In my opinion the best part was we shouldn't strive to Christianly love one another but rather humanely respect one another.

"'Ye shall respect one another.' Now there is something almost anybody in reasonable mental health can do day after day, yearn in and year out, come one, come all, to everyone's clear benefit. 'Respect' does not imply a spectrum of alternatives, some of them very dangerous. Respect is like a light switch. It is either on or off. And if we are no longer able to respect someone, we don't feel like killing that person. Our response is restrained. We simply want to make him or her feel like something the cat drug in."

"According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the average American child watches 18,000 TV murders before it graduates from high school."

I share a substantial portion of my worldview with Kurt Vonnegut so when I read his books I must feel like the huge majority of Internet users who read only the stuff that they agree with: we crave confirmation that we are so very right. Alas this also means that I probably tend to overrate Vonnegut's books even when they are not that outstanding. Fates Worse than Death (1991) is not a very good book at all - unfocused, repetitive, tedious in places - yet I still like it a lot. How can one not like reading things that one agrees with?

The subtitle, An Autobiographical Collage, aptly characterizes this collection of speeches, short pieces of writing, and ruminations on various topics, which makes Fates quite similar to n  Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloonsn, although Fates is a significantly less cohesive work. Even if the 1945 bombing of Dresden is still a major topic I will omit it here because I have already written about it in reviews of other works by Vonnegut, including his absolute masterpiece n  Slaughterhouse-Fiven.

One of the other main themes is the environment. Note the book was written over a quarter of a century ago, when worrying about climate change, etc. was not as popular as it is now. Mr. Vonnegut had been passionate about the human race destroying the planet for our children and grandchildren well before most of us began thinking about it. While speaking at MIT he begged the graduating class to take an oath that they will use their extraordinary technical skills only to the benefit of the planet.

Mr. Vonnegut spends a substantial portion of the book attacking the deadly one-two punch of what I call the "American culture of murder." A US citizen is born and raised in the parareligious cult of guns as devices signifying and guaranteeing freedom; this cult is continually reinforced by the never-ending stream of murders depicted by the TV and entertainment industry (as mentioned in the epigraph). The author says:

"Who needs a Joseph Goebbels to make us think killing is as quotidian an activity as tying one's shoes? All that is needed is a TV industry [...]"

Book censorship is a topic that should be dear to members of Goodreads and Vonnegut's books had been banned in certain places, ostensibly for vulgarity but in reality for not conforming to the views of the majority of people.

"There is the word 'motherfucker' one time in my Slaughterhouse-Five [...] Ever since that book was published, way back in 1969, children have been attempting to have intercourse with their mothers. When it will stop no one knows."

Clearly the m-word corrodes the moral fiber of the society. Another hilarious passage is devoted to "the wittiest limerick in the world", which is "so obscene that it could never be made public in any form." We can read the unspeakably obscene poem courtesy of Rita Rait, the Russian translator of Vonnegut's works.

On a serious note, the theme that speaks to me the strongest in the entire collection is the author's rant about the insanity of encouraging people "to do their best at loving [other people]." The natural inability to love other people leads to hate; people should be told to respect others instead. Vonnegut says "I like to think that Jesus said in Aramaic, 'Ye shall respect one another.'" Anyway, Fates, objectively, is not an above average work, yet I almost love it because I respect the author's intentions.

Two and a half stars.

I have given up bc I got bored

Even though this is a collection of essays, it it has a connectedness if not a linear flow. (But with Vonnegut, what do you expect?) While not my favorite of his works when taken with his fiction, it is the perfect window into the soul of the person who gave us remarkable works of fiction despite or because of his real-life experiences. If you don't like cantankerous, pass on this one;I felt like I was at home with my father.

3.25

Kurt is an interesting writer, although I disagree with him on his views of Christianity.

Picked this up a long time ago and just got back to it. I guess I just needed to be a bit more jaded and 'wiser' to appreciate this favor of Vonnegut. Great stuff in weird times.

Mostly a collection of speeches and articles he wrote. Much of the ideas I had seen in other books by Vonnegut. Some ideas that caught my attention:

Mental Health - To Vonnegut what people really need is an extended family. "Human beings have almost always been supported and comforted and disciplined and amused by stable lattices of many relatives and friends until the Great American Experiment, which is an experiment not only with liberty but with rootlessness, mobility, and impossibly tough-minded lonliness."

Art - HIs sister had an interesting insight about art that other artists confirmed. They can look at a work and "get it" quickly. They get the "Pow." If they don't the painting has no value. Unfortunately, Vonnegut's mother would always urge his father to "finish" what Kurt, Jr. thought were wonderful paintings and ruin them. He feels the same way when reading. You get to the point where you say "End it, End It, End it, for the love of God please end it now." But the writer keeps going and ruins it. I agree. Maybe that's why I like short stories so much. Make the point and close the curtain.

Fates worse than death - Vonnegut questions is there is such a thing. Slavery? Generations lived through it. Occupation by a foreign power? What would they do that would worse that isn't already been done? Perhaps crucifixtion, but nobody is threatening that today. The point is that pressing the nuclear button because you fear a fate worse than death is irrational. Life, however difficult, is better than death to Vonnegut.

This book grew on me as I went along. I’ve always had some degree of a problem understanding Vonnegut’s novels, and this “Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s” gave me some background which could help that. It flips around a lot, but ultimately I did really enjoy his perspectives.

Rather dated cynicism from Kurt Vonnegut - a good writer but dousing everything with negativity.

for anyone who has read more than three Vonnegut books, this is a must read, at the very least excerpts.

i found many interesting tidbits and humerous insights in this book. at the time i was writing a term paper on Vonnegut. (one of my first and most fun papers ever.) useful in that reagard.

he discusses Ritalin usage, his son's schizophrenia, and many other private matters. this began (rather, contnued) my obsession with ADD and Vonnegut's idoldom to a generation of medicated teens, including myself, at that time. this trend in American pharmecuticals and high schools continues, as does the adoration of Vonnegut and his devoted fanbase. kids that aren't into writers' culture nor academia love his work.

because of him, millions of bored kids read.

helpful and, as always, very funny.

I'm a sucker for Kurt Vonnegut's writings, and this is just one big bag of his excerpts. It's not the most cohesive of autobiographies, but that's not the point. Not unlike Welcome to the Monkey House (itself a book of his short stories/half cooked ideas), this book is more Vonnegut just talking things out about stuff going on in his life, sprinkled with his signature humor and views, than a full on retrospective we might expect from a tried and true autobiography. As a fan of most of his works (I'm still going through them, but even my least favorite right now is more B-, C+), this book was fun and insightful to me. Is it the best bio/autobio I will ever read? Probably not. That said, I am glad this exists, and recommend it to all kinds of Vonnegut fans out there.