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Movies => Press Releases and Film News => Topic started by: Raffine on April 11, 2007, 11:22:31 PM



Title: Kurt Vonnegut Has Died
Post by: Raffine on April 11, 2007, 11:22:31 PM
Vonnegut was definitely my favorite author.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/books/12vonnegut.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/books/12vonnegut.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin)



(http://www.davyking.com/FaceVonnegut.gif)







So it goes.


Title: Re: Kurt Vonnegut Has Died
Post by: Joe the Destroyer on April 12, 2007, 01:57:19 AM
Ah, you beat me to it. 

Vonnegut was an awesome writer.  I think Slaughterhouse Five is one of my all time favorite books.


Title: Re: Kurt Vonnegut Has Died
Post by: TheSinisterQuinn on April 12, 2007, 05:41:40 AM
Yes yes Slaughterhouse Five was indeed a great piece of work. Though my personal favorite out of his collection was Cat's Cradle.   

Very cool man. I had the opportunity to meet him once in Lawrence, Ks back in the early 90's.

So sad to lose a literary icon but as it always goes with so many great minds..... his works will now be appreciated even more so now that he has passed on. unfortunate but true.


Title: Re: Kurt Vonnegut Has Died
Post by: Derf on April 12, 2007, 09:46:59 AM
Definitely one of my all-time favorites. When I was considering working on my PhD, he was definitely in top contention to be my focal author.


Title: Re: Kurt Vonnegut Has Died
Post by: Raffine on April 16, 2007, 04:07:13 PM
Keeping in the spirit of this site I should mention the Kurt Vonnegut novel Slapstick (his personal least favorite, I understand) was turned in to one of the worst movies ever imagined by man or beast:  1982's SLAPSTICK (OF ANOTHER KIND) starring Madeline Kahn and Jerry Lewis.

(http://www.klangundkleid.ch/img/dvd/covers/CCD9921.jpg)

It's possibly the worst of Jerry Lewis' 80's films, and speaking as someone who saw CRACKING UP and HARDLY WORKING during their original theatrical runs, that's saying quite a bit.





Hi ho.


Title: Re: Kurt Vonnegut Has Died
Post by: fortunato on April 16, 2007, 09:04:38 PM
Although I'm an English major, Vonnegut is one author I have not had the pleasure of reading often, either for class or for pleasure. The Euphio Question is the only work of his I've read so far, but I'm looking forward to reading both Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five this summer to catch up. Vonnegut is one author I already am predisposed to liking based on the things I've read about him and his work.


Title: Re: Kurt Vonnegut Has Died
Post by: Derf on April 17, 2007, 08:33:27 AM
Slapstick is not a bad novel (Vonnegut never published a bad novel in my opinion), but the movie version did indeed suck doggie doo. I remember being excited about it (simply the fact that a Vonnegut novel was being filmed). When I saw it, however, I was pretty much slackjawed in horror at what they'd done. I have thankfully managed to block much of it out of my mind, but I still remember the severe disappointment in the adaptation.

Fortunato, I don't know your reading interests, but the two novels you mention as wanting to read this summer are quite good. I didn't care for Slaughterhouse Five the first time I read it, but I was still a bit intellectually immature then; it has grown on me tremendously. I regularly use Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron" in my classes (I'm an English instructor) and would use others if they were readily available to my students.


Title: Re: Kurt Vonnegut Has Died
Post by: fortunato on April 17, 2007, 10:48:49 AM
My sister read Harrison Bergeron and was in the play version of it in high school, if I recall correctly. She enjoyed it a lot, but surprisingly, I've never read it myself.

As far as my reading tastes go, here's a (partial) list:

H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, the 1960s Marvel Comics series, Robert E. Howard, Voltaire's novel Candide, Terry Pratchett, R. A. Salvatore (especially the novel Homeland and the Icewind Dale trilogy), Stephen King, F. Paul Wilson (starting on his stuff), Kipling, Stoker's Dracula, Wells, Dunsany (starting on his stuff), Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys, Heller's Catch-22, Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49, Bradbury, Yeats, Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress", Heine's "The Rose, The Lily, The Sun, and The Dove", Batman: The Long Halloween and Dark Victory and oh so many more novels, short stories, and poems.


Title: Re: Kurt Vonnegut Has Died
Post by: Raffine on April 17, 2007, 11:11:24 AM
Quote
Slapstick is not a bad novel (Vonnegut never published a bad novel in my opinion)


Yeas, I agree with you 100% on this. I do remember an essay in Palm Sunday where Vonnegut graded his own works, with Slapstick and his play Happy Birthday, Wanda June receiving the worst grades. Happy Birthday, Wanda June was made into a pretty terrible movie, too. Wanda June was played by Pamelyn Ferdin, everybody's favorite 70's child star! It used to play on late night TV but I don't think it's ever been released on VHS or DVD.

(http://www.weht.net/pics/pamelyn.jpeg)

Vonnegut grades his works:

Player Piano: B
The Sirens of Titan: A
Mother Night: A
Cat's Cradle: A-plus
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: A
Slaughterhouse-Five: A-plus
Welcome to the Monkey House: B-minus
Happy Birthday, Wanda June: D
Breakfast of Champions: C
Slapstick: D
Jailbird: A
Palm Sunday: C


Title: Re: Kurt Vonnegut Has Died
Post by: Pilgermann on April 17, 2007, 11:55:15 AM
Unfortunately I've only read Slaughterhouse-Five, but it was an excellent book.  It's a shame that he's passed away, but at least he left his mark in the world.


Title: Re: Kurt Vonnegut Has Died
Post by: Derf on April 17, 2007, 02:10:51 PM
My sister read Harrison Bergeron and was in the play version of it in high school, if I recall correctly. She enjoyed it a lot, but surprisingly, I've never read it myself.

As far as my reading tastes go, here's a (partial) list:

H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, the 1960s Marvel Comics series, Robert E. Howard, Voltaire's novel Candide, Terry Pratchett, R. A. Salvatore (especially the novel Homeland and the Icewind Dale trilogy), Stephen King, F. Paul Wilson (starting on his stuff), Kipling, Stoker's Dracula, Wells, Dunsany (starting on his stuff), Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys, Heller's Catch-22, Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49, Bradbury, Yeats, Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress", Heine's "The Rose, The Lily, The Sun, and The Dove", Batman: The Long Halloween and Dark Victory and oh so many more novels, short stories, and poems.


Based on your list of authors, I would say Vonnegut should be a good fit for you; his writing tends toward the fantastic (he actually began as a scifi writer who developed a strong enough style to be considered "Literary"), and he is often quite funny, though usually in a world-weary way (he manages to be both hilarious and depressing at the same time). In some ways, his novel Sirens of Titan is my favorite, but it is difficult to pick any one as being better or worse than any other; each has its own charm. Player Piano (his first published novel) moves a bit too slow for my taste, but the others are good enough to push me to read about subject matter that normally doesn't interest me (I don't tend to gravitate toward war stories).


Title: Re: Kurt Vonnegut Has Died
Post by: RCMerchant on April 17, 2007, 07:07:10 PM
My sister read Harrison Bergeron and was in the play version of it in high school, if I recall correctly. She enjoyed it a lot, but surprisingly, I've never read it myself.

As far as my reading tastes go, here's a (partial) list:

H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, the 1960s Marvel Comics series, Robert E. Howard, Voltaire's novel Candide, Terry Pratchett, R. A. Salvatore (especially the novel Homeland and the Icewind Dale trilogy), Stephen King, F. Paul Wilson (starting on his stuff), Kipling, Stoker's Dracula, Wells, Dunsany (starting on his stuff), Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys, Heller's Catch-22, Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49, Bradbury, Yeats, Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress", Heine's "The Rose, The Lily, The Sun, and The Dove", Batman: The Long Halloween and Dark Victory and oh so many more novels, short stories, and poems.

I'm a BIG Lovecraft fanatic myself. Some of  his older stuff,(ie the TOMB) are my favorites. The isolated stories,not included in the Mythos,are are fascinating,to me. 



Title: Re: Kurt Vonnegut Has Died
Post by: fortunato on April 18, 2007, 02:26:54 AM
As far a Lovecraft goes, I really like a majority of the stuff now referred to as the mythos stories. The Thing on the Doorstep and The Whisperer in Darkness are at the top my list. I do agree that much of his non-mythos stuff is fantastic, too. I like The Terrible Old Man, his anti-drinking diatribe Old Bugs, and his romance novel parody Sweet Ermengarde.