#vonnegut — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #vonnegut, aggregated by home.social.
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Kurt Vonnegut attended the University of Chicago on the G.I. Bill and took summer classes in order to keep lodging.
In his collection of essays on Palm Sunday, he informs the reader on how he ended up studying anthropology.
“I chose cultural anthropology, since it offered the greatest opportunity to write high-minded balderdash.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage
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Sirens of Titan holds a real special place in my heart. It influenced me in my teen years and gave me something to hold onto. These quotes help illustrate why:
“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.”
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“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan
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Kurt Vonnegut received his Master’s Degree in Anthropology. The University of Chicago considered his work ‘Cat’s Cradle’ to be a sufficient thesis.
He has a quote for me from Sirens of Titan that I think sums up anthropology well:
“There is room enough for an awful lot of people to be right about things and still not agree.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan
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CW: plot points of kurt vonnegut sirens of titan
The Sirens of Titan is a journey from Earth, Mars, Mercury, Earth and finally Titan.
On Mercury, Boaz, the companion of the main protagonist Unk becomes totally at peace and decides to stay. Boaz say’s the following:
“I found me a place where I can do good without doing any harm, and I can see I’m doing good, and them I’m doing good for know I’m doing it, and they love me, Unk, as best they can. I found me a home.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan
He becomes a caretaker figure for a local species of film like sheets which glow when exposed to frequencies. They cling to the rock walls of the caves of Mercury and feed on the vibrations. They love Boaz because they can lay on his body and enjoy him just being himself.
He finds a home where he can only do good without doing any harm.
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In the Kurt Vonnegut novel ‘Slapstick’, a failing US Gov’t eeks out a policy in its last days that everyone is to be assigned a middle name and a number.
All the middle names are based on words from the natural world. So you may be a Peanut-11 or a Squirrel-7 or Aluminium-4
Clubs pop up, people start connecting. Some folks are snooty with fancy names, some have humble names that fit them perfectly.
The idea is to give everyone a family. If you’re on hard times, you find some kin of your folk where you happen to be.
It is one of his most humane books but buried in one of his lesser read books.