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Sunday 18 October 2009

A Man Without A Country

Although I may sound like a discontented book buyer in this previous entry, I was happy with what I bought, most of it. Some required 'repair and restoration' because of their condition. But not all.



I was happy with finding this at the sale. This is the second last book released by the esteemed American novelist, Kurt Vonnegut, who wrote Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five. He passed away in 2007. I don't know much about American literature and never read any of Vonnegut's books.

A Man Without A Country is a collection of Vonnegut's writings on many issues. A few issues keep reappearing throughout the book like the US under the presidentship of George W. Bush and the state of the environment. He was over 70 when he wrote this, and many times he relates back to when he fought in Germany during WW2. Slaughterhouse Five was based on that experience.

I finished the 146-page book in a few hours. Vonnegut was difficult to put down, at least with this one. In a scant number of pages he goes from reflective to amusing to informative, visiting topics like writing, history, politics and human nature.

Some of the things from the books that made me stop to laugh and think.
I am, of course, notoriously hooked on cigarettes. I keep hoping the things will kill me. A fire at one end and a fool at the other.
Do you think the Arabs are dumb? They gave us our numbers. Try doing long division using Roman numerals.
When I got home from the Second World War, my Uncle Dan clapped me on the back, and he said, "You're a man now." So I killed him. Not really, but I certainly felt like doing it.

4 comments:

mudin001 said...

Haha, the quotes are hilarious, and so true. Esp, the second one!

r.o.l. said...

Sorry, bro, I'm moderating the comments because sometimes I missed them, especially if someone made a comment in older posts.

And yeah, they were many other moments like the above, but they we would take longer to type. :-)

dzul said...

Now I'm interested to look for this. But uhh, I still have some others that still laying down in my room.-_-|

r.o.l. said...

It's a slim 160-page book with pages of drawings and sketches. Finished it quickly because it was very engrossing.

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