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FOT Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: Andy on March 11, 2008, 11:53:35 PM

Title: monkeyhouse
Post by: Andy on March 11, 2008, 11:53:35 PM: I bought this book of short stories tonight. i've never read K Vonn. before. did I make a decent first choice?
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: Jason on March 12, 2008, 05:57:38 AM: It rocks the fat ass.
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: Sarah on March 12, 2008, 06:14:31 AM: It's a good gateway book. Vonnegut wraps despair in a funny and fun package, so you can get started just about anywhere, though.
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: masterofsparks on March 12, 2008, 06:30:32 AM: What does the little cell phone icon next to this thread mean? Is this supposed to indicate that the thread was started on an Iphone?
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: Martin on March 12, 2008, 07:13:46 AM: It means Andy is posting from his phone like he's some kind of big shot.
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: Shaggy 2 Grote on March 12, 2008, 09:57:41 AM: You did, Andy, though I'd recommend one of the big ones, like Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions, Cat's Cradle, or Jailbird to start.
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: Sarah on March 12, 2008, 10:10:26 AM: Cat's Cradle was my first. My daddy told me the story when I was a wee thing sitting on his knee, and I read it as soon as I could.
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: Shaggy 2 Grote on March 12, 2008, 10:17:06 AM: I read Breakfast of Champions when I was maybe 10 and thought it was hilarious - Vonnegut drawing a picture of his asshole! And it's basically an asterisk! - but then read it again at 16 or so and was struck by how unbearably sad it was.
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: Spoony on March 12, 2008, 10:28:56 AM: I read Cat's Cradle first. My father had a big box of them in the attic and I started reading them young because I liked the cover illustrations. A side effect of this is that I understood maybe half of what I read and now I'm nonplussed over the apocalypse.

Monkey House is great though, and will slide through that iPhone nice and easy if you can find it online.

C
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: buffcoat on March 12, 2008, 10:31:40 AM: I like his short stories better than his novels (though I still like his novels). Monkey House is really, really good. Especially Harrison Bergeron.
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: bruce on March 12, 2008, 10:45:05 AM: Quote from: buffcoat on March 12, 2008, 10:31:40 AM
I like his short stories better than his novels (though I still like his novels). Monkey House is really, really good. Especially Harrison Bergeron.
I totally agree with you Buffcoat
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: Sarah on March 12, 2008, 10:48:52 AM: I found Vonnegut entertaining but immensely silly and obvious when I first read him. It didn't help that all around were all these kids ooh-ing and ah-ing about how wonderful and deep he was, which of course predisposed me to despise him, contrarian that I sometimes am. It was only when I picked up his books decades later that I came to appreciate him. And even then I preferred his later stuff to his early antics.
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: Spoony on March 12, 2008, 10:59:53 AM: Does anyone remember Sanpcase's song Harrison Bergeron? Blah. Let's take a great story and run it through the adolescent hardcore meat-grinder. Now jocks can appreciate it!
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: Amplituden on March 12, 2008, 11:09:42 AM: I really enjoyed Bluebeard and Dead-Eye Dick.
Check those out.
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: Andy on March 12, 2008, 11:12:15 AM: the band Dead-eye dick?
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: Jason on March 12, 2008, 11:29:41 AM: Kurt Vonnegut is pretty shit. I mean its readable but only in the same that the Archies are listenable, nothing to get excited about.
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: Sarah on March 12, 2008, 11:39:58 AM: But I respond to his good-natured despair, Jason. I'm always a sucker for that.
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: samir on March 12, 2008, 11:51:28 AM: I really enjoyed 'Man Without a Country', the autobiography, more than any novels I've read of his.
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: Putin on March 12, 2008, 02:25:23 PM: Quote from: samir on March 12, 2008, 11:51:28 AM
I really enjoyed 'Man Without a Country', the autobiography, more than any novels I've read of his.

i happened to be finishing that the day i found out he died. what a book.
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: buffcoat on March 12, 2008, 04:19:23 PM: Quote from: Sarah on March 12, 2008, 10:48:52 AM
I found Vonnegut entertaining but immensely silly and obvious when I first read him. It didn't help that all around were all these kids ooh-ing and ah-ing about how wonderful and deep he was, which of course predisposed me to despise him, contrarian that I sometimes am. It was only when I picked up his books decades later that I came to appreciate him. And even then I preferred his later stuff to his early antics.

Sarah, I have you pegged as a Richard Bach fan, am I right?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha!
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: Amplituden on March 12, 2008, 04:21:51 PM: Quote from: Andy on March 12, 2008, 11:12:15 AM
the band Dead-eye dick?

Yes start with the band, they are great, New Age Girl is a great tune to start with.

Then the book is almost as good.
Title: Re: monkeyhouse
Post by: Sarah on March 12, 2008, 04:28:06 PM: Quote from: buffcoat on March 12, 2008, 04:19:23 PM
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha!

Not only did I have to read Jonathan Livingston Seagull for a horrible business course I was required to take in community college, the teacher made us listen to it while sitting in a darkened room.

The horror.