Engl 209:
Contemporary British and American Literature
Books by Kurt Vonnegut
The Sirens of Titan (1959) -- Malachi Constant helps Mars attack Earth, then goes on a long journey through the solar system, manipulated by Winston Niles Rumfoord who is unstuck in time and space, revolving through the universe with his dog Kazak. All Earth history is revealed to be a Tralfamadorian plot, but the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent resigns people to this and much else.
Mother Night (1962) -- Howard W. Campbell Jr., a German-American playwright living in Germany during WW II, heads the Nazi propaganda machine while acting as a double agent for the Americans, and a double-double agent for the Nazis.
Link to Home Page for movie version of Mother Night
Cat's Cradle (1963) -- Rollicking farce about the creation of a religion (Bokononism) whose lies really make sense and a chemical that will eliminate mud (and life on earth) by the army.
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater or Pearls Before Swine (19 ) -- Story of Eliot Rosewater, who despite his personal fortune wants only to be a good volunteer fireman and help people.
Slaughterhouse-Five (1967) -- Classic anti-war book about Vonnegut's experience of the firebombing of Dresden as seen through the eyes of Billy Pilgrim and through the Tralfamodorian philosophy of Kilgore Trout.
Link to paper comparing novel and movie
Welcome To The Monkey House (1968) -- Collection of short stories, most with slight science fiction bent.
Happy Birthday Wanda June (1971) -- Play about what happens when the great hunter Harold Ryan--missing and presumed dead--returns from Africa after eight years.
Breakfast of Champions (1973) -- Kilgore Trout goes to a celebration of his work hosted by Eliot Rosewater and copes with a reader who thinks his fiction is true.
Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons( 1974) -- Collection of essays
Slapstick; Or, Lonesome No More! (1976) -- The end of the world as seen through the eyes of the current King of Manhattan (and last President of the United States),
Jailbird (1979) -- Bumbling bureaucrat Walter F. Starbuck travels from Harvard to the Nixon White House to the penitentiary as Watergate's least known co-conspirator.
Sun Moon Star (1980) -- A children's book about the sights that met the eyes of Baby Jesus just after being born.
Palm Sunday : An Autobiographical Collage(1981) -- Essays and autobiographical musings.
Deadeye Dick (1982) -- Rudy Waltz accidentally shoots a pregnant woman, killing her and her child, and seeks absolution in various guises.
Galapagos (1985) -- A small group of people who survive the apocalypse slowly mutate into a kinder, gentler race of penguins.
Bluebeard (1987) -- Fictional biography of aging artist Rabo Karabekian--first introduced in Breakfast of Champions
Hocus Pocus (1990) -- Led by a Vietnam vet, prisoners in a maximun-secuity prison revolt against the Japanese who run their institution and take over a nearby liberal arts college .
Fates Worse Than Death: An Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s (1991) -- A collection of essays about life in the '80s strung together by connecting material.
Timequake (Sept. 1997) -- "Suddenly devoid of free will, the citizens of a failing Rhode Island mill town relive their lives. Lovers meet again for the first time and pre-adolescent offspring are conceived and born once more as history repeats itself. And when the double trouble runs its course and time is back on track, Miles Cunningham will be in for the surprise of his 'lives'."
Read more about and buy Vonnegut books at Amazon.com
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