Does Vonnegut's writing strike anyone else as rather immature? I've learned to appreciate and enjoy his books for what they are, but both the prose and the development of ideas seem almost petulant. It makes me wish I'd read him while I was a teen. The books would probably be more enjoyable and could serve as a bridge to other literature.
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As a teen it was kino but now as an adult I find his worldview pretty naive and it shows in his writing. Still entertaining but I don't enjoy it on all the same levels as before.
This is why he seems like the perfect high school English class writer to me. Simple and zany enough that kids won't complain, pretty similar maturity level to that stage of life, and he still tackles ideas that make one think at least a little.
I've read books of his from before and after that one and get the same feeling from them all.
Other (American) postmodernists don't have the same childish feeling I get from Vonnegut though. Heller and Pynchon have a lot of silliness but it still feels more developed somehow
>Heller and Pynchon have a lot of silliness but it still feels more developed somehow
How on earth did you get that from Heller?
To be fair I've only read Catch-22 because I've heard that everything else he wrote was shit.
But even though that book had a lot more absurd and zany things than Vonnegut's books (the prostitute chase, Milo bombing his own squadron, a splooge joke on the very first page, etc.), the way they are presented feels a lot better. Pubescent is a word that comes to mind for Kurt. Catch-22 seems more genuine and compelling while Vonnegut's books feel almost insincere despite how blunt and honest he's truly being. The difference is especially strange since they were friends who drew their works from similar wells.
Yes but i think that's a positive thing. It is definitely great for teenagers. Easy to understand and entretaining but enough depth for it to be worthwhile
He exploits and uses the immature but from Mother Night on I would not call it immature other then a few works. Everyone is immature at times, why should writers ignore that?
He's a post-modern writer. The sillyness is the big-brained and serious part.
You can always tell if a writer is going to be childish or not by looking at pictures of them. Vonnegut and all other immature writers have this nerdy little b***h look to them. You get the feeling they were bullied at school just by looking at them. (Even if they actually weren't, they still have the pathetic look of someone who was)
He was trying so hard to be his generation's Mark Twain.
I don’t think in terms like “mature/immature” because I am not a child.
Too mature to deal in maturity?
>Does Vonnegut's writing strike anyone else as rather immature?
kind of, but asking that question on IQfy is hilarious.
I think some of the immatureness of Slaughterhouse Five, for example, are a big part of their charm. It gives a lot of his descriptions a certain directness and bluntness that I admire.
I think he leverages the immature (and that would be subjective to say anyway) into actual literary art. He does a great job of using some potentially immature elements to better express themes in his narratives. He's funny, and the stuff he wrote not in the last phase of his life (e.g. Timequake, etc.) will be worth reading for centuries to come IMO
Why do women love Vonnegut so much?
His books are very easy to read, don't require a lot of thinking, and deal with ostensibly "deep" themes.
Vonnegut books are to women/redditors who only read fantasy or YA what Ulysses is to a stuck up academic.
Slaughterhouse Five is a delightful book with pure heart and good cheer in the face of a war inferno world.
I am not surprised that many fans decided to get its refrain tattooed.
I am also not surprised some miserable soul invested effort to make this picture.
What is more embarassing
1. having a silly tattoo
2. feeling so insecure that you enjoy making fun of people
be nice, people are people too.
>Reddit spacing
>just be kind
>Twitter rhetoric
White woman detected. Release the hounds.
The man survived the Allied bombing of Dresden as a POW. Don't talk down to him.
Vonnegut gives young writers the impression they can write like him. They try and fail, thus the resentment found here.
I would hesitate to mistake clarity for immaturity. His ideas are very matured once he hits the stride of his writing career, you can tell that concerns that were incepted perhaps in that meat locker in Dresden had percolated through the years and resulted in a profoundly humanist and pacifistic worldview to the point that just by reading his works you can clearly see the questions he asked himself. How do we relate to each other? Yes, what is war good for? How do the actions of one person affect everyone else?
The phenomena that resulted from his thoroughly thinking through and a professorial attitude is that its very easy to see what he's going for. Although he manages to dodge categorization lobbed at the likes of Asimov or Baxter where character and plot be damned for I have one sterling idea that I will explore, his most well known works are essentially a man breaking down what he feels are complicated ideas into emotionally character driven simplifications, but not simplified to the loss of meaning or impact, rather they are the aged teacher's well-done examples as they lead you authorially from concept to concept until you can arrive at the answer.
I have previously said that I do not think Vonnegut to be immature in his ideas in the sense that the ideas have obviously been worked on and crafted, but I would like to give a reasoning why you may describe him as such. You can see the endpoint of his thought as shallow and young in the grand scheme of things, and perhaps you've read other humanist authors or philosophical writers who have had more detailed and referential tomes and discussions on related matters. I cannot truly argue with that too hard myself because as much as I enjoy Vonnegut for being someone who successfully renders ideas fit for mass consumption I also often wrinkle at his beautiful ideas for being wonderful yet also naive. Yes I love the description of those brave men and women disassembling bombs and grinding them up and burying them far under the earth so that no harm may come to anyone ever again, but surely you have to understand that there's a base psychology, evolutionary or just some curse of our environment, that means the bomb will be built, must be built, will always and ever have been built?
GPT hasn't matured, it would seem.
>Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.
>“Aamons, Mona:” the index said, “adopted by Monzano in order to boost Monzano’s popularity, 194-199, 216a.; childhood in compound of House of Hope and Mercy, 63-81; childhood romance with P. Castle, 72f; death of father, 89ff; death of mother, 92f; embarrassed by role as national erotic symbol, 80, 95f, 166n., 209, 247n., 400-406, 566n., 678; engaged to P. Castle, 193; essential naïveté, 67-71, 80, 95f, 116a., 209, 274n., 400-406, 566a., 678; lives with Bokonon, 92-98, 196-197; poems about, 2n., 26, 114, 119, 311, 316, 477n., 501, 507, 555n., 689, 718ff, 799ff, 800n., 841, 846ff, 908n., 971, 974; poems by, 89, 92, 193; returns to Monzano, 199; returns to Bokonon, 197; runs away from Bokonon, 199; runs away from Moazano, 197; tries to make self ugly in order to stop being erotic symbol to islanders, 89, 95f, 116n., 209, 247n., 400-406, 566n., 678; tutored by Bokonon, 63-80; writes letter to United Nations, 200; xylophone virtuoso, 71.”
>Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
Liked him a lot when I first got into reading. I’d say he is immature in a fun, not too self serious way. It’s not Proust or James but I think that he has a unique style that is mature in the sense that he’s worked it out and clearly written and that shows in most of his fiction
I think the "stuff breaks, people die" themes that excessively pervade all of his books combined with the almost preachy voice of the writing creates this impression.
I've read four books by Vonnegut:
>Slaughterhouse Five
>Sirens of Titan
>Galapagos
>Cat's Cradle
Ostensibly they all appear to be different books, but he really just writes the same thing over and over with a new cover. It's not just similar motifs or style like any author has either. Every book is the same.
>Overarching theme of the book is that life is futile, people get tossed around and snuffed out like bugs, might as well laugh and love
>50 random anecdotes of death scattered throughout the book to get said point across
>make fun of capitalism
>make fun of American exceptionalism
>make fun of militarism
>main characters always have daddy issues, father figures are inevitably awful
>"Wise Savage/Black" trope character who really GETS life and is more serene than everyone else
>sardonic insufferable character who is also portrayed as GETTING life
All of this without fail.
I'm sure if you only read Slaughterhouse Five, he seems great. Read the rest of his work and you realize he's a one trick pony.