"That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book"

March 2, 2014 3:53 PM

Kurt Vonnegut Reads Slaughterhouse-Five in 6 parts. Via discogs.

Here is the text of the book (pdf).

posted by growabrain (22 comments total)

Here is (the full) Ethan Hawke's version
posted by growabrain at 3:57 PM on March 2, 2014 [1 favorite]

Post-traumatic stress disorder.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 4:23 PM on March 2, 2014 [1 favorite]

Paging Billy...errr...William Corgan!
posted by NoMich at 4:28 PM on March 2, 2014 [1 favorite]

KV reads 215 pages in just over fifty-one minutes?

Well, not consecutive minutes.
posted by hal9k at 5:00 PM on March 2, 2014 [6 favorites]

Is this the whole book, or is it an abridged version? I've never read the book and I'd love to experience it for the first time in Vonnegut's own voice, but I want to make sure it's the entire thing.
posted by archagon at 5:18 PM on March 2, 2014

Kurt Vonnegut Diagrams the Shape of All Stories in a Master’s Thesis Rejected by U. Chicago
posted by homunculus at 5:23 PM on March 2, 2014 [3 favorites]

It's abridged.
posted by meinvt at 5:27 PM on March 2, 2014

Rats. :(
posted by archagon at 5:39 PM on March 2, 2014

Aren't those diagrams in A Man Without A Country? Except drawn in the charming Vonnegut style and not as an "infographic"?
posted by NoraReed at 6:52 PM on March 2, 2014

There can never be enough Vonnegut.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:11 PM on March 2, 2014 [1 favorite]

Between 1997 and 2001, in Denver, Colorado, I was fortunate enough to see two public appearances by Vonnegut-- a showing of his prints and a reading with a question and answer period. He had already been claiming to have retired by then and I poorly phrased a question about societal taboos and publishing postumously (as Twain had with Letters from Earth). What he sussed from my nervous adoration was: What are subjects too controversial to address? His reply: Abortion and Israel end any dinner conversation.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 9:11 PM on March 2, 2014 [6 favorites]

This is wonderful, even abridged.
posted by JHarris at 12:29 AM on March 3, 2014

This is what I commented in the YouTube comments to the second section, upon noticing it had less than 3,000 hits:

Everyone should hear this.

I don't say everyone should have to hear this, but rather everyone should want to hear it, hear it voluntarily. If you don't want to you don't have to, but take it from me: you should want to.

You should want to very badly.
posted by JHarris at 12:35 AM on March 3, 2014 [2 favorites]

Of note: part seven is missing.
posted by JHarris at 12:49 AM on March 3, 2014

The Wikipedia page on the Dresden bombings makes makes for some interesting side reading.
posted by rongorongo at 3:36 AM on March 3, 2014

When the Missouri public schools banned Slaughterhouse Five in 2011, the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library offered gratis copies of the book to kids in the affected school districts.

The Library is a pretty great place to stop if you're ever in Indianapolis.
posted by steinwald at 6:29 AM on March 3, 2014 [4 favorites]

I honestly think I'm the only person who hated this book.
posted by stormpooper at 7:21 AM on March 3, 2014

I honestly think I'm the only person who hated this book.

That's 100% ok but probably it means you don't really belong in this thread!
posted by Riton at 11:31 AM on March 3, 2014

By a door
posted by growabrain at 1:41 PM on March 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

This might be a good place to re-ask my question: Why is George Jean Nathan the only person in Slaughterhouse-Five whose death does not merit a "So it goes"?
posted by straight at 4:02 PM on March 3, 2014

That's 100% ok but probably it means you don't really belong in this thread!

Nonsense. People who don't care about the book probably don't belong in this thread. Stormpooper—and any others who hate the book, if they exist—should be welcome here.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:03 AM on March 4, 2014

Bad news: Kurt Vonnegut’s bleak advice to humankind in 2088
posted by homunculus at 11:16 PM on March 26, 2014 [1 favorite]