Това е микс от речи, разсъждения, текстове на автора, описание на родословното му дърво, с което ни приближава към личността си. Автобиография, но не съвсем, не съвсем.
Кърт Вонегът разкрива себе си, без опасения, показва своята иронична, цинична, вулгарна страна, но и своя блестящ и красив ум.

Въпреки изумителната си нестандартност, даже елитарност, те кара да го усещаш близък, равен с теб, а на мен даже ми се прииска да съм имала шанса да изпия питие с него и да пофилософстваме за живота:)

3.5⭐️

Appealing as it may be, I’d say this should be reserved for the most pure of Vonnegut fans. His family history, views on Céline, and some commencement speeches are pretty interesting and there are moments of his on-brand brilliance, but overall this is a deeper dive than is ever needed to enjoy Cat’s Cradle or Slayghterhouse-5. His formula for his way of thinking is on clear display, and so exposed it loses some of the magic. Also, there are a few moments of some pretty dated views. He makes a racist statement that was so blatant and shocking, so unnecessary to what he was speaking, that I assumed it was the set up for an epic Vonnegut joke that flips all of society on its head, but no. He just randomly says Black folk are inferior to whites. Why Kurt, why? I guess it’s truly autobiographical, then. Shame.

In 1980, Vonnegut collected various speeches, reviews and letters he'd written and added commentary. The result was the book PALM SUNDAY.
I've always thought Vonnegut was somewhat sloppy, but, reading PALM SUNDAY made it clear to me that Vonnegut's sloppiness is part of a method. He was actually a writer of tremendous rigor.
He even points out that his repetition of the phrase "And so it goes" is his version of Celine's use of ellipses.
PALM SUNDAY is more interesting to me than Vonnegut's novels, because he gets directly to the things I like to hear him talk about: Man's inhumanity to man, man's strangeness, the plight of the individual.
If you've ever tried to write fiction, PALM SUNDAY has, throughout, some very serious and practical advice. If you've ever wondered what an established writer goes through, there's a letter here addressed to a school which burns Vonnegut's books. If you're interested in the World War Two generation, read Vonnegut's account of the bombing of Dresden. He was an American soldier captured by the Germans. He and his fellow prisoners were sent down to the basement of a slaughterhouse. When they came back up, the city which was there when they went downstairs was gone. So, he'd survived, as a prisoner, the complete destruction, by his compatriots, of a city of the enemy. His novel about this, SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, has a science-fiction element because that's the only way Kurt Vonnegut could translate the experience into art. PALM SUNDAY refers intermittently to the bombing of Dresden.
Vonnegut was not sloppy. He kept his sanity by writing. He points this fact out several times. He earned the right to point it out over and over again.
Also included in this book is a history of his family written by a friend of his parents. Vonnegut comments on it, but it, in itself, sheds much light on Vonnegut's background, and does it with a touch of pathos.
Vonnegut comments on many of the notable literary figures of the day. His essay of William F. Buckley, Jr., while acknowledging the total political differences between Vonnegut and Buckley, nevertheless, captures Buckley as well as any description has. Buckley died a few days ago. Vonnegut died about half a year ago. Also here is Vonnegut's truly deep, masterful review of Joseph Heller's SOMETHING HAPPENED, which appeared in THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW. It's an example of Vonnegut stepping outside of himself and communicating another writer's message. Heller and Vonnegut were friends, and I gather Vonnegut wanted to summon up all his powers in the writing of that review. I read that review when it was printed, in 1974, and it has stayed in my mind ever since. I remember it more clearly than many of the novels by Vonnegut which I've read. And I love his novels.
I learned a few things from PALM SUNDAY, and I hope the fact that I learned these things might cause you to seek this book out:
Vonnegut's home city, Indianapolis, had its center gutted when Vonnegut was in middle age. Many of the buildings torn down had been designed by members of his family.
Vonnegut called Mark Twain an "American Saint."
Vonnegut was descended from Free-Thinkers. His religious skepticism was, therefore, inherited. When invited to preach -- yes -- one Palm Sunday at St. Clement's Episcopal Church in New York, he accepted, and, in his sermon, referred to himself as a "Christ-worshiping agnostic."
He didn't like movies.
He said this:
"Some people say that my friend Gore Vidal, who once suggested in an interview that I was the worst writer in the United States, is witty. I myself think he wants an awful lot of credit for wearing a three-piece suit."
Three more reasons to read this book are the self-interview, the send-up of Depression-era musicals and the general sense given of a man talking directly to anybody reading.

I loved every word of this book, and I plan to reread it. It isn't really a memoir in the traditional sense of offering an autobio, but some important parts of V's bio do stand out as he talks about the world and what human beings are doing with it. V is irreverent as always, hilariously so, and extremely political, as always, and supremely ethical... and all of this while making me laugh. I really loved the way that he talks about the craft of writing, sort of giving notes as he goes along about what a writer is and does, and what function literature can have. In that sense, his book really is a memoir, as he contextualizes narrative fragments that he has written while on his life journey: his personal experience of having survived the US fire-bombing of Dresden and having been assigned the task of disposing of the dead, an experience that he uses as the referent for his acclaimed novel Slaughter House Five; wildly satiric graduation speeches that made me laugh my butt off thinking about the looks on the faces of the parents and families all dressed up for their son/daughter's big day; eulogies for lost friends, letters to newspapers, to small towns in the heartland who felt it wise to burn V's books lest they corrupt the minds of our youth, etc etc etc. Another book that lifts my heart and tempts me to believe that there's something worth struggling for on this planet and that human beings just might have something important to offer in the quest to treat the world and the people in it as if all of this mattered.

Good eulogy for Chicago tough-guy James T. Farrell, but why on earth was he sucking up to William F. Buckley? And what's with "my list of really cool celebrity friends?" How insecure was this guy anyway?

Rating: 10/10
I'm not much into Vonnegut's fiction, but his collections of essays and speeches, as seen in this book, Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons, Fates Worse Than Death, and A Man Without a Country, are literally the best books I've ever read across all genres. They are my Sacred Texts. They're the only books that I'll insist my children read when they're a bit older.

As it says on the cover this collection of short stories, plays, interviews and essays, it's an autobiographical collage and unlike his first collection of this sort, has a connective tissue running through it. Vonnegut even says this is as close as he can get a memoir and that being said this book succeeds at painting a full picture of a man, his history, thoughts and philosophy on life.

This collection touches on a lot of Vonnegut's favourite subjects, religion, politics, writing and especially other writers. I loved the insight this book gives to Vonnegut's history and also how he feels about his ex-wife, kids and their lives up to this point of his life which was 1981. I particularly enjoyed his story of Jack Kerouac coming to his house and picking a fight with his son Mark Vonnegut. And ultimately that's what I enjoyed most of this book, the stories and insights to himself and his work as well as his favourite pieces of writing.

The book struggles sometimes with trying to make pieces about religion and social classes thrilling as some of these articles can be a bit bland and I still believe speeches are better heard then read. However the book does what it's supposed to, it let's you peer into the mind of a truly fascinating man and hear, like a time capsule, how he felt about his world and the people in it. Shout out to the great short story in this collection "The Big Space Fuck" love it!

n  The women's liberation movement of today in America, in its most oceanic sense, is a wish by women to be liked for something other than their reproductive abilities, especially since the planet is harrowingly overpopulated. And the rejection of the Equal Rights Amendment by male state legislators is this clear statement by men, in my opinion: "We're sorry, girls, but your reproductive abilities are about all we can really like you for."n

Midway through this book I finally got down to watching Robert Weide's Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time (2021). Aside from making me bawl for an hour straight, the movie in itself is a marvelous portrait of a hopelessly funny cynic, the most uplifting pessimist of American literature.

What amazes about Vonnegut is his apparent clinging to supposedly atheist views, when in fact everything he ever wrote or said is in perfect alignment with the most fundemental Christian beliefs. In Palm Sunday he takes a jab at the hypocritical nature of censorship, gender inequality, Nazism, capitalism, socialism, any bloody ism you can think of, and then some—not even his own parents are spared. And you laugh along with him even when his words are bitter, because he inevitably points you in the direction of what is truly humorous even in the midst of the biggest catastrophe.

I'll say this: Robert Weide is one hell of a lucky son of a bitch.

3.5

This is where I get frustrated with simple star rating systems. There were many 5-star brilliant moments in this book. Overall, I found it fascinating and it made me want to read more Vonnegut (I've read Slaughterhouse 5, Breakfast of Champions, and Welcome to the Monkey House). But there are definitely some slow and super-weird parts (ancestry and Jekyll and Hyde chapters, I'm looking at you) that I didn't enjoy. If you love Vonnegut, definitely read this book, but skip what doesn't grab you. There will still be plenty of insight and dark humor.

Vonnegut himself calls this book a "pastiche," a high-falutin' word I only learned last year in a grad course on contemporary American literature. It's a collection of stuff. Book reviews. Family history. A letter his daughter wrote in defense of a fellow waitress who was fired. Copies of speeches given on various occasions.

As a Vonnegut fan, I was intrigued by the opportunity to go through the book. It's Vonnegut unplugged--he provides his sardonic commentary, as applied to mostly real life events. Since I seem to be in the process of reading every book he wrote, it's worth reading to gain insight into his worldview, especially where religion, politics, family, and his German-American identity are involved. Some chapters are of greater interest to me than others. I guess that's what happens when you throw a bunch of things together, into one book. As a collective whole, they form something interesting. Piece by piece, a few things here and there are worth noticing, but the individual pieces of this collage can't all stand out at once.