Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. (Vol. 5) - Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. 1922–
Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. 1922–
Vonnegut is an enormously popular American novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His deceptively simple fantasies and science fiction are incisive commentaries on contemporary life; his slapstick comedy is black. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 1-4, rev. ed.)
Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions is more provocative as a straw in the wind than a work of literature. It has almost no narrative interest, almost no "solidity of specification," almost no moral complication, and almost none of the inside-dopesterism characteristic of books that sell very well; yet it has sold not merely well but best. What it does have is play, wit, structural unpredictability, some ingenious mimicry of American speech, and an absurdist vision continuous with Vonnegut's previous work, though here with a different tonal range. It seems to me possible that our literary sociology is changing in some ways that are not...
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