Vonnegut | WGOM

Apologies for missing the first Monday.

I finished the Great Vonnegut (Re)-Read of 2015 by finishing his last novel, Timequake, right at the end of November. When I decided to read all of Vonnegut's novels, Timequake was the one that I was most interested in re-reading. I read it in 1997 when it was first published and I was in 10th grade. And I don't think I got it. I had always been perplexed when people have good things to say about the book because I thought it was my least favorite book of his. So, I was very interested in what my reaction would be to it this time around, moreso than any of the other books. (One nice thing about that being that it served as a very nice motivator to keep the project going, I had to get to Timequake to see how it had changed for me).

This time around, I loved it. I'm not going to argue that it's a great novel. It's half of a novel at best. But if you spend time with Vonnegut, especially post-Breakfast of Champions Vonnegut, this book is a near perfect epilogue to his career. Through this whole year I got the perspective that I was missing back in 1997. The payoff to the project was pretty good.

This summer, I got in a friendly argument with my Dad about re-reading books. He refuses to do it, using the "there's too many books I haven't read out there and not nearly enough time to read them all" argument. He could not understand why I would choose to re-read all of Vonnegut's novels or start The Wheel of Time over from the beginning when the final three books started coming out. So I went back and looked through my reading spreadsheets and found that I really don't re-read very much. I feel like that's the majority opinion, most people feel like they don't read enough and so why spend time reading something again? But the effect of my Vonnegut re-read is making me question that a little bit. There are books that I've said I'd like to go back and spend some more time with (2666 is the one that leaps to mind), but I don't know that I ever would have. Now I'm reconsidering a little bit. Maybe that will be a project for a future year. Re-read one book per month that I've wanted to revisit? Could be interesting.

So, do you ever re-read? Never re-read? What books would you revisit if the feeling struck you?

This year, I decided I was going to re-read (or read for the first time) all of Kurt Vonnegut's novels. With that in mind, I looked around for some books that get into the background of both the books and the author. This month I read three biographies of various types. I'll admit that by the end of the third, I was feeling a little like I was going over the same material, but each was different enough. Listed below are the books that I read all or part of this month.

THE MAN:

And So it Goes - Kurt Vonnegut: A Life by Charles J. Shields

The word that comes to mind is "workman-like". It's about as straightforward as a biography can be. Point to point without much editorializing or analysis in between. Still, this filled in a lot of details about Vonnegut's life that I was not familiar with (the kids, the wives, the agents, etc.) and gave me a pretty good framework for the other biographical books that I read.

Letters by Kurt Vonnegut (edited by Dan Wakefield)

Reading this directly after the Shields biography was about perfect. A lot of the details that were only mentioned in passing in this book I was already familiar with from my previous reading. I enjoyed Vonnegut's writing even in this non-narrative format.

Palm Sunday by Kurt Vonnegut

One of many "autobiographical collages" that Vonnegut published that collects some of his lectures and writings and attempts to connect them together. This is perhaps a little redundant with respect to the collection of letters above, but it was interesting to see how Vonnegut connects things as opposed to an editor or biographer. This added some depth to some life events, but as noted in the intro, I did start to feel like I was reading some of the same material.

THE NOVELS: (Analysis - I've only started these two, so any thoughts are preliminary)

The Vonnegut Effect by Jerome Klinkowitz

Klinkowitz has written a lot of analysis of Vonnegut's work. This book breaks things down by novel. Depending on how much I like this book, I might seek out some other Klinkowitz offerings (there are quite a few, here's his author's page on Goodreads, see if you can spot the theme).

Unstuck in Time: A Journey Through Kurt Vonnegut's Life and Novels by Gregory D. Sumner

Lest you think that I am some kind of truly original visionary with the re-reading Vonnegut idea, here's someone who already thought of it and wrote a book about it. This might be the book I'm most excited to read in this post. I've only gotten through the prologue (an abbreviated biography - Argh!) and the section on Player Piano so far.

So, fair citizens. What are you reading?

Remodeled basement. Same half-baked taste.

WGOM

Tag Archives: Vonnegut

Monday Book Day: Re-Reads

First Monday Book Day: Biography x3

Remodeled basement. Same half-baked taste.