Customer Reviews (1)

Thorough critical analysis.
This is an excellent addition to the library of any serious student of Vonnegut's works. Broer's insightful examinations of Vonnegut's writings add a new dimension to the reader's comprehension ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Wanda June
I read Vonnegut's first play "Happy Birthday, Wanda June," and thought it was really good.The basic plot of the book is a man who used to be considered a hero, but after an eight year absence from society, comes back and sees that he is no longer seen as he used to be.In this play Vonnegut expresses his protest of the Vietnam War.Vonnegut does this with the character of Harold Ryan and his family.Harold Ryan symbolizes a Vietnam veteran who comes back to the States after fighting.Just like the Vietnam veterans, Harold is seen as a warmongering brute by his wife.She now is interested in a man who doesn't believe in violence and is an intellectual.Vonnegut uses this to represent the protests of the war and the honor draft dodgers received by some Americans.The symbolism of the protagonist reveals Vonnegut's theme of the play: Times changes along with political viewpoints of society and the portrayals of heroes.Vonnegut is able to strengthen the theme by structuring the play in a linear fashion like a timeline.This is a great play that withstands time and can be seen now with the war in Iraq.I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys Vonnegut's style of writing and viewpoints.

excellent experience
The book I purchased was in excellent condition upon arrival. Special care was taken in the shipping as well.
The seller really came through. I was and am very happy with my purchasing experience!

a disappointment after Cat's Cradle and other masterpieces
Written in 1970 or so, I think this one is a good example of how opinionated people really need to disguise their personal opinions better in order to keep a story interesting. That doesn't mean you can't express your opinion; you just have to be subtle about it. Vonnegut is better at this in some of his other writing.

One of the characters is a one-dimensional brute (possibly based on Ernest Hemingway) who treats his wife and son as things and has filled his house with taxedermised animals he has killed. The other characters are similarly simplistic, and the plot is even weaker. In fact, it's difficult to believe that the same person who wrote this play is also the author of such classic literature as Cat's Cradle.

The Vonnegut on Stage!
Happy Birthday, Wanda June is an anti-b.s. play. Anti-macho nonsense, anti-abuse, anti-syncophant, anti-war mongering, anti-violence, anti-abandonment. All the "living" characters in it are trying to be someone else....except Harold, who is so much himself (or forgone) that his personality is deadly against the others.

This is a very funny, bizarre, timely play. Now, as America is back in a questionable war, as we were when this was written in 1970, and blatant aggression is somehow acceptable here is Vonnegut standing up to show us all how ridiculous we are, and ridiculous just about everyone in the play is.

Harold is single-minded and aggressive enough to not see its effect on others. Penelope, who is lost throughout most of it, is stuck and needs the borishness of Harold to see the error of her ways. Woodly is patently lost in a field of peace, joy and positivity full of rage, but smitten by the myth of manliness. Shuttle is an idol worshiper and caught in an Americana sport/brotherhood fetish. Looseleaf is in a haze of wonder and awe at his past, shocked by his own inhumanity. Paul is angry, needy for a father, but protective like a fatherless child is of his mother. The three "ghosts" are ironic and a hope for us all. Since this world is ridiculous and stupid, belief that the next one is anything but remains a peaceful possibility.

A good play, full of social commentary, Vonnegut's wit and black humor. Recommended, especially in this day in age, and for Vonnegut fans.

The scenes in Heaven are semi-amusing
Ya know what I really hate about The Von? (Besides everything.) It's his constant harping on his midwestern innocence. Or on Marsha Mason's midwestern innocence. *What* innocence? It doesn't exist outside of his own head. But The Von is too smugly solipsistic to realize it. He & Marsha are almost as insufferable as Holden Caulfield and his precious baby sister.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad The Von survived Dresden. (SOMEBODY had to.) But his boring bleeding-heart Jesus-mongering really drives me up the wall when it's coming from a goddam atheist. (Either believe or get off the pot, Kurt. You remind me too much of that atheist nun at the end of WHITE NOISE.)

Where the hell was I. Oh yeah. Have you ever wondered why the Germans constantly put verbs at the end of sentences instead of in the middle of sentences where they belong? It's an expression of German machismo. Germans think that it's macho to do everything the hard way. This trait gets mentioned in WANDA JUNE.

Major Siegfried von Konigswald says: "Harold Ryan said he killed maybe 200 guys. I killed a hundred times that many, I bet. That's still peanuts, of course, compared to what that crazy Looseleaf did. Harold and me---we was doing it the hard way. I hope the record books will show that. There should be a little star or something by the names of the guys who did it the hard way." ... Read more

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Boxed Set of some of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s best work! ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

The Anti-Hero in an academic context
Simmons provides an interesting analysis of the Anti-Hero and the American Counterculture of the 1960s. This book would be a useful resource for those studying either.

Well-researched, but a painful read
I read this book out of a newly found personal interest in anti-heroes, generated from my Master's program in English and an idea I had for teaching anti-hero literature in my freshman-level high school English class.

Having recently finished this text, I found myself largely dissatisfied. Pros: The book was well-researched and gave me a few new things to think on. Cons: The writing was stodgy at best, and grounded so firmly in Camus and Marcuse that I found myself wondering if the author had any ideas of his own. I understand that this is the style of academia, but I think Simmons carried this style to the extreme, and ensured that his book had no appeal to anyone with a simple, casual interest in literature.

This is unfortunate, because I think the appeal of the anti-hero is growing in contemporary America, and taking a look at 1960's literature as a building block of this appeal would be a valuable exercise. But without any appeal or ease in the language use, this book will be relegated to dusty bookshelves, read only by the minute number of scholars studying American Literature.

In short, this book is best used as a graduate student torture device. ... Read more

Product Description
A cold and malevolent universe is all the humanity can ever know. In the near future, Vonnegut's scientific researchers learn that the substance of which that galaxy is made, Ice-T, assures that human life will ever be Emily Dickinson's "zero at the bone." Any belief in manifest human destiny or compassion is doomed. Reissued in hardcover after SLAUGTHERHOUSE-FIVE as part of a re-evaluation of the importance of Vonnegut's work. ... Read more

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Cat's Cradle deals with atomic scientists, ugly Americans, gorgeous sex queens, vengeful midgets, Caribbean dictators, undertakers, Hoosiers, a new way of making love, ice-nine, Bokononism, the end of the world ... Ice-nine? Bokononism? The end of the world? No one but Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., could have created this masterful mix of satire, fantasy, and all-too-real realism. An ultimate commentary on modern man and his madness, Cat's Cradle is one of the most brilliant and important novels of the decade. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Kurt Fans Must Own
I looked for this book for a long time, only found old used copies until this reprint came around.I jumped for joy.

The book carries some of Kurt's best and most brilliant short stories, showing us why he was so highly respected as a short story writer, even though he is more known for his novels.

Concise collection of Vonnegut's best short stories
A brief collection of some of Vonnegut's earliest (and finest) short fiction.Of course all this and much more is available in the mass-market paperback "Welcome to the Monkey House" which includes a great deal of additional material (not all of it good) so this volume is exclusively for book-collectors rather than readers. The only story in this collection not available in "Monkey House" is the forgettable "Hal Irwin's Magic Lamp", which even Vonnegut scholars will be hard-pressed to take any interest in.All that aside, there are some terrific stories here.

Vonnegut can be sentimental as in "D. P." about a Displaced Person and "The Manned Missiles" which imagines an early space flight, but the pathos of these stories seems more awkward than artistic - some readers may not appreciate having their emotions manipulated quite so blatantly.More successful are his forays into science-fiction-based morality tales, such as "Report on the Barnhouse Effect" (military application of telekinesis) "Unready to Wear" (transcending the flesh) "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" (challenges of overpopulation) and "The Euphio Question" (happiness by the kilowatt).These stories show Vonnegut at his best: funny, inventive, philosophical, often even hopeful - a far cry from that universe-crushes-damaged-puppets trip that mars so many of his novels - so science fiction fans not familiar with the Master's work would do well to start here.

this book is trash
this is an illegal bootleg with no collectors value.

all of these stories can be found in welcome to the monkeyhouse and bagombo snuffbox.it's a waste of money and a sham to purchase this book.

One Extra Story
Vonnegut, as usual, has written delightful characters and wonderfully satiric plots in these short stories.Interested readers will find all stories herein, except "Hal Irwin's Magic Lamp", in "Welcome to the Monkey House".Canary in a Cathouse has a cool cover, but unless you are collecting, save your dough.

as usual
Like all of his other books - makes you smile, cry and think. He tells you about familiar things in a different way, mostly about yourself. People who know Vonnegut will love it. Those who don't will fall in love. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Amazing and thought provoking!
This is my favorite Kurt Vonnegut book. It is truly thought provoking in a Darwinian style. He ties the future evolved human race to today in an exceptional story so appropriately occurring on the Galapagos Islands. The demise of human kind due to a global economic crisis and the survival and evolution of those shipwrecked in the Galapagos make this book a fantastic read. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Unfocused but informative
Two-thirds of this book is devoted to descriptive, rather than analytic concerns.Only after a detailed discussion of Vonnegut's personal history and lengthy synopses of his novels (up to and including, "Slapstick"), does the author attempt to address the question of Vonnegut's position in American literature.Lundquist calls Vonnegut the "kindly uncle of American literature," citing the novelist's ability to make significant literary contributions while, at the same time, appealing to popular taste.Although Lundquist too often strays from his subject to discuss such things as black comedy and science fiction, he provides a good overall view of Vonnegut's imaginative blend of humor and horror.General readers will find this book more enlightening than will scholars. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Beautiful TV Movie. Esp. Handicap scene.
Loved this when I saw it on TV. Then checked it out at the Long Beach Library 15 years ago as a TV script. Now saw it with pictures! Great! Enjoy

Between Time and A Bonfire
As has already been said:this piece was not written by Vonnegut, and it shows.The pieces that they use are good, some of the new stuff works too, but it doesn't hold together.The plot looks like shotgun spray on a barn wall.Pieces hit well here and there, but they don't connect.The tang part is good, a wonderful reason to read this short piece, but don't expect any coherence.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place
My favorite thing about this "Vonnegut's greatest hits" attempt is that he didn't actually write it; rather, it is an attempt by network television to capitalize on the successful moments of his books and short stories.Well, it doesn't work.The "Plot device" is so weak it walks on thin ice-nine; an astronaut trapped in a time warp that throws him into the best moments of Vonnegut's books?Why not give them proper films of their own?And most importantly, how about giving the true authors the blame where it is due?The original idea's are Vonneguts, but this plundering is not.A capitalist bankruptcy ... Read more

Product Description
Presenting the principles articulated in chaos theory as rewarding methods for examining literature, this volume examines the shift from modernism to postmodernism, dating the transition to the bombing of Hiroshima. The text also seeks to redefine anterior definitions of chaos and functions as an introduction to the fundamental tenets of choas theory. The final section of the book deploys chaos theory as a critical approach in its examination of Vonnegut scholarship: how a body of fiction that repeatedly focuses upon death camps, unjust prosecutions, vicious and elitist ideological practices, war, greed, futility, and failure can remain affirmative. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

As a literary work...
The book, as the author explains, is not a science text; it is a fresh look at Vonnegut's writing. As such, it offers important insight into one of the twentieth century's most interesting writers.

not worth it
This book is not good at the following things:1. analyzing Kurt Vonnegut (as literature) 2. understanding and analyzing chaos theory 3. analyzing chaos theory in Kurt Vonnegut 4. living up to its title

It isworth a look for the die-hard Vonnegut fans, but if you are interested inchaos theory, this is not the book for you. ... Read more