A Man Without a Country
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
A Man Without a Country is Kurt Vonnegut's hilariously funny and razor-sharp look at life ("If I die--God forbid--I would like to go to heaven to ask somebody in charge up there, 'Hey, what was the good news and what was the bad news?"), art ("To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it."), politics ("I asked former Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton what he thought of our great victory over Iraq and he said, 'Mohammed Ali versus Mr. Rogers.'"), and the condition of the soul of America today ("What has happened to us?").
Based on short essays and speeches composed over the last five years and plentifully illustrated with artwork by the author throughout, A Man Without a Country gives us Vonnegut both speaking out with indignation and writing tenderly to his fellow Americans, sometimes joking, at other times hopeless, always searching.
Kurt Vonnegut is among the very few grandmasters of contemporary American letters, without whom the very term "American literature" would mean less than it does. His novels include Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five, among so many others. Projects with Seven Stories Press in recent years include God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian and, with Lee Stringer, Like Shaking Hands with God, a book about writing. His most recent novel is Timequake (1997).
The New York Times - A. O. Scott
A Man Without a Country is a fine place to start, especially since it can lead us back to Mother Night and Slaughterhouse-Five and The Sirens of Titan and the stories collected in Bagombo Snuff Box. In other words, it's like sitting down on the couch for a long chat with an old friend.
Publishers Weekly
In his first book since 1999, it's just like old times as Vonnegut (now 82) makes with the deeply black humor in this collection of articles written over the last five years, many from the alternative magazine In These Times. But the pessimistic wisecracks may be wearing thin; the conversational tone of the pieces is like Garrison Keillor with a savage undercurrent. Still, the schtick works fine most of the time, underscored by hand-lettered aphorisms between chapters. Some essays suffer from authorial self-indulgence, however, like taking a dull story about mailing a manuscript and stretching it to interminable lengths. Vonnegut reserves special bile for the "psychopathic personalities" (i.e., "smart, personable people who have no consciences") in the Bush administration, which he accuses of invading Iraq so America can score more of the oil to which we have become addicted. People, he says, are just "chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power." Of course, that's exactly the sort of misanthropy hardcore Vonnegut fans will lap up--the online versions of these pieces are already described as the most popular Web pages in the history of In These Times. (Sept.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Very brief essays, displaying the indignant humanism, pacifism and generosity of spirit that made Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five a touchstone of the Vietnam War era. Whether called essays, stories or "an autobiographical collage," this illustrated collection reflects the author's alarm and disgust at what he regards as the subversion of the democratic process by, and the manipulative deceptions of, the current presidential administration. He also denounces the corrupt profiteering of its cronies. As a polemicist, Vonnegut is unsubtle but often funny, as when he blames the unhappiness of the modern individual on the decline of the extended family, observing, "A few Americans, but very few, still have extended families. The Navahoes. The Kennedys." Occasionally, he is shrewd, as when he remarks that while "the most vocal Christians" want to post the Ten Commandments everywhere, no one is clamoring to put up The Beatitudes (Blessed are the meek . . . the peacemakers . . .) in courthouses. Unfortunately, there is a great deal of chaff that must be sifted away. In "Here is a lesson in creative writing," there is a slapdash reading of Hamlet, in which Vonnegut asserts of Polonius, "Shakespeare regards him as a fool and disposable." Vonnegut is at his best when he simply tells us about his enthusiasms: for socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs; for the 19th-century Viennese obstetrician Ignaz Semmelweis, whose work saved the lives of countless mothers and infants; and for Abraham Lincoln. Vonnegut cites a speech Lincoln made while still a member of the House, denouncing the opportunism of then-president Polk in embarking on the Mexican war. "Trusting to escape scrutiny by fixing thepublic gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory-that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood-that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy-he plunged into war."An invitation to survey our current circumstances as a nation.
The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates
Author: Ralph Ketcham
The dissenting opinions of Patrick Henry and others who saw the Constitution as a threat to our hard-won rights and liberties.
Edited and introduced by Ralph Ketcham.
Author Biography:
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