About twenty 2-to-3 page vignettes in which a fictional version of Vonnegut himself interviews all manner of deceased people, from the famous to the not so famous, in the tunneled entrance to what amounts to a Christian version of Heaven. There are gems of Vonnegutian (is that a word?) wisdom throughout, and lots of bits of high-brow humor (sometimes too high-brow, for my tastes), but there lacks any sort of overarching narrative or message to the book, an omission that would’ve catapulted this easy-reading novella from good to great. Still, this is Kurt Vonnegut we’re talking here, and I say these words in comparing him only to himself. Any lesser writer would have floundered with this material. Vonnegut nails the subject matter here with the dark levity it deserves, in the way that only he can.

Very funny book about a reporter making frequent trips to the afterlife in order to interview people. There is wisdom within the wit of this novel. It is written in very short interview 'vignettes' that are usually less than two pages long.

Brevi interviste di un inviato speciale nell'aldilà
nei cento metri circa di terreno libero tra la fine del Tunnel Celeste e le Porte del Paradiso...

God Bless you , Dr. Kevorkian : di che si tratta?
E' un esperimento di giornalismo post-mortem :)
Brevi interviste a tanti diversi personaggi
(una specie di ibrido tra la Divina Commedia e L'Antologia di Spoon River)
Tra i tanti, menzione speciale a
un San Pietro molto arguto (e irascibile con gli intrusi - intervistatori )
che dice ad un tipo
"Se sulla terra lei fosse stato un consumatore di crack, immagino che anche il paradiso sarebbe stata una delusione"
(E l'inferno ? naaaa... l'inferno mica esiste !
o come diceva Sartre L'Inferno sono gli altri )

PS.mica male l'epitaffio di Kurt Vonnegut :

Tutto è stato bellissimo. Nulla mi ha ferito. ( e comunque sia, me la sarò svignata)

:D

"Hell is other people".

این بار ونه گات به کمک دکتر که وارکیان، نیمه جان می شود، احتمالا با تزریق چیزی مرگبار، به آن دنیا می رود، دم در بهشت با آدم های مختلف مصاحبه می کند و برمی گردد. جهنمی وجود ندارد! همه به بهشت می روند و سنت پیتر ترتیب ملاقات ها را درست دم در بهشت می دهد!
خود کتاب 65 صفحه بیشتر نیست، اما نشر افراز زندگی نامه ی کوتاه ونه گات را هم پیوست کرده است.
بین این آدم ها، هیتلر هست که از ونه گات می خواهد روی بنای یادبودش! بنویسند ببخشید. آسیموف هست که در بهشت هم همچنان می نویسد. نیوتون هست که سعی دارد بفهمد این تونل آبی چیست و چگونه کار می کند و از همه بهتر مری شلی:
«گفتم بسیاری از آدم های نادان فکر می کنند که فرانکن اشتاین نام هیولاست و نه نام دانشمند خالق آن.
گفت به هر حال آن ها چندان احمق نیستند. توی داستان من دو تا هیولا وجود دارد، نه یکی، و یکی از آن ها، آن دانشمند، واقعا نامش فرانکن اشتاین است.»
سه ستاره چون متن مصاحبه ها شدیدا کوتاه اند. انگار نویسنده عمدا فرصتی چنین استثنایی را به راحتی از دست داده.
تورقش خالی از لطف نیست.

ایده‌های کورت ونه‌گات، واقعن جذاب و خلاقانه‌ان. توی این کتاب، گوینده‌رادیویی رو داریم که توی هرقسمت برنامه‌ش نیمه‌جون می‌شه و می‌ره از شخصیتای مرده مصاحبه تهیه می‌کنه و توسط دکتر به زندگی برمی‌گرده. طنز خوبی داره و حرفای درظاهرناجدی‌درباطن‌جدی می‌زنه. زندگی‌نامه خود ونه‌گات هم آخر کتاب هست که خوندنش خالی از لطف نیست!

n  [“This is one of my favorite part of this book: :)]n

During my controlled near-death experiences, I’ve met Sir Isaac Newton, who died back in 1727, as often as I’ve met Saint Peter. They both hang out at the Heaven end of the blue tunnel of the Afterlife. Saint Peter is there because that’s his job. Sir Isaac is there of his insatiable curiosity about what the blue tunnel is, Low the blue tunnel works.

It isn’t enough for Newton that during his eighty-five years on Earth he invented calculus, codified and quantified the laws of gravity, motion, and optics, and designed the first reflecting telescope. He can’t forgive himself for having left it to Darwin to come up with the theory of evolution, to Pasteur to come up with the germ theory, and to Albert Einstein to come up with relativity.

“I must have been deaf, dumb, and blind not to have come up with those myself,” he said to me. “What could have been more obvious?”

My job is to interview dead people for WNYC, but the late Sir Isaac Newton interviewed me instead. He got to make only a single one-way trip down the tunnel. He wants to know what it seems to be made of, fabric or metal or wood or what. I tell him that it’s made of whatever dreams are made of, which leaves him monumentally unsatisfied.

Saint Peter quoted Shakespeare to him: There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

This is one Vonnegut book that I could not connect with. There wasn't really anything that linked up and each conversation seemed to not matter to the others. There were parts that amused me but on the whole, it wasn't worth my time, even though it did not take much time to digest.

L'idea è geniale e leggere Vonnegut è un piacere, però non tutte queste brevi interviste con uomini e donne sull'uscio del Paradiso (l'Inferno non esiste) sono allo stesso livello. O forse sono io che ho apprezzato di più quelle con i personaggi storici che conoscevo.
Gusti a parte, mi ha colpito con quanta forza emergano le idee (politiche) dell'autore nonostante il tono della narrazione non si spinga mai oltre una garbata ironia.

“I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishment after I’m dead.”
-Kurt Vonnegut

I volunteer, full-time, at a used bookstore in Chicago. One, almost daily, activity is to visit local book boxes, giving them books we don't need, taking books we do. I found this in one of the boxes and, much liking Vonnegut, kept it for myself.

A short collection of reworked WNYC radio spots, the reading of this fantasy of near death experiences in Heaven occupied less than an hour. It's characteristic Vonnegut and a bit reminiscent of the much more substantial 'Heavenly Discourses' of a century previous, the content being a number of accounts of brief interviews with the deceased, some famous, some not. Of course, it's mildly amusing, very humane and understated. The interviewees range from Hitler to Eugene Victor Debs, Vonnegut's hero--and mine as well.

I enjoyed this little diversion, but I wouldn't recommend this to anyone but a devoted Vonnegut fan.

"God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian" is a fun, though short, book of "interviews" Kurt Vonnegut conducted. He had Dr. Kevorkian repeatedly kill him and then bring him back to life, so that he could travel down that blue tunnel to Heaven, talking with residents beyond the Pearly Gates.

Interviewees include William Shakespeare, Isaac Asimov, and Adolf Hitler. Some of the interviews had me smiling and some had me laughing out loud. No one can do satire quite like Kurt Vonnegut could!