What is Veeky Forumss opinion on this book?

What is Veeky Forumss opinion on this book?
I think it was funny and so on.

summer time

and the living's easy!

I'll admit I'm not a Veeky Forums regular so excuse me if I'm not too familiar with board-specific memes.
Can you explain what's actually wrong with the book?

It's fucking shit, as expected of Vonnegut.

elaborate, please

You're not going to get a serious answer, unfortunately. The hivemind has decided it doesn't like Vonnegut because reddit likes Vonnegut, and that's all there is to it.

I like Vonnegut and have liked him since I was a teenager. I think his writing style flows very well and is easy to read, like he is talking to you. However, I don't understand how everyone says he is funny. I think I've laughed out loud a total of two times while reading ten of his books. They are very soulful and interesting but not what I'd call funny.

I just remember the part where he was writing about how the guy had a big dick. Kind of gay

That was funny

Honestly one of his weaker books, the good story is overshadowed by the "muh dissection of american culture babababa" bullshit. Its just rally hit or miss. The parts with Trout are good, and the climax is pretty fun. The whole thing is just eh, and he has allot of far superior books.

Is it that they are too depressing for you to laugh at them? Cause he definitely makes jokes, so either that or you don't like his humor. I find them soulful and interesting, as well as very funny.

>he has allot of far superior books.

which would you recommend to someone who liked the humour of breakfast, but not so much the sci-fi elements and meta-writing shenanigans?

>Is it that they are too depressing for you to laugh at them? Cause he definitely makes jokes, so either that or you don't like his humor.
No I don't find them depressing. I mean, the subject matter is often depressing but I don't get sad when reading the books. I think I am just used to a more raucous type of comedy so Vonnegut seems clean by comparison.

Using blatant, dry statements for comedic purposes works really well although it gets kinda old after a while. I laughed the most during the first couple of pages where he shits all over America. Felt like an /int/ pasta if /int/ pastas were funny...

hey so theres this normal guy but also some bizarre science fiction stuff happens but hes SO FUCKING HUMAN and so it continues
-kurt vonnegut

That's accurate, but man KV is good!

he would be good if he had stopped after the first book instead of just rewriting it over and over

What do I get from it?

I like Vonnegut quite a bit in general, but I don't think this one is that great. I think his best novels are from earlier in his career, after Player Piano and before this one. What marks the best of his work is an underlying spirit of kindness and compassion, underneath the humor, the anger, and the absurdity. I didn't get this from BoC at all; to me the book had a much meaner underlying core.
Also I'm surprised to see that he's already been gone ten years now

No, that's not how it works. It is still good, if repetitive.

Did I like it?

Does his work really pick up after Player Piano, chronologically? I've read SH5, PP and BoC and of those 3 BoC was the clear standout, with Piano becoming so dull towards the end that I didn't even finish it. SH5 I liked the styling of but didn't find much other value.

The real strength of BoC is that final chapter, where Vonnegut goes balls-to-the-walls, PKD style surreal and cuts his own self-insert to the bone. If you interpret Trout to be something of a cynic, a realist anchored in a fairytale land of surreal or at least absurdist nonsense, the line 'Make me young' hits hard.

...

>grades himself without explaining the criteria for the grade
Gee, thanks

Kurt's ranking is pretty good but I would make some revisions:
Player Piano - D
Monkey House - C
Wanda June - C
Breakfast of Champions - A
Slapstick - B
Jailbird - C

Player Piano is his first book, dude.

Doesn't mean that his second book is instantly better, dude - and Player Piano was really in the hole.
I've got some fuckoff big collection of Vonnegut's work coming in at some point, but I'd rather not go in chronologically if the start is a slog.

Sirens of Titan, Mother Night, and Cat's Cradle are miles ahead of Player Piano. They might even be his best. Rosewater is very good too.

>Does his work really pick up after Player Piano, chronologically?
Why ask this way, when you say you read later books of his. It sounds like you're reading KV in some fucked up chronology. If you wanted to know if his second book is better than his first, just ask that. That's all.

These are his three greatest, imo.

I'm 200 pages in right now. Am I supposed to be confused by how disorganized it is? Or is my confusion going to be cleared up? Aside, it's hilarious, especially the bit about KFC

not op, but i think SF5 has less sci-fi stuff whilst handling the meta-writing a lot more carefully

The reason I say his best was after PP was that his style in that book is so different from the rest of his work. He picked up a much more economical style afterward, but PP is written really laboriously, with sentences that go on forever compared to his other work. It's not really a bad book, and it's a significant dystopia from its era, it just doesn't fit in with the rest of Vonnegut's oeuvre I think

BOC is great.
It's good throughout in a funny, but still serious way. The last few bits of the book are fantastic though, in a serious, but still funny way.

Dont know havent read it. Just finished slaughter house 5 and i dont give a shit what any of you say. It was a good book. Quick read and kept me entertained. So fuck you you pompus bastards

None of Vonnegut's "big" works are really sci-fi, excepting maybe Player Piano which is worse off for it. They're meta narratives, designed to sound and feel like sci-fi pulp.

>says this in a thread with people mostly praising KV and Slaughterhouse 5