WE ARE WHAT WE PRETEND to BE: THE FIRST and LAST WORKS by Kurt Vonnegut
Published in 2012 by Vanguard Press.
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| The giant mural honoring Vonnegut in downtown Indianapolis. |
Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) is from Indianapolis, the city I have lived in since 1998. He was always proud to be FROM Indianapolis but never moved back once he and his family moved away right after World War II. His sense of humor and cynical/sarcastic of view has often been compared to Mark Twain, but I am reminded of the humor of another Indianapolis boy a few years later who also went off to the big city and made it big - David Letterman.
This book contains the first real story written by Vonnegut and the beginning of the novel he was working on when he passed away. These are the bookends of his literary career.
The first story is called Basic Training. It was written when he was about age 30 and was never published. His daughter describes stacks of rejection letters and one can assume that this story helped create that stack.
The story is about a recently orphaned teenaged boy who goes to live on a relatives farm. He already has a college scholarship to learn music but it all is at risk because he can't seem to get the hang of how to get along with his relative that runs the farm - an old guy nicknamed "The General".
The second story is the beginning of a book about a George Carlin-type stand-up comic named If God Were Alive Today. The comic has several mental issues, including drug, alcohol and sexual problems.
Of the two stories, I think Vonnegut's first one is clearly superior. It doesn't sound like a Vonnegut story and feels much more like a John Steinbeck story but it is pretty good. I would rate it 4 out of 5 stars.
The second story suffers from the fact that it is not a complete story - it is simply the opening pages of a larger work that we'll never be able to read. That being said, I found the main character interesting but very unlikable. Even worse, even though he was a stand-up comic the main character was not funny. He said outrageous things, but not funny things. That struck me as odd because Vonnegut was well-known for his very dark but very real sense of humor. I woudl rate it 2 out of 5 stars.
So, a 2 star story and a 4 star story make a 3 star average.
I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: WE ARE WHAT WE PRETEND to BE: THE FIRST and LAST WORKS by Kurt Vonnegut.
The second story is the beginning of a book about a George Carlin-type stand-up comic named If God Were Alive Today. The comic has several mental issues, including drug, alcohol and sexual problems.
Of the two stories, I think Vonnegut's first one is clearly superior. It doesn't sound like a Vonnegut story and feels much more like a John Steinbeck story but it is pretty good. I would rate it 4 out of 5 stars.
The second story suffers from the fact that it is not a complete story - it is simply the opening pages of a larger work that we'll never be able to read. That being said, I found the main character interesting but very unlikable. Even worse, even though he was a stand-up comic the main character was not funny. He said outrageous things, but not funny things. That struck me as odd because Vonnegut was well-known for his very dark but very real sense of humor. I woudl rate it 2 out of 5 stars.
So, a 2 star story and a 4 star story make a 3 star average.
I rate this book 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: WE ARE WHAT WE PRETEND to BE: THE FIRST and LAST WORKS by Kurt Vonnegut.
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