Kurt Vonnegut - 5 e-books by the author, created in the spirit of postmodernism and science fiction

Kurt Vonnegut is a cult writer who has long been considered one of the most important and at the same time the most controversial figures in American culture. He was rewarded as often as he was ridiculed and condemned. He is part of the group of so-called "Black Humorists", Kurt Vonnegut created thought-provoking literature, outlined characters with many threads, mixed the space and time of the situations described, he also willingly drew from science fiction, played with plot and narrative forms. The following is a chronological list of the author's most famous books.

The Mechanical Piano is Vonnegut's debut novel, set in a dystopian setting. It is a sharp and brilliant satire of a man who is fascinated by the machines with which he is successively replaced. The world after the "second industrial revolution" cannot cope with the development, which he accelerated with a vengeance. Computers are beginning to dictate every aspect of human life. The protagonist of The Mechanical Piano, Paul Proteus, who comes from the medical caste and is never replaced by machines, joins the rebellion. The struggle to restore the old order begins. In The Mechanical Piano, the author skillfully quotes the truth through a dense sieve of irony.

"Cat's Cradle" is a fatalistic literature. Here the reader is confronted with a vision of the end of the world, a declared religion based mainly on the lies of Bokonism. The apocalypse should come not because of the wrath of God, but because of the scientist Felix Hoenikker, who took possession of a substance called ice-9. Ice-9 is dangerous enough to destroy humanity. The name of the book "Cat's Cradle" - comes from the way you wind threads around your fingers for pleasure. Hoenikker spent time with this entertainment on the day when the world was plunged into chaos after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Honikker is a cynical servant, a brilliant chemist, and an unscrupulous man. After his death, ice-9 falls into the wrong hands, or rather, his three children. In "Cat's Cradle" lies triumph, everything seems to be a useless hoax, because the truth has long ceased to be attractive. There is also the specter of the belief that eventually every invention will become a weapon against humanity.

The protagonist of "Slaughterhouse ..." Billy Pilgrim survived the bombing of Dresden and was captured in a German prisoner of war camp. After the war, he returns home and starts a family. He gets into a car accident that changes his ordinary life once and for all. From that moment on, Billy gets into a flying saucer and begins to time travel through his life. During one of these trips, he even ends up in a zoo on a planet with the mysterious name Tralfamador. Slaughterhouse Five... refers to anti-war novels. It repeats postulates about the senselessness and cruelty of war; people die in war, terrible crimes are committed, and war is the state of a sick soul.

In Breakfast of Champions, Vonnegut engages the reader in a critical anti-American story that encourages reflection on the value of a person, comprehend and objectify it. The protagonist of Breakfast of Champions is an elderly, embittered, and underappreciated science fiction writer, Kilgore Trout, who makes a living by installing windows. One day, a man receives (as he thinks, because of a cruel joke) an invitation to an art festival. Intrigued, but also eager to boycott the event, he gets into his car and travels around the United States, getting there with some trouble. Breakfast of Champions is full of different, often unrelated themes.

Kilgore Trout was the alter ego of the author who died in the pages of Timequake in 1997 at the age of 84. Vonnegut was the same age at the time of his death. The novel was filmed in 1999 by director Alan Rudolph. Breakfast of Champions starred Albert Finney, Bruce Willis and Nick Nolte.

Bluebeard is a comedy of errors, a book within a book filled with dark humor, a form of Vonnegut's fictional autobiography that ends up parodying it. The protagonist of Rabo Karabekyan is a character for whom the storage of potatoes is the most important thing. The key to it is kept in the greatest possible holiness. No one knows what is hidden in the mysterious little building, and this causes an explosion of various speculations. A whole story is built around the potato cache, telling about the extraordinary life of ordinary people.

All books by the author