A Man Without a Country

Informationen zum Autor Kurt Vonnegut Klappentext NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • "For all those who have lived with Vonnegut in their imaginations . . . this is what he is like in person."-USA Today In a volume that is penetrating, introspective, incisive, and laugh-out-loud funny, one of the great men of letters of this age-or any age-holds forth on life, art, sex, politics, and the state of America's soul. From his coming of age in America, to his formative war experiences, to his life as an artist, this is Vonnegut doing what he does best: Being himself. Whimsically illustrated by the author, A Man Without a Country is intimate, tender, and brimming with the scope of Kurt Vonnegut's passions. Praise for A Man Without a Country "[This] may be as close as Vonnegut ever comes to a memoir."-Los Angeles Times "Like [that of] his literary ancestor Mark Twain, [Kurt Vonnegut's] crankiness is good-humored and sharp-witted. . . . [Reading A Man Without a Country is] like sitting down on the couch for a long chat with an old friend."-The New York Times Book Review "Filled with [Vonnegut's] usual contradictory mix of joy and sorrow, hope and despair, humor and gravity."-Chicago Tribune "Fans will linger on every word . . . as once again [Vonnegut] captures the complexity of the human condition with stunning calligraphic simplicity."-The Australian "Thank God, Kurt Vonnegut has broken his promise that he will never write another book. In this wondrous assemblage of mini-memoirs, we discover his family's legacy and his obstinate, unfashionable humanism."-Studs Terkel1 As a kid I was the youngest member of my family, and the youngest child in any family is always a jokemaker, because a joke is the only way he can enter into an adult conversation. My sister was five years older than I was, my brother was nine years older than I was, and my parents were both talkers. So at the dinner table when I was very young, I was boring to all those other people. They did not want to hear about the dumb childish news of my days. They wanted to talk about really important stuff that happened in high school or maybe in college or at work. So the only way I could get into a conversation was to say something funny. I think I must have done it accidentally at first, just accidentally made a pun that stopped the conversation, something of that sort. And then I found out that a joke was a way to break into an adult conversation. I grew up at a time when comedy in this country was superb—it was the Great Depression. There were large numbers of absolutely top comedians on radio. And without intending to, I really studied them. I would listen to comedy at least an hour a night all through my youth, and I got very interested in what jokes were and how they worked. When I’m being funny, I try not to offend. I don’t think much of what I’ve done has been in really ghastly taste. I don’t think I have embarrassed many people, or distressed them. The only shocks I use are an occasional obscene word. Some things aren’t funny. I can’t imagine a humorous book or skit about Auschwitz, for instance. And it’s not possible for me to make a joke about the death of John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King. Otherwise I can’t think of any subject that I would steer away from, that I could do nothing with. Total catastrophes are terribly amusing, as Voltaire demonstrated. You know, the Lisbon earthquake is funny. I saw the destruction of Dresden. I saw the city before and then came out of an air-raid shelter and saw it afterward, and certainly one response was laughter. God knows, that’s the soul seeking some relief. Any subject is subject to laughter, and I suppose there was laughter of a very ghastly kind by victims in Auschwitz. Humor is an almost physiological response to fear. Freud said that humor is a response to frustration—one of several. A dog, he ...

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For all those who have lived with Vonnegut in their imaginations . . . this is what he is like in person. USA Today
 
[This] may be as close as Vonnegut ever comes to a memoir. Los Angeles Times

Like [that of] his literary ancestor Mark Twain, [Kurt Vonnegut s] crankiness is good-humored and sharp-witted. . . . [Reading A Man Without a Country is] like sitting down on the couch for a long chat with an old friend. The New York Times Book Review

Filled with [Vonnegut s] usual contradictory mix of joy and sorrow, hope and despair, humor and gravity. Chicago Tribune

Fans will linger on every word . . . as once again [Vonnegut] captures the complexity of the human condition with stunning calligraphic simplicity. The Australian

Thank God, Kurt Vonnegut has broken his promise that he will never write another book. In this wondrous assemblage of mini-memoirs, we discover his family s legacy and his obstinate, unfashionable humanism. Studs Terkel

This book is nothing if not a big shot in the arm of concentrated hope. The Sycamore Review
 
No other American humorist see-saws from gravity to gobbledygook this effectively, in part because for Vonnegut the two are always connected. Life for him is deadly serious, bu the best way to deal with fear is to laugh in its face. The Jerusalem Post

Product details

• Authors: Kurt Vonnegut
• Assisted by: Daniel Simon (Editor)
• Publisher: Random House USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 16.01.2007
• EAN: 9780812977363
• ISBN: 978-0-8129-7736-3
• No. of pages: 160
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 202 mm x 10 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Biographies, autobiographies