnegut says, life would be wonderful if only people were decent and not an unmitigated evil.
Maybe in the 60s and 70s we needed reminding of how awful we can be. Now we know all too well. The news about modern humanity is increasingly depressing. Vonnegut offers no hope - or if he does, I can't see it.

[Joey Hines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cat's Cradle: 5/5
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: 4/5
Slaughterhouse-Five: 5/5
Breakfast of Champions: 5/5
Welcome to the Monkey House: 5/5
Fortitude: 4/5
The Big Space Fuck: 5/5
Letters and essays: 5/5

I mean, in my opinion, this collection contains some of the best stories you can ever read. And the Library of America presentation (given to me for Valentine's Day!) is beautiful and stuffed with bonus features.

I like this bit from "A 'Special Message' to readers of the Franklin Library's limited edition of 'Slaughterhouse-Five'":

"Atrocities celebrate meaninglessness, surely.

The Dresden atrocity, tremendously expensive and meticulously planned, was so meaningless, finally, that only one person on the entire planet got any benefit from it. I am that person. I wrote this book, which earned a lot of money for me and made my reputation, such as it is.

One way or another, I got two or three dollars for every person killed. Some business I'm in."

[Spencer Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me almost a year to get through this collection. Although I've read all these books before, it has been probably ten years since my last reading and it was absolutely worth rereading. Vonnegut is right there at the top of the list of my favorite authors. His blend of humor and despair and absurdity and hope is perfection.

[Jerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I predict that these novels will not age well.

My own history with Vonnegut's writing is long. Slaughterhouse 5 is one of the first novels that I read during my adult life that was not assigned reading. That was almost thirty years ago, and I loved it. It left a deep impression on me, and over the course of the next couple years consumed most of the books Vonnegut wrote up through the 1980s. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater was one of my favorites.

The availability of the works that I loved so much in my youth now in Library of America's anthology seemed a good prompt to revisit those. If anything, it has shown me how far my own aesthetic sensibilities have evolved in the intervening years.

Vonnegut came into his prime as a writer during the 1960s when so much of the cultural, artistic, and literary landscape was roiling and he has come to be viewed as a voice of that era. The language is very direct and full of direct references to touchstones of that era or other boundary-pushing writers such as Jacqueline Susann or William Burroughs. In my estimate Vonnegut's most memorable contribution is the ability to craft metaphors, delivered in deadpan narrative, that are humorous to the point approaching grotesque and serve to draw into relief some aspect of human failing, hypocrisy, cruelty, or folly. In my early twenties I found this hilarious and irresistible. Now, not so much.

Another review of this volume captures a lot of what I felt. Re-reading God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater was probably the biggest letdown. What I remember as a page-turner that had me laughing out loud every few pages struck me now as an overly simplistic indictment of American capitalism rendered in a lazily constructed narrative populated with caricatures instead of characters. Cat's Cradle was more interesting in its premise but I could not escape the feeling that the superficial character development was not a failure of Vonnegut's strength as a writer but rather a result of his arrogant conviction of his own world view. Even if I might level some of the same criticisms against Slaughterhouse 5, this one did stand out against the others in this volume for its craftsmanship. Whether its main plot device -- that the hero, Billy Pilgrim, experiences time in discontinuous, randomly ordered segments instead of a continuous, linear flow -- is the result of a head injury suffered in a plane crash or whether he was really captured by an alien race and "freed" from three dimensional existence, it resonates as a poignant metaphor for what it must be like to live with the post-traumatic stress of having witnessed one of the largest single civilian massacres of the second World War.

[Graziano · Rating 5 out of 5]

A boy had his dog still leashed to him.

(from Wailing Shall Be in All Streets, page 801)

CAT’S CRADLE (****)

There was a quotation from The Book of Bokonon on the page before me. Those words leapt from the page and into my mind, and they were welcomed there.
The words were a paraphrase of the suggestion by Jesus: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.”
Bokonon’s paraphrase was this:
“Pay no attention to Caesar. Caesar doesn’t have the slightest idea what’s really going on.”
(page 69)

“What makes you think a writer isn’t a drug salesman?”
(page 102)

My soles, my soles!
My soul, my soul,
Go there,
Sweet soul
(page 136)

“What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?”
…
This is it:
“Nothing.”
(page 162)

Eventually:

Hazel said, “One good thing anyway, no mosquitoes.”
(page 182)

GOD BLESS YOU, MR. ROSEWATER (***)

If you would be unloved and forgotten, be reasonable.
(page 240)

Question: What are people for?
Answer: I love mankind… It’s people I can’t stand!! (by Linus - post-nietzschean boy)


SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE (*****)

It is a painful a tragic spectacle that rises before me: I have drawn back the curtain from the rottenness of man.
…
I call an animal, a species, an individual corrupt, when it loses its instincts, when it chooses, when it prefers, what is injurious to it.

(The Antichrist, 6, by Nietzsche)

Very, very important: listen to the audio-book narrated by Ethan Hawke (drinking black coffee...).

I had two books with me, … One was Words for the Wind, by Theodore Roethke, and this is what I found in there:
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
(page 358)

“That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim, Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. …”
(page 396)


And Billy had seen the greatest massacre in European history, which was the fire-bombing of Dresden. So it goes.
So they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe. Science fiction was a big help.
(page 412)

Rosewater said an interesting thing to Billy… He said that everything there was to know about life was in The Brothers Karamazov, by Feodor Dostoevsky. “But that isn’t enough anymore,” said Rosewater.
(page 412)

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS (****)

I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
(pages 504-5)

1492
The teachers told the children that this was when their continent was discovered by human beings. Actually, millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That was simply the year in which sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them.
(page 508)

The women all had big minds because they were big animals, but they did not use them much for this reason: unusual ideas could make enemies, and the women, if they were going to achieve any sort of comfort and safety, needed all the friends they could get.
(page 608)

Not even
the Creator
of the universe
knew what
the man
was going to say next

Perhaps the man
was a better universe
in its infancy.

R.I.P.

(page 638)

They were doing their best to live like people invented in story books. This was the reason Americans shot each other so often: It was a convenient literary device for ending short stories and books.
(page 666)

“It’s all like an ocean!” cried Dostoevski. I say it’s all like cellophane.
(page 680)

“For all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world.”
The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevskij.

WELCOME TO THE MONKEY HOUSE (****)

[Rob Marney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slaughterhouse Five is a great novel. Cat's Cradle is a great short story, stretched out to novel size. The rest of these stories are cool in a shared-universe, look how this character has changed kind of way, but appear to be written more as catharsis than as literature. So the collection overall is like a computer RPG: some great ideas buried inside forty hours of side quests.

[James Reagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has four classic novels and a really good selection of short stories and letters. His letter to his family in 1945 after surviving the bombing of Dresden is very interesting. Vonnegut's humor is in full display throughout this volume as he introduces classic characters such as Kilgore Trout, Billy Pilgrim, and Eliot Rosewater.

Cat's Cradle - 4.5 Stars
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater - 4.5 Stars
Slaughterhouse Five - 4 Stars
Breakfast of Champions - 5 Stars

[S.D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slaughterhouse-Five, included in this collection, is the definitive Vonnegut novel; wit & candor blend in a schizophrenic narrative that’s part autobiography, Sci-Fi fantasy, historical fiction, and devo-Bildungsroman. The narrative’s multiple personalities are all reflections of a single, simple, and unified theme: the dehumanizing effects of war. The remaining three novels, (among Vonnegut’s best), treat SH-F’s sub-themes individually: humanity’s apparent will to self-destruct (Cat’s Cradle); money’s ability to confer & corrupt (God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater); and reality’s hideous vagaries (Breakfast Of Champions). The possibility of humanity lurking somewhere under such absurdities has fewer clear advocates than Vonnegut.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vonnegut is one of my literary heroes and I thought I had read everything, but there are a couple of short stories and an amazing letter to his family in the back recesses of this compilation that were new to me.

[Zachary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vonnegut used the work "ironical" in his short story "The Big Space Fuck."

I don't think anything else needs to be said.

[doug.whatzup · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kurt Vonnegut writes like Forrest Gump talks. Neither uses conjunctions except for a rare “and”; neither would know what to do with a subordinate clause. Both prefer simple, straightforward sentences. And like Gump, Vonnegut’s sentences are deceptively fecund, sure to make you stop and think, to re-evaluate, or sometimes to laugh out loud. So while Vonnegut writes in a free and easy style, his books aren’t as fast a read as you’d think.

That said, by the time I got to “Breakfast of Champions,” the fourth novel in this the volume and his seventh overall, I remembered by I quit reading him nearly 50 years ago. I was an idealogical conservative at the time and repulsed by his obvious disdain for all things American. My outlook on life has always tended toward the positive; Vonnegut’s was anything but.

I’m much more of a cynic now, what young uns call a grumpy old man. That makes Vonnegut’s dyspepsia (just look at him; does he ever not look like he’s suffering from heartburn?) more relatable for me. While I still find his socialist impulses a bit off-putting, my reactions aren’t nearly as visceral as they were back in the day. I’ve got close friends who every bit a far to the left as he was; once you’re my age you get better at overlooking the bad and appreciating the good.

The plots vary from novel to novel, but (look, a conjunction!) plots are hardly the point. None of the novels are exactly plot-driven; they’re more like stream of consciousness, but instead of one seeming irrelevant sentence following another, they’re vignettes or short chapters meandering through unrelated but somehow thematically related topics. “Slaughterhouse Five,” for instance, is ostensibly about the bombing of Dresden, but there’s more wandering all over the place than sections about the bombing itself, let alone events leading up to it. In “Breakfast of Champions” an aside on continental drift segues into penis size. Don’t ask me why, but the penis issue comes back again and again.

Vonnegut mines territory that predates and predicts the Trump era’s so-called resistance. Race relations, capitalism, religion, patriotism, jingoism, the justice system, war, art and literature, fried chicken – Vonnegut’s pen skewers them all. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is exempt. Even the Creator of the Universe gets it in the end.

Reading Vonnegut sequentially, from “Player Piano” through “Breakfast of Champions,” is a bizarre exercise, especially suited to 2020. The seven short novels are really one really long one, meandering through the same characters and themes for roughly 1,500 pages. Characters — Kilgore Trout, Eliot Rosewater – come and go and come back again. Themes are elaborated upon and developed. Jokes are referenced again and again. His stories tend to be a bit Orwellian, and their foreshadowing of the year 2020 are positively eerie.

I’m guessing here – because this is where I left off the first time around, and might very well be this time around as well, since I’m told by friends who know that the quality of Vonnegut’s output dropped off considerably after this – but “Breakfast of Champions” seems to be a culmination of sorts, a ribbon on the nice tidy package that includes this and the six novels that preceded it. Might be a good place to stop. I don’t know.

[Jason Bergman · Rating 4 out of 5]

First off, I should point out that this review refers to the supplementary materials, not the novels contained therein. I've reviewed those individually already, and they are all quite good, especially Slaughterhouse-Five, which is probably my favorite novel.

Like any LOA volume, this is a handsomely crafted book with a ribbon for bookmarking and the standard LOA dustcover. They've broken away from that format with a few releases, but not the Vonnegut series. It's fine. They're well made and as the LOA is a non-profit organization doing some amazing work, I can't complain.

So the extras. There are three short stories: "Welcome to the Monkey House," "Fortitude" and "The Big Space Fuck." None are very good. "Monkey House" is a bit problematic when read today, as it's a story about rape. "Fortitude" is a nonsensical story told in screenplay format, and "The Big Space Fuck" is the best of them, throwing out Kilgore Trout-style concepts left and right. But it's over very quickly, so none of them are given any chance to develop.

The other extra materials fare a bit better: there are two introductions to Slaughterhouse-Five, which are very good, a speech given in 1969 to the American Physical Society, in which he lays out his views on science and humanism, and most notable, a letter Vonnegut wrote to his family just after the Dresden bombing. The casualness with which he relays his experience is striking, and it's nice to have in the same volume as Slaughterhouse-Five.

And then like any of the LOA books, there's a chronology of Vonnegut's life and writing which makes for a good skim or reference if you want to know where he was in his life when he published a particular novel.

So I give the supplemental material four stars. The books themselves easily deserve five. This is a great volume, one of four LOA books collecting all of Vonnegut's novels, and though I'm only halfway, I highly recommend the full set.

[TJ Shelby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm using this book to rate the latter portion of the collection. Cat's Cradle, God Bless You Mr Rosewater, Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions all have standalone entries. This is to capture:

Welcome to the Monkey House 4* - In the vein of Handmaid's Tale type of religious morality based legislative world.

Fortitude 4.5* - Told in short play format in a reimagining of Shelley's Frankenstein.

The Big Space Fuck 4* - Easily the "dirtiest" story Vonnegut has ever written. Probably seemed ludicrous in pre-Jerry-Springer-President-Trump world. Reading it in 2022, I thought, "Yeah..."

Address to the American Physical Society, NYC 1969 4* - Typical Vonnegut. Speech where he blends history, morality and hilarity with a subtle call to action.

Letter from PFC Kurt Vonnegut, Jr to his family, 1945 5* - Absolutely heartbreaking.

Wailing Shall Be in All Streets 5* - The most complete accounting that I've seen from Vonnegut on the event (the Dresden bombing) that shaped his framework for writing Slaughterhouse-Five.

"Special Message" to Franklin Library's limited edition Slaughterhouse-Five 5* - Brutal honesty in self reflection and introspection.

Preface to 25th ann. edition of Slaughterhouse-Five 4* - Short, sweet and candidly Vonnegut.

Chronology 5* - Fascinating mini-autobiography helping to understand what formed, shaped, influenced and was occurring behind the scenes during the illustrious writing life and career of KV Jr.

Notes on the Texts 3.5* - More interesting background on some of the writings 1963-1973

Notes 4.5* Very helpful insights on the writings during the 63-73 time period.

[Jörg · Rating 5 out of 5]

My expectation for Cat's Cradle was getting a weird science fiction story. What I got was a social satire in a hypothetical banana republic in the Caribbean with lots of weird characters and layers of meaning.

On the surface, Cat's Cradle is about modern weapons of mass destructions. Ice-9, a new atomic pattern for water to freeze at 114 degrees Fahrenheit, is a logical progression of what comes next after the atom bomb. It's a reflection on the (a)morality of science vs. humanity. Interestingly, Ice-9 is an idea of the Nobel prize winner Irving Langmuir who worked at the same GE laboratory as Vonnegut's brother. According to Vonnegut, he invented this idea on the occasion of H.G. Wells visiting the company. Wells wasn't interested in writing about this idea. Thus, Vonnegut took it up.

At the novel's heart is the pseudo-religion of Bokononism, a religion negating itself by claiming that religion is formed entirely of lies. Those who believe these lies will have a good life. Bokononism has many unique concepts, amongst them the following: everybody is part of a karass, like-minded characters who form around a central wampeter, the purpose of this karass. The bokononists replacement for prayer is the boko-maru, the act of rubbing the naked soles against another bokononist.

Somewhere in this stress field between the hard facts of science and the soft lies of religion Cat's Cradle gives us its main insight. There's no cat and no cradle to be seen in the same-named children's game of string figures. Make out of it what you want. Everything's an illusion, there's no purpose, there's just the challenge of being human even if it involves living according to foma, harmless white lies to lead a happy life.

[Peter J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first in a concentrated effort to read more of his work. I started here because Slaughterhouse-Five is a hard act to beat (one of the few classics that lives up to every bit of its reputation) and I've always had a soft spot Breakfast of Champions. As for this particular edition, this volume is difficult to top. Not only does it include the aforementioned S5, but also "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater", which I hadn't read, but knew many consider his greatest achievement. I must admit "God Bless You" underwhelmed me, although I found a deeper appreciation later as the connectivity of the Vonnegut's world showed itself. The discovery here was "Cat's Cradle" a book I knew nothing about beyond that Vonnegut at once written a book by that name. I found it a quickly plotted and engaging work. I cannot believe it's taken me so long to dive deeper into his writing and can't wait to see what the next volume has in store for me.

[Martin Hernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este tomo reúne las obras que considero más importantes dentro del canon de Kurt VONNEGUT Jr. : Cat’s Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five y Breakfast of Champions. Sobra decir que disfruté mucho con la relectura de estas piezas, y la lectura de God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, que fue nueva para mí. VONNEGUT se ha convertido en uno de mis grandes favorito, por su estilo satírico, aparentemente absurdo y al mismo tiempo profundamente conmovedor y filosófico.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another Kilgore Trout book there in the window was about a man who built a time machine so he could go back and see Jesus. It worked, and he saw Jesus when Jesus was only twelve years old. Jesus was learning the carpentry trade from his father.

Two Roman soldiers came into the shop with a mechanical drawing on papyrus of a device they wanted built by sunrise the next morning. It was a cross to be used in the execution of a rabble-rouser.

Jesus and his father built it. They were glad to have the work. And the rabble-rouser was executed on it.

So it goes.

[Ted Myers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kurt Vonnegut has been one of my heroes since the '60s -- when these books were new. I have read all these novels before, and I bought this hardcover collection so I could re-read them with the perspective of time. I now find they stand up to the test of time brilliantly and continue to drive home Kurt's main point, which is still painfully relevant today: the world is being fucked up by ignorant fools.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

These four novels show a tremendous leap in Vonnegut's story telling abilities, melding the bleak science fiction of his earlier work with a black humor and candor not found in any other author; they are hilariously heartbreaking in their analysis of humans and humanity.

[Leonie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really solid collection of "Grandpa" Kurt's work. Loved the mix of novels, short stories and non-fiction, Definitely a good place to start for the newcomer and still great for the long standing reader.

[Anne Bergsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aanleiding dit deel Vonnegut te lezen was een bespreking in een leesclub van Slaughterhouse five. Uiteindelijk zag ik de verfilming van dat boek en las de andere uit dit verzameld werk. Een geweldige schrijver, Vonnegut.

[Otillia Engle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breakfast of Champions is truly one of the saddest, most beautiful books I have read in a long time. You cannot deny that Vonnegut had a very profound impact on culture - and I would say he is the most accurate depiction of the lives we lead.

[Miles Boudinot · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had read Slaughterhouse Five before I read the other ones, but my golly, these were really transformative...Mr. Vonnegut almost made me think differently! I was really thankful for his work. Very engaging prose that was easy to approach and understand while still being quite funny and subtle.

[Sonstepaul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a great start because all of the novels are here. The short stories are less appealing, but a collection of all of his major works in one place is as much as you could ask for.

[Fuzeball · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vonnegut writes all of his books in a similar way. Worth reading Cat's cradle, slaughterhouse-five, and short stories, the only ones were not worth my time.

[Zachary Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Each book contained in this tome is fantastic. Vonnegut has an extremely entertaining writing style and his insights tend to remain on the money years later (though not all).

An extremely worthwhile read.

[e b · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish the biggest Kurt Vonnegut fan I knew in high school hadn't been such a raging asshole, because if I hadn't been put off reading him back then, his books would have changed my life.