The highest treason in the USA is to say Americans
are not loved, no matter where they are, no matter what
they are doing there.


Whilst his novels can be enjoyed by pretty much anybody, I think some of his non-fiction, especially here in these short autobiographical essays, with themes such as warmongering presidential administrations and corrupt profiteering, will cut deeper with Americans. But still, he is always such a pleasure to read, can be real funny, but always with that deeper, more serious message within, and it's no different here. And to think, had he been the oldest sibling of three he might not have graced up with his literary presence and slick comical satire at all.

n  "the youngest child in any family is always a jokemaker, because a joke is the only way he can enter into an adult conversation."n

ونه گات فوق العاده بود حسابی عاشقش شدم. تازه این کتاب مجموعه مقالاتش بود. همه نوشته ها رو دوست داشتم ولی می خوام این قسمتش همیشه یادم بمونه:
از همه شما که به سن و سال نوه هایم هستید عذر می خواهم. و خیلی از شماها که این کتاب را می خوانید احتمالا هم سن نوه هایم هستید. آن ها هم درست مثل شما، از طرف دولت و شرکت های دورانِ انفجارِ جمعیت، کلاه گشادی سرشان رفته و دروغ ها شنیده اند. بله، اوضاع این سیاره بدجوری آشفته شده. هرچند، همیشه آشفته بوده. هیچ وقت "روزهای خوش و خرم" به خود ندیده، فقط ایام را گذرانده. و من همیشه به نوه هایم می گویم " به من نگاه نکنید. من تازه به این جا رسیده ام."
کله پوک هایی هستند که می گویند آدم بزرگ نمی شود مگر آن که مثل خودشان از یک مصیبت بزرگ -مثلاً دوران رکود اقتصادی، جنگ جهانی دوم، جنگ ویتنام و این چیزها- جان سالم به در برده باشد. مسئول این داستانِ من درآوردیِ ویرانگر، داستان سراها هستند. بارها و بارها در قصه ها پس از مصیبت های اسف بار، شخصیت داستان سرانجام می گوید "حالا شدم یک زن واقعی. حالا شدم یک مرد واقعی. پایان"
عموی خوبی داشتم،عموی مرحومم آلکس. او برادر کوچیکه ی پدرم بود، بی اولاد و فارغ التحصیل هاروارد و در ایندیاناپولیس فروشنده آبرومند بیمه عمر بود. با معلومات و فهمیده بود. دلخوری عمده اش از آدم ها این بود که می گفت بیشتر مردم وقتی خوشحال اند خودشان حالی شان نیست. برای همین مثلاً وقتی در تابستان زیر درخت سیب لیموناد می نوشیدیم و خوش خوشک از این در و آن در می گفتیم، مثل زنبورعسل وزوز می کردیم، عمو آلکس یک دفعه رشته ی چرت و پرت های خوشایندمان را پاره می کرد و با صدای بلند می گفت "آخه اگه این قشنگ نیست، پس چی قشنگه؟"
حالا من هم همان کار را می کنم، بچه ها و نوه هایم هم همین طور. تروخدا وقتی شاد هستید، لطفاً آن دم را دریابید و به هر شکلی که می توانید، با صدای بلند یا زیر لب یا توی دلتان بگویید "اگه این قشنگ نیست، پس چی قشنگه؟" ک.و

Έκτο βιβλίο του Κερτ Βόνεγκατ που διαβάζω, αλλά το πρώτο που δεν είναι μυθιστόρημα. Εδώ έχουμε να κάνουμε με μια συλλογή δοκιμίων και κειμένων του συγγραφέα, γύρω από τη ζωή και τον θάνατο, την ιστορία και την πολιτική, την τεχνολογία και την πρόοδο. Με τον δικό του, χιουμοριστικό και ενίοτε κυνικό τρόπο, με μια κάποια τρυφερότητα αλλά και με ίχνη απελπισίας, θίγει τα κακώς κείμενα της αμερικάνικης κοινωνίας, αλλά και ολόκληρης της ανθρωπότητας. Ο Κερτ Βόνεγκατ ήταν ένας ευφυής άνθρωπος με πολλές ευαισθησίες, αλλά και ιδιαίτερα προβληματισμένος σχετικά με την πορεία της ανθρωπότητας. Σίγουρα το χιούμορ του και η θετική στάση του απέναντι στη ζωή, εμπόδισαν μια πιθανή πορεία προς την τρέλα και τη μιζέρια. Άλλωστε, ήταν παρών στον απάνθρωπο βομβαρδισμό της Δρέσδης -όντας αιχμάλωτος πολέμου-, ένα τραγικό γεγονός που μπορεί να στιγματίσει με τον χειρότερο τρόπο τον οποιονδήποτε. Όπως και να΄χει, είναι ένα βιβλίο που αξίζει να διαβάσει κανείς για το χιούμορ και τη σοφία που χαρακτήριζαν τον Κερτ Βόνεγκατ.

First, I would just like to thank Kurt Vonnegut for living. His works have made my life so much more enjoyable.

Second, we really should appreciate life a little more. Whenever we're having a beautiful moment, we should say, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is." We don't know how long our planet or humankind will be around, so embrace every beautiful moment.

Third, humans suck. We pillaged our only home, this beautiful planet, for "progress." Hogwash. But at the same time, the saints who fight for equality, justice, and our future still exist. We need them more than ever in this neoliberal, militaristic world.

Fourth, this country really is run by guessers-in-charge, those who discredit facts and science because they're inconvenient or too true. Kurt says that our leaders are "power-drunk chimpanzees." But, Mr. Vonnegut, that's sullying the name of good chimpanzee-kind. They never blew anyone up.

Fifth, man, if the guessers-in-charge really followed what Jesus said, there would be a revolution. The whole system would just collapse. Can you imagine a Bible-thumping, Tea Party, babbling congressman saying "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth."?

So to end it with number six, A Man Without a Country has reinforced my unwavering love for this man, who never backed down and who showed us the absurdity of our lives. If this book isn't nice, I don't know what is.

I rarely read a book twice--there are just too many books to read in this world and not enough time to read them all. This is one of my exceptions, though, and I loved it even more the second time than the first. Vonnegut is incredibly interesting, down-to-earth, and funny as he goes on rants about America, people in general, and all the things he's seen during his life. Highly recommended for anyone who has ever read and enjoyed a book by Vonnegut, but also highly recommended for anyone who wants to see what living through something like the Dresden bombings does to your outlook on life.

Update: I just read this for the third time. Like Vonnegut, I feel like a man without a country. I wouldn't be surprised if I re-read this every four years to coincide with the election cycle, as I don't understand how people keep voting for the same nonsense election after election to ensure nothing ever changes. The fact that Vonnegut also didn't feel like he fit in with the country he once knew makes me wish he was still around so I could give him a hug.

"We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different." pretty much sums up this book which reads more like an essay per chapter on Vonnegut's take on life at 82. Kind of fun, but his humor & opinions have palled for me. The idea that a typewriter is better than a word processor is ludicrous, so his argument for being a luddite wasn't funny, just sad. I'm not a city slicker, so the thought of spending time in line at a news stand & post office rather than just sending an email doesn't work, either. In other words, I get his point, but disagree with the way he gets there.

Still, it was a short, fun romp. Well worth listening to.

A Man Without a Country (2005) is Vonnegut’s last publication before he died (2007). It is a collection of introspective essays with a somewhat pessimistic eye toward the future of human civilization (if he was this distraught about 2005 imagine how he would have felt about 2016!). This short book might be the closest he ever came to gifting us an autobiography.

“If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

I have always found that reading Vonnegut is like a balm for the soul in troubled times. And my, aren't these troubled times? Vonnegut always had a handle on the utter horror of existence, dealing with it by way of satire and high comedy. A WWII veteran, a prisoner of war who witnessed firsthand the devastation of the firebombing of Dresden, Vonnegut hits right from the heart. That was always his genius, and I appreciate his balancing act a lot more as I have grown older.

This particular tome was meant to be his published swan song, and it was. Vonnegut died a few years after its release, though there have been posthumous works released. It's short, too short, but the Vonnegut that I know and love is there, though not in full force. He claims to be done with the human race at this point in his career, but that notion is belied by the way he catalogs the simple things that make him happy. Only Vonnegut could take an outing to buy an envelope at the local newsstand and turn into into an urban adventure of connection with other people. His observations are pithy as usual, but no one who has truly given up could write like this.

This was written during the middle of the Dubya administration, post Iraq invasion. Vonnegut is viscerally angry at the bumbling contortions of the President and his staff, with good reason. One could only wonder what he would have to say about the CURRENT situation in D.C. and Mar-A-Lago. But it's certainly not entirely a political tract, which is good, otherwise it would have bogged down quickly. This is a small memoir, an attempt at a coda for a career spent lampooning the basest natures of the human condition. As such, it succeeds well. It's a really small volume, you can finish it in under a day, even though I lingered over a few passages. It's a good introduction to the man himself, and I highly recommend it if you want to get a feel for who Vonnegut was. Then go out and find his classics, an oeuvre almost unparalleled in modern literature. He's there with Bukowski and Thompson and Kerouac in my opinion. Go. See for yourself.

A while back another writer, a reviewer, a critic, or whatever we are called, described a Kurt Vonnegut novel as another fun visit with Uncle Kurt. I really liked that description and have since plagiarized that avuncular idea to denote reading a Vonnegut book.

Like another of my favorites, Robert A. Heinlein, who has also been described as a crazy old uncle you run into at a reunion, Uncle Kurt can make you laugh, make you a little uncomfortable, and most of all make you think.

A Man Without A Country has been described as possibly the closest thing we Vonnegut fans may get to a memoir from him. Like all the rest it is filled with his unique perspective on the world and with maybe more acerbic wit and vitriol, and somewhat less playfulness, that can be remembered from most of his works.

Written in 2004, he did not like George Bush and was unabashedly opposed to the Iraqi invasion. He opined that like Mark Twain and Einstein before him, he had given up on humanity, that he had simply grown too grumpy to be funny anymore.

Let me respectfully disagree, I smiled throughout most of the short book (145 pages) laughed several times and almost fell out of my chair at his explanation as to why he did not win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

This latest visit with crazy Uncle Kurt was as fun as ever.

واخ واخ واخ، من چي كار كنم از دست تو خب...
نميتونم پنج بدم بهش متاسفانه، فاقد المان هاي پنج-بگير بود...
ولي منظورم چهار و نيمه، حتي شايد چهار و شش دهم!

“If you want to really hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.”

این اولین تجربه‌ی خوندن ونه‌گات و اولین تجربه‌ی شنیدن یک کتاب صوتی بود. کتاب شامل نوشته های پراکنده با لحن و طنز خاص ونه‌گات بود. طنز تلخی که از فرهنگ آمریکایی گرفته تا تجربه مدرن شدن و حتی حضور مریخی هارو به بحث می‌کشید.
در کل کتاب خوشمزه و لذت‌بخشی بود هر چند بخش های زیادیش صرف ناامیدی آقای نویسنده از وضع زمین و جماعت انسان شده بود. غر های زیادی توی کتاب بود اما اطلاعات بامزه‌ای هم هر از گاهی می‌داد و خب این که نویسنده شیمی خونده بود لذت کتاب رو برای من چند برابر کرد.
گوینده کتاب هم رامین بیرقدار یا سرهرمس معروف بود که شخصن از طرفدارای وبلاگش هستم و با صدای مخملیش این کتاب رو حسابی جلا داده بود. ممنون آقای مارانا!

مجموعه‌ای از حرف‌های آقای ونه‌گوت درباره همه چیز.
و البته حرف‌های آقای ونه‌گوت حرف‌های خیلی خوبی هست. و ارزش خوندن داره. طنز هم هست گاهی و تلخ.
قسمتی که فراموش نمی‌کنم‌اش، هیچوقت، موقعیه که درباره مهم بودن زیبایی‌های لحظه‌ای و کوچیک حرف می‌زنه و ماجرای پست کردن‌ کارهاش رو برای ناشرش شرح می‌ده. که چطوری به تمام جزئیات زندگی‌ش توجه می‌کنه و ازشون لذت می‌بره.

و البته اینکه خوشی واقعی، خیلی ساده و زودگذر هست و اگه چشم‌مون رو به‌روش باز نکنیم مثل ماسه از میون انگشتا می‌ریزه پایین و از دست‌اش می‌دیم.