Originally published in 1999.
Version with Neil Gaiman foreword published in 2010 by Seven Stories Press.

Synopsis:

In the late 1990's Kurt Vonnegut made a series of 90 second recordings for WNYC, the local NPR station for New York City. The premise of each spot was simple enough - Vonnegut travels to the afterlife to conduct a very short interview with someone (some famous, some not) and then he brings word back to the land of the living to tell us the wisdom he has learned.

How does he get to afterlife? Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the creator of the assisted suicide machine works with Vonnegut to render him about 3/4 dead in the very room and on the very bed where the state of Texas administers the death penalty via lethal injection. One of the people he interviews is a murderer who had just been executed - Karla Faye Tucker, although Vonnegut misspells her first name as Carla.

Since he is 3/4 dead, Vonnegut is able to travel to the afterlife and is called back away when he is revived. Eventually, St. Peter gets tired of Vonnegut going back and forth and he is told he must wait just outside of the Pearly Gates.

All of this going back and forth is cut short by the real life arrest of Kevorkian in Michigan in 1998, an event that Vonnegut refers to at the end of the book.

My review:

This short book is not Vonnegut's best work, but it is certainly packed with Vonnegut's famous biting sarcasm. It is an up and down book and it was clearly printed with an eye to making it seem to be a bigger book than it actually is - with extra wide margins, blank pages between chapters and the like.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

Kb. egy óra alatt, amíg a gyerekek aludtak délután.

Igazából azon gondolkodtam, hogy kicsit """bánom""", hogy már kamaszkoromban elolvastam majdnem mindent Vonneguttól. Mert ha még egy ilyen resztligyűjtemény is letaglóz általa, akkor vajon milyen hatást váltana ki ma, egy Vonnegutot nem látott szűz szempárból a Kékszakáll, az Éj anyánk, vagy a Hazátlan ember? Amik a kötelező klasszikusok mellett hét lakattal lettek a kedvencek dobozába zárva, azt hiszem örökre.

Hogy egyébiránt a könyvről is írjak valamit: szokásos könnyed stílusban körbejárunk egy szinte feloldhatatlan morális problémát és közben baromi jól szórakozunk, miközben például Hitler tolmácsolja elképzeléseit a sírkövére vonatkozóan. Az utoszó pedig segít abban, hogy történeti kontextusban is lássuk, miért volt a megjelenésekor ez egy fontos írás (mindez persze úgy igaz, hogy ha a rádiós műsorok leirataként gondolunk rájuk). Vonnegut esetében vicces a csillagokról írni, de itt jár az öt csillag!

God zegene u, dr. Kevorkian
Is geschreven door Kurt Vonnegut. De schrijver zelf heeft hier de hoofdrol als een journalist/verslaggever die een paar keer een gecontroleerde dood ervaard. Hij heeft zelf voor heeft gekozen en het word gedaan door dr. Kevorkian met als reden kijken wat er gebeurd na de dood en bekende mensen te gaan ondervragen waaronder: William Shakespeare, Adolf Hitler, Sir Isaak Newton, Louis Armstrong, John Brown, Martin Luther King,en nog veel bekende amerikanen.
Het zijn zeer korte interviews van een pagina of drie. Er wordt bijna niets vertelt over de hoofdrol speler. Het was een gemakkelijk boek omte lezen want elk gesprek duurde maar maximum drie pagina's dus je kon ook gemakkelijk stoppen en de juiste pagina vinden zonder een bladwijzer te gebruiken. Er komen geen moeilijke woorden in voor. Een grote minpunt vind ik de inleiding dus de eerste 17 pagina's waren zeer onduidelijk voor mij. Ik begreep het boek pas toen ik op pagina 20 was. Zonder een beetje voor kennis over de auteur en het boek zelf zou je in de eerste paar pagina's in knoop raken. Voor de rest vond ik het een zeer goed boek omdat het over veel bekende mensen gaat en hoe ze zouden denken en hoe ze zouden zijn en wat en waar ze zouden zijn in het hiernamaals. Je leert ook veel nieuwe (bekende) mensen kennen door het boek.
Ik zou het niet aan iedereen aan raden. Vooral aan mensen waar ze hiervaneen boek bespreking moeten maken. Ik zou het wel aan raden voor mensen die van tijd tot tijd lezen voor hun vrije tijd.

Liked it. Love Vonnegut. Wish i could add .5 to my rating.

I'm admittedly a Vonnegut fan boy, this is the 11th work I've read by him, so take that into account.

I enjoyed this quite a bit, I mean what's not to enjoy? It's a series of 1-3 page snippets where Vonnegut is continually given "controlled near death experiences" by the titular Dr. Kevorkian so he can interview deceased people at the end of the long blue tunnel that leads to Heaven, there is no hell of course. The interviewees range from regular folk to Sir Issac Newton to Adolf Hitler, just to name a few. Each soul imparting a nugget of truth to chew on.

You can easily finish this in a single sitting and could be a nice little intro to Vonnegut's tone and style, please don't stop here though.

3.5 | Vonnegut interviews folks for public radio in the after life

Questo libro è un caso veramente particolare. L'idea di partenza e la cornice sono geniali: a seguito di una anestesia mal fatta Vonnegut si ritrova nell'al di là, dove incontra un San Pietro che gli fa l'occhiolino (a presto kurt!!), dopodiché ritorna sulla terra. Sfruttando le capacità "anestetiche" del Dott. Kevorkian, famoso specialista americano noto per aver esercitato liberamente l'eutanasia su malati terminali, Vonnegut replica l'esperienza altre 30 volte (solo 30 però, perché poi arrestano Kevorkian, ponendo fine a questi viaggi). Molto curiosa la scelta delle 30 interviste: Mary Shelley (mitica!); Biagini, costruttore morto di infarto mentre difendeva il proprio schnautzer da un pitbull; Hitler (che vorrebbe che da qualche parte nel mondo erigessero una gigantesca scala a sua immagine, con sotto scritto enorme: scusatemi); molti altri ancora, celebri o sconosciuti. Trovo che la cornice del libro sia splendida, geniale e interessantissima, però poi molte delle interviste nella loro semplicità non lascino il segno. Un libro forse che per certi versi è più bello da regalare o possedere, per leggere un capitolo sparso ogni tanto, che da leggere dall'inizio alla fine. Immenso l'epitaffio di vonnegut: "tutto è stato bellissimo. Nulla mi ha ferito. Comunque sia, me la sarò svignata".

n  

I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to have died for a schnauzer named Teddy. Salvador Biagiani was philosophical. He said it sure beat dying for absolutely nothing in the Viet Nam War.

n

Short book of a author I haven't even heard before (yeah, I know...) and it was a nice discovery.
In this short collection the author touches very different topics and his intuitions, thoughts and considerations are witty and on point... I really loved this reading.
Plus, did I mention the preface is written by Neil Gaiman?

4/5
I read this in half an hour at the coffee shop. It was quite nice. A satisfying, intriguing read, and heavily satirical. Some things bugged me, but I don’t mind that much, considering it’s an older book. Most notably, due to the introduction, I now want to read up on humanism. That seems like an ideology that’s right down my alley. (thanks kurt vonnegut)

Simple, somber, and sweet. Wait.. somber? Maybe not actually. Despite the macabre setting of the execution chamber, and the constant reminder that death will come one day, Vonnegut is able to hold a very light tone.

I think you can see the age of Vonnegut in his writing here, he’s tired and frustrated, but not quite lazy. He embraces the fact that his narrator has seen a lot, and written a lot, but is still able to express the desire to learn more, particularly from the past.

Vonnegut takes the ice breaker question of “which historical figure would you have dinner with?” His take on the question is uniquely him however and I appreciate that he didn’t write this book to appease the reader but to satisfy his own curiosity and imagination.

God do I wish I could talk to Dr. Kavorkian and meet with Vonnegut now.

I read this book in, like, 20 minutes. Vonnegut talks to dead folks. Who knows

“This morning, thanks to a controlled near-death experience, I was lucky enough to meet, at the far end of the blue tunnel, a man named Salvatore Biagini. Last July 8th, Mr. Biagini, a retired construction worker, age seventy, suffered a fatal heart attack while rescuing his beloved schnauzer, Teddy, from an assault by an unrestrained pit bull named Chele, in Queens.

The pit bull, with no previous record of violence against man or beast, jumped a four-foot fence in order to have at Teddy. Mr. Biagini, an unarmed man with a history of heart trouble, grabbed him, allowing the schnauzer to run away. So the pit bull bit Mr. Biagini in several places and then Mr. Biagini's heart quit beating, never to beat again. I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to have died for a schnauzer named Teddy. Salvador Biagini was philosophical. He said it sure as heck beat dying for absolutely nothing in the Vietnam War.”

This is one of my favorite selections from the book. As most Vonnegut is, this title is funny and makes you ponder.