A Man Without a Country

It was a good book, but it wasn't his best. I just saw it as his last words to his readers. As with all KVJ books it was full of lots of harsh wisdom. If more people read and understood KVJ, the better off we would all be.

Ate this tiny book while waiting at the doctor's office... Kurt Vonnegut is one of the most remarkable authors I've ever read and I simply had to read this final piece of his. While I don't think this is the right thing to pick if you're new to Vonnegut (are there such people at all? ;-) ), it definitely should become part of your (complete) collection of his work.
Again and again I pity that I didn't get the chance to travel to New York and just watch him take the trip to the post office. Simply watching him walking - I imagine him smiling, always, even through the darkest thoughts. People like Kurt Vonnegut are the reason modern America isn't damned as a whole. Now that he's gone, America's turned into a country without a Man...

Everybody should have a copy of this book and read it at least once a month. Although if you haven't read any other Vonnegut (which you should: "Slaughterhouse 5" if nothing else, come on!) you probably won't understand what gives Vonnegut authority. This book will make you sad, and puts forth some depressing conclusions, but it is wonderful too.
This review may not be very "helpful," but I had to say it.

I love Kurt Vonnegut. What I love , specifically, is that his thoughts, viewpoints and ideas have always been unique - they were concepts I couldn't find anywhere else. Not only that, but with words alone, Vonnegut could pick you up out of your mental rut, transport you to a fresh vantage point, and show you the world from a whole different angle. Pretty powerful stuff, that.

One modern philosopher said, "I hate people who buy their opinions wholesale." Vonnegut never did. You could never pin him down as Democrat, or Socialist, or Libertarian, or Republican. He never fit into any single category. It made his ideas more powerful, you couldn't label them and easily dismiss them, you had to at least give them the time and respect due to original, individual thought. How rare is that?

How sad then to find a simple caricature in this book? This is Vonnegut as the grumpy, aged, left-winger. How boring. How trite. How non-Vonnegut. I'm truly not bashing that viewpoint, it's just that you can find the opinions expressed in this book anywhere. That's never been true of Vonnegut before. Reading this book is like watching an athlete past their prime attempting one more good performance and just making you sad about what's no longer there.

Better to read Vonnegut at his best and not like this. He's always been more than the man shown in this book.

I really enjoyed this book. I have already made additional purchases to give as holiday gifts this year.