Kurt Vonnegut's Novels Rated

After three years, I've finished re-reading Vonnegut's 14 novels in chronological order. It's pretty silly to rate novels (or anything else) with numbers, but the numbers aren't to do with technical, objective literary merits, just my attempt to reflect how much they did or did not resonate with me.

Vonnegut In Retrospect: Timequake

Timequake (1997)

My memory of reading Timequake 15 years ago was that it was a disappointing, disjointed final novel for Vonnegut, so I wasn't looking forward to re-reading it that much. What a difference a changed head space can make. It's not even a pure novel but more like a wizened old man's greatest life lessons, beliefs, jokes, and tragedies distilled into a final love/hate letter to the world. There is also half a novel woven in that involves a "timequake" that rewinds time 10 years and everyone is forced to live those years over again in exactly the same way. That part is great too, but the book is a true treasure for the parts in which Vonnegut is just talking to the reader like a friend. Seemingly every page contains a striking and/or hilarious passage, and it is a more than worthy end cap to Vonnegut's incredible string of novels published between 1952 and 1997.

9.2/10

Vonnegut In Retrospect: Galapagos, Bluebeard, and Hocus Pocus

Galapagos (1985)

I unfortunately have waited so long to write down my thoughts on Galapagos that the book is no longer fresh in my mind. I know I enjoyed it, but I also took forever to read it for some reason. The premise, the last humans on earth being stranded on an island and evolving into something else, is a good one and mostly overcomes some sloppy structure that drags in parts.

7.9/10

Bluebeard (1987)

This is one of Vonnegut's most readable and focused novels. Written (like Mother Night and Hocus Pocus) as an autobiography by a fictional character, Bluebeard is the memoirs of abstract expressionist painter Rabo Karabekian who used a type of paint that unexpectedly eroded and fell off the canvases after just a few years. The cast of characters is small and the story straight as an arrow.

8.5/10

Hocus Pocus (1990)

This story is like a shotgun blast, with a few pieces hitting the mark and others flying around uselessly. It's the memoirs of Eugene Debs Hartke, Vietnam vet and college professor. The novel is set in the not too distant future with foreign interests having taken over the American economy and things generally going to pot for the country and Hartke personally. An unsatisfying and meandering tale.

6.4/10

Vonnegut In Retrospect: Deadeye Dick

Deadeye Dick (1982)

After suffering a little Vonnegut overload, I took a 15 month break in my re-read of his 14 novels. Sufficiently refreshed, I enjoyed getting back to it with novel #10, Deadeye Dick. We return to Midland City, Ohio (also the setting of Breakfast of Champions), where protagonist Rudy Waltz lives a sad and pitiful life after a childhood accident leaves him emotionally scarred. It's a bit of a downer, but it is a tight story, unlike his previous three novels that sprawl messily.

7.6/10

Vonnegut In Retrospect: Jailbird

Jailbird (1976)

Ugh. I may have reached Vonnegut overload after reading his biography and first eight novels in short order. I had to force myself to get through Jailbird. I honestly cannot tell how much of the struggle was the fault of a poor book or just my head space not being compatible with it. If I pick it up again in a few years, maybe it would strike me as worthy of Vonnegut's catalog. It took me close to three months to finish it, and there would be long periods where I didn't pick it up, and I had a hard time remembering what had already occurred. Now that I've finished it, the story remains murky. There are themes of labor vs. ownership, communism vs. capitalism, the Watergate scandal, the idealism of youth...but little sticks with me. There were a few lines and passages in the book that resonated, and were enough to make the slog worth it in the end. But I'll be taking a little break before diving in to finish the last five Vonnegut novels.

5.0/10

Vonnegut In Retrospect: Slapstick

Slapstick (1976)

The man who wrote in 1959 (through a character) that "a purpose of a human life...is to love whoever is around to be loved" writes in the intro to Slapstick that love "does not seem important to me." Vonnegut was mired in a prolonged separation and divorce at this point in his life, so perhaps it is not surprising his opinion of love had degraded. He also says that Slapstick is "the closest I will come to writing an autobiography." It does not read anything like an autobiography to me. Perhaps the most personal element is the relationship of the main character Wilbur Swain and his sister Eliza. When they were together, they were brilliant and happy, and when separated, mediocre and melancholy. I wondered if Vonnegut felt that way about his own sister (who had been dead for 18 years when Slapstick was published).

The most interesting part of the book is the creation of a government program to end loneliness in America. Every citizen is issued a new middle name, with resulting groups of around 10,000 persons who share a middle name and are now family. As the parent of two young children, I could get behind the idea of having lots of family caretakers around to share the child-rearing duties as portrayed in the book. In addition to fleshing out this social experiment, the book also features the collapse of the US government and ensuing wars between states. Though there is little science-fiction to be found in Slapstick, it still reads as one of his most inventive/imaginative.

This is the hardest book to rate so far for me...Anywhere between 6.5-9.0 really, but I'll go with 7.8/10.

Vonnegut Kindle Dude

Vonnegut In Retrospect: Breakfast Of Champions

Breakfast Of Champions (1973)


If I recall correctly from Vonnegut biography And So It Goes, Vonnegut struggled mightily with this follow up to his masterpiece Slaughterhouse-Five, going through endless versions and rewrites. Vonnegut acknowledges as much when he introduces a dog at the end of the book and mentions that it had a major role in an earlier version. This struggle comes through in the reading, and not in a good way. Much like God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, this book has flashes of brilliance but fails to come together in the whole.


Free will is a theme, with Vonnegut equating humans to machines throughout the book, suggesting we have no choice how we behave and react but are at the mercy of our chemicals. The two protagonists are Dwayne Hoover who has "bad chemicals" and sci-fi author Kilgore Trout who is travelling to Hoover's hometown for an arts festival. We are told early on that once he arrives, Hoover will read one of Trout's stories and it will cause him to go on a violent rampage. The fateful meeting finally arrives after a too-long lead up. Vonnegut inserts himself as a character watching the climax unfold and even interacts with Trout, telling him he is "setting him free," along with all the other characters Vonnegut has used up to this point in his career, meaning he won't be using them in any more stories. (Vonnegut didn't stay true to that promise.) The weird climax is worth the uneven trip to get there, but this is not Vonnegut at his best. You still get lots of Vonnegut doodles and inspired moments like this:

There is no order in the world around us, we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead. It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done.

7.2/10

Vonnegut In Retrospect: Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

Yes.

10/10

Vonnegut In Retrospect: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965)

After a string of three great books (The Sirens of Titan, Mother Night and Cat's Cradle), Vonnegut faltered a bit with God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. It has fantastic moments, but does not come together as a particularly effective whole. The story meanders through settings and characters which are rarely developed to satisfaction. The main character, Eliot Rosewater, is an exception, and the book is at its best when it stays with him. Rosewater is the inheritor of a vast fortune, and becomes an eccentric benefactor to the poor and decrepit of a county in Indiana. Vonnegut's alter-ego, science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout, makes his first appearance. Vonnegut attempts to address socialism vs. free enterprise and unconditional love, but the story doesn't hold together enough for the message to be especially powerful.

Like I say though, there are moments of brilliance mixed into the hodge podge story, such as this quintessentially Vonnegut passage:

Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—:

"God damn it, you've got to be kind."

6.9/10

Vonnegut In Retrospect: Cat's Cradle

Cat's Cradle (1963)

Guh. My brain is left mushy trying to say anything partially intelligent in response to genius. Cat's Cradle is an ambitious, biting commentary on  science gone too far and especially religion. A scientist creates a doomsday substance, just because he's curious if it can be done, with no regard for the implications. The best part is the invention of the religion Bokononism, the tenets of which make up a lot of the book. Vonnegut dreams up new vocabulary as part of the religion. Some highlights:

• karass: group of people who, often unknowingly, are working together to do God's will
• granfalloon: a false karass, ie., a group of people who imagine they have a connection that does not really exist
• foma: harmless untruths

All of Bokononism is made up of foma. As it is written in the Books of Bokonon, "Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy." I especially like the idea of a granfalloon, exemplified in the book by a character extremely proud of her home state of Indiana. So much harm in this world could be avoided if arbitrarily related groups didn't feel their granfalloons (race, gender, nationality, religion, etc.) were superior to others. Read this book.

9.0/10

Vonnegut In Retrospect: Mother Night

Mother Night (1961)

Vonnegut tackles Nazism and World War II (in which he was a POW) obliquely here, as opposed to the more personal account to come in Slaughterhouse Five. This book is written as a first person memoir by the fictional Howard W. Campbell, Jr., who claims to have been an American spy posing as an infamous Nazi propagandist during the war. Campbell is a chilling character, unsure himself exactly which side he was serving, and not seeming to care a great deal either way. He lost his wife in the war and with her his entire reason to live. All sorts of uncomfortable existential issues are raised, with no satisfactory answers, and no happy ending. It is a wonderful but dark book, mercifully short.

In an introduction added to the book after its initial release, Vonnegut writes, "This is the only story of mine whose moral I know...We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be...There's another clear moral to this tale...When you're dead, you're dead. And yet another moral...Make love when you can. It's good for you."

And from Campbell's memoir:

I had hoped (as a propagandist) to be merely ludicrous, but this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought, so eager to believe and snarl and hate. So many people wanted to believe me!

Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.

8.1/10

Vonnegut In Retrospect: The Sirens of Titan

The Sirens of Titan (1959)

Seven years after his good but not great debut novel, Vonnegut leaps into singular brilliance with The Sirens of Titan. It is couched in sci-fi, but clearly addresses the big questions of life in the here and now on Earth; fate, luck, religion, humanity's purpose. Our hero, Malachi Constant, goes from being a fabulously wealthy Hollywood playboy to a brainwashed member of a Martian army to trapped on Mercury, back to Earth, and finally to Saturn's moon Titan. At the end of it all, he says he has figured out that, "a purpose of a human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved." Somewhere in the middle a new religion is formed on Earth: The Church of God the Utterly Indifferent. Vonnegut's famed humanism comes into play: "Take care of the people, and God Almighty will take care of Himself." The settings and characters sprawl, but somehow the book reads razor sharp.

I don't know why I'm writing these little reviews. I obviously have no book reviewing chops. But I'm glad I'm re-reading Vonnegut. He's flipping my wig all over again.

9.2/10

Vonnegut In Retrospect: Player Piano

I recently read And So It Goes, the new biography of Kurt Vonnegut. The book is impeccably researched and written, and the biggest flaw is no fault of the author's: Vonnegut does not come off as likable as you would hope. Vonnegut repeatedly urged the reader to extend common courtesy, build community, and, "God damn it, you've got to be kind!" It is mildly disappointing to read that he was often unsuccessful in practicing as much when it came to his associates, wives and children.

However, that does not have to take anything away from his life's work. And So It Goes's greatest strength might be adding context to Vonnegut's writing—what he was experiencing and intending with his novels. It has been roughly a decade since I was first introduced to Vonnegut by my sister-in-law (thanks Renae!) and tore through his novels in short order. I do not remember them well individually, more as one crush of the best novels I've read. And So It Goes has inspired me to go back and re-read them in chronological order and see if they are as wonderful for me as a 32 year old as they were at 20. I'll write a few thoughts here on each as I read through them. Novel the first:

Player Piano (1952)

A cautionary tale of what the future could look like if humanity yields too much of the labor force and decision-making to automation. Vonnegut had recently left his job in public relations for General Electric before writing Player Piano, where he had seen the cutting edge of mechanized progress. For Player Piano he developed this fleshed out near-future world in which America has yielded much of its dignity to machinery. It is an enjoyable read, and still relevant, even if conventional compared to Vonnegut's subsequent work.

Representational quote:

"What have you got against machines?" said Buck.
"They're slaves."
"Well, what the heck," said Buck. "I mean, they aren't people. They don't suffer. They don't mind working."
"No. But they compete with people."
"That's a pretty good thing, isn't it—considering what a sloppy job most people do of anything?"
"Anybody that competes with slaves becomes a slave."

Non-representational quote that I just liked:

The band...smashed and heaved at the tune as though in a holy war against silence. It was impossible even to be cordial to oneself in the midst of the uproar.

Does it make any sense to give novels a rating? What the heck. I'll give Player Piano a 6.8/10.