Vonnegut’s Asterisk (2013)

https://axelhow.com/2013/01/19/vonnegut-asterisk/

40 20 8 years ago

twog• 8 years ago

Vonnegut is the author that I wish I was, and was a major influence on my reading, thinking and creating. Strongly recommend picking up a few of his novels, you wont be able to put them down. My favorites are Slaughterhouse Five, Cats Cradle, Breakfast of Champions and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

ticmasta2• 8 years ago

I agree that everyone should try and read Vonnegut but don't expect everyone to enjoy it or find in it the awakening I sure did.

I think his writing really clicks with a particular type of person at a particular time in their life; if either is not quite right it seems reactions range from disinterest to hostility.

I discovered Sirens of Titan and Player Piano in high school and loved them immediately (unlike so much assigned reading) but I'm not sure I'd feel the same if I was to read them for the first time at this stage in my life. For instance, I still enjoy re-reading Hocus Pocus or Jailbird but not so much Slaughterhouse Five. I can't precisely say why, but so it goes...

johnmc408• 8 years ago

I kinda had the same feeling with Slaughterhouse Five as you. I know with music this has happened to me...but some albums, if I listen to them enough, I start to really like them. Maybe you should try reading SH5 a few times and see how it settles in...the first time reading it was soo good...

mattbierner• 8 years ago

Timequake is also a great one if you've enjoyed his other work

  I taught how to be sociable with ink on paper. I told
  my students that when they were writing they should be
  good dates on blind dates, should show strangers good
  times. Alternatively, they should run really nice
  whorehouses, come one, come all, although they were in
  fact working in perfect solitude. I said I expected
  them to do this with nothing but idiosyncratic
  arrangements in horizontal lines of twenty-six phonetic
  symbols, ten numbers, and maybe eight punctuation
  marks, because it wasn't anything that hadn't been done
  before.

  — Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut

geocar• 8 years ago

Timequake is one of my favourites too, but really every Vonnegut book I have read is a treat.

Sure the Bible might be the greatest story ever told, but the most popular story is about a couple who has a good time fornicating, but then stops for one reason or another while it is still a novelty.

ams6110• 8 years ago

Vonnegut was a favorite of my senior-year high school English teacher. She assigned several of his books.

kolbe• 8 years ago

For those who don't know, that's not an asterisk.

ticmasta2• 8 years ago

It sure looks like the Greendale Community College flag to me...

labster2• 8 years ago

E pluribus anus

coreypreston• 8 years ago

Dean-Dean-Dean, sorry I meant ding-ding-ding...

plink• 8 years ago

Quite. There is a painting by Paul Klee of a concentration camp upon which is superimposed an abstract of Hitler's face. Just below the rectangular mustache is that asterisk.

Quekid5• 8 years ago

One of my favorite quotes by him (well, technically a character of his):

"Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be."

Seems quite apropos these days (also!) in which quite a few people who've dabbled in the "trolling for the lulz!" pond have ended up drowning, metaphorically speaking.

chetsandwich• 8 years ago

We need to let people know that the pond is closed.

timoth3y• 8 years ago

Was that from Mother Night? That is an amazing book.

By pretending to be a Nazi to spy for the allies, he turned out to be very good at being a Nazi.

It's a dizzying trip around the age-old question of are we defined by what's in our hearts or by our actions, or perhaps our actions are the clearest indicator of what's in our hearts.

scarecrowbob2• 8 years ago

That was my primary takeaway from Mother Night.

I have found the idea that there isn't some authentic, secret me that no one really knows to be very useful in my life. Many of us have large discrepancies between how we see ourselves and how other people see us, and I have seen a lot of people file off the gear teeth in the clockwork of their minds (to use another idea from Vonnegut); fantasizing that there is a "real" us that other people just can't see is a useful tool for doing that kind of work.

As I understand it our human being ness is largely bound to how other folks perceive us, and when we get feedback from others it's important to listen to how they seem to understand us... that's been a hard thing to learn and apply, but it's been useful in changing that feedback into (hopefully positive) changes to how I treat other people.

dsiegel2275• 8 years ago

I have a cereal bowl that has this image printed within it. I can figuratively and literally eat the "Breakfast Of Champions" with it.

brownkonas• 8 years ago

I don’t seek vengeance but when I am redeemed : “Ting-a-Ling , you son of a ...” runs through my soul. Thanks Mr. Vonnegut.

labster2• 8 years ago

My only regret is that I have but one asterisk for my country.

scarecrowbob2• 8 years ago

I dunno if it is authentic, but I own a paperback copy of Slaughterhouse-5 signed "With Love, Billy".

JKCalhoun• 8 years ago

I have a letter he sent me (embarrassing story actually). Someone asked me if he had signed the letter with an asterisk. Didn't know that was a thing of his. (I mean I had read the book but didn't know he used it when he signed his name ... sometimes?)

Vonnegut’s Asterisk (2013)

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