Vonnegut Effect

Vonnegut Effect

  • Auteur: Klinkowitz, Jerome
  • Éditeur: University of South Carolina Press
  • ISBN: 9781611170078
  • eISBN Pdf: 9781611171143
  • eISBN Epub: 9781611171143
  • Lieu de publication:  South Carolina , United States
  • Année de publication électronique: 2012
  • Mois : Juin
  • Langue: Anglais

A defining analysis of the entire span of Kurt Vonnegut's fiction

Kurt Vonnegut is one of the few American writers since Mark Twain to have won and sustained a great popular acceptance while boldly introducing new themes and forms on the literary cutting edge. This is the "Vonnegut effect" that Jerome Klinkowitz finds unique among postmodernist authors.

In this innovative study of the author's fiction, Klinkowitz examines the forces in American life that have made Vonnegut's works possible. Vonnegut shared with readers a world that includes the expansive timeline from the Great Depression, during which his family lost their economic support, through the countercultural revolt of the 1960s, during which his fiction first gained prominence. Vonnegut also explored the growth in recent decades of America's sway in art, which his fiction celebrates, and geopolitics, which his novels question.

A pioneer in Vonnegut studies, Jerome Klinkowitz offers The Vonnegut Effect as a thorough treatment of the author's fiction—a canon covering more than a half century and comprising twenty books. Considering both Vonnegut's methods and the cultural needs they have served, Klinkowitz explains how those works came to be written and concludes with an assessment of the author's place in American fiction.

  • Cover
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • Dedication Page
  • Table of Contents
  • Preface
  • Acknowledgments
  • A Key to Abbreviations
  • Introduction: Vonnegut in America
  • Chapter One: Coming to Terms with Theme: Early Stories and Player Piano
  • Chapter Two: Coming to Terms with Technique: The Sirens of Titan, Mother Night, Cat’s Cradle, and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
  • Chapter Three: Speaking Personally: Slaughterhouse-Five and the Essays
  • Chapter Four: Speaking Famously: Happy Birthday, Wanda June
  • Chapter Five: Speaking Cosmically: Galápagos, Bluebeard, and Hocus Pocus
  • Chapter Six: The Autobiography of a Novel: Timequake
  • Conclusion Vonnegut in Fiction
  • Bibliography
  • Index

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