God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut: Readalikes

After visiting the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library over the holidays, I thought it might behoove me to celebrate my fellow Hoosier with a little notice in this blog. Vonnegut wrote several books, none of them very long, and if you like them, I have others to recommend to you.

Slaughterhouse-Five: Or The Children's Crusade, A Duty-Dance With Death is probably Vonnegut's most famous title, dealing with his experiences in World War II. Briefly, Billy Pilgrim is captured by the Germans and ends up in a POW camp in Dresden. When Dresden, occupied by Germans to old or sick to fight and of no strategic importance is bombed, Billy only survives because he is in an underground meat locker. He returns home to be an optometrist and perhaps a prisoner of the Tralfamadorians, a race of morally superior beings. How to Live Safely in A Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu is similar in its satirical and darkly humorous tone, and concerns a man trapped in a universe of his own making. It was constructed so that humans could travel through time and make changes in their past. The narrator, also named Charles Yu, is a white-collar repairman. Also similar to Vonnegut's tale is the disconnection in time, as Slaughterhouse-Five is somewhat stream-of-consciousness.

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Or, Pearls Before Swine is a slightly more cheerful tale from Mr. Vonnegut. Eliot Rosewater is the scion of a rapacious and rich family who returns to the town they despoiled to do good. Rosewater's simple decency leaves him wide open to the schemes of a young interloper out to prove Eliot is mentally unbalanced. Ed King by David Guterson is another tale of the well-meaning rich and follows the framework of the tale of Oedipus. Ed is adopted and rises to become a Google-like entrepreneur who has a thing for older women. After getting into a car crash, he meets the woman of his dreams, and the rest is myth. Guterson, like Vonnegut, is in on the cosmic joke.

Breakfast of Champions, Or, Goodbye Blue Monday follows one of Vonnegut's most memorable characters (and alter ego), Kilgore Trout, as he drives cross-country pursued by a deranged car salesman. Typical of Vonnegut, there are digressions on race, gender, and the state of America. Mostly, Vonnegut wants us to wake up and smell the rancid coffee that the country is becoming. Practical Jean by Trevor Cole is the story of Jean Vale Horemarsh, who, after nursing her mother through a terminal illness, decides to give all her close friends one perfect moment, then kill them as quickly and painlessly as possible. Like Vonnegut's car salesman, she's so convinced of her rectitude, she doesn't see her own fate coming. Once again, hilarity of the gallows variety prevails.

Vonnegut's books may be quick reads, but they are not easy ones. He was not happy with the state or direction of America, and he did his best to raise the alarm through his writing and lectures. These other authors may be trying to do the same thing. Either way, you'll be laughing your way to the end of the world as we know it.