verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора 1969, photo by Israel Shenker

verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора How to write with style
By Kurt Vonnegut
via

Newspaper reporters and technical writers are trained to reveal almost nothing about themselves in their writings. This makes them freaks in the world of writers, since almost all of the other ink-stained wretches in that world reveal a lot about themselves to readers. We call these revelations, accidental and intentional, elements of style.

These revelations tell us as readers what sort of person it is with whom we are spending time. Does the writer sound ignorant or informed, stupid or bright, crooked or honest, humorless or playful--? And on and on.

Why should you examine your writing style with the idea of improving it? Do so as a mark of respect for your readers, whatever you're writing. If you scribble your thoughts any which way, your readers will surely feel that you care nothing about them. They will mark you down as an egomaniac or a chowderhead--or worse, they will stop reading you.

The most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you do not know what is interesting and what is not. Don't you yourself like or dislike writers mainly for what they choose to show you or make you think about? Did you ever admire an empty-headed writer for his or her mastery of the language? No.

So your own winning style must begin with ideas in your head.

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verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора Delacorte Press paperback covers (part 2)
part 1



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verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора Uniformity and Deformity in "Harrison Bergeron"
An exploration of the main theme of "Harrison Bergeron"
Marek Vit

In this essay, I will attempt to explore what Kurt Vonnegut illustrated in his short story "Harrison Bergeron"--the fact that uniformity (of any kind) leads to the loss of individuality, and therefore to absolute deformity of humanness.
"The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal," the story begins. "They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal in every which way." (Vonnegut 1968:7) In this haunting story, Vonnegut probably wanted to warn our society of similar kind of equality, equality that can be fatal for human race.
The theme of absolute equality has already appeared two years before "Harrison Bergeron" was published for the first time in Fantasy and Science-Fiction Magazine (1961). It was Vonnegut's novel The Sirens of Titan. However, in this work the theme is only a minor feature and is not really developed (see Vonnegut 1975:158). The idea probably intrigued Kurt Vonnegut and forced him to develop it into a short story. Those who are familiar with Kurt Vonnegut's writing will certainly recognize some other themes of this story. For example the fear of de-humanization of human beings, being stuck in amber (Harrisons inability to overthrow the system) and so forth.
In "Harrison Bergeron", Kurt Vonnegut presented a scary view of a future society, where everyone was equal. "Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else." (Vonnegut 1988:7). It was the job of the agents of the United States Handicapper General to keep it this way. Beautiful people had to wear ugly masks. People not heavy enough had to wear handicap bags full of lead. Clever people had to wear a radio in their ear tuned to the government transmitter, which sent out sharp noises to keep people from taking advantage of their brains. It was a world where competition was the greatest of sins.
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verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора

'cause thus spoke vonnegut

verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора

В новом романе Курта Воннегута «Фокус-покус» главный герой решает не сквернословить и ограничиваться выражениями вроде «вот кусок экскрементов!», «что за головка пениса!», «какой дом терпимости!». Очень уместная инициатива – когда цитируемые газетами политические мужи звучат как дворники, а на телеэкранах появляются почтенные синьоры, обсуждающие насущные проблемы при помощи выражений, эксплицитно относящихся к частям тела, обычно укрытым так называемым нижним бельем.

verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора Быть родом со Среднего Запада
Курт Воннегут

via vonnegut.ru

«Вот человек, давно душою мертв,
нам от него не суждено услышать слов:
"Здесь Родина моя, мой дом, мой кров"…»*

Если лишить эти знаменитые патриотические строки шотландца сэра Вальтера Скотта (1771-1832) национально-романтической окраски, то получится вот что: Люди, к счастью для них самих, рождаются на свет с таким же территориальным инстинктом, который есть у лесных волков и пчел. Еще недавно считалось, что удаляться слишком далеко от места рождения и от родственников для людей равноценно самоубийству.

Этот ужас перед пересечением четко определенных географических границ до сих пор имеет право на существование во многих частях света – например, в бывшей европейской стране Югославии, или в африканской стране Руанде. Однако сегодня этот ужас стал излишним подсознательным грузом на большей части территории Северной Америки – слава Богу, слава Богу. Он все еще жив в этой стране – как живы и многие другие устаревшие инстинкты выживания, как все еще живы многие чувства и повадки, которые в основном безвредны, а иногда даже забавны.

Поэтому я, а также миллионы мне подобных, говорим незнакомцам при встрече, что мы родом со Среднего Запада, словно нам полагается за это какая-нибудь медаль. В нашу защиту я могу сказать только, что уроженцам Техаса и Бруклина присуще еще более нелепое территориальное тщеславие.

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verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора

Rommel13

verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора

'cause thus spoke vonnegut

verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора from "The Sirens of Titan" (1959)

Salo was from another galaxy, from the Small Magellanic Cloud. He was four and a half feet tall.
Salo had a skin with the texture and color of the skin of an Earthling tangerine.
Salo had three light deer-like legs. His feet were of an extraordinarily interesting design, each being an inflatable sphere. By inflating these spheres to the size of German batballs, Salo could walk on water. By reducing them to the size of golf balls, Salo could bound over hard surfaces at high speeds. When he deflated the spheres entirely, his feet became suction cups. Salo could walk up walls.
Salo had no arms. Salo had three eyes, and his eyes could perceive not only the so-called visible spectrum, but infrared and ultraviolet and X-rays as well. Salo was punctual - that is, he lived one moment at a time - and he liked to tell Rumfoord that he would rather see the wonderful colors at the far ends of the spectrum than either the past or the future.
This was something of a weasel, since Salo had seen, living a moment at a time, far more of the past and far more of the Universe than Rumfoord had. He remembered more of what he had seen, too.
Salo's head was round and hung on gimbals.
His voice was an electric noise-maker that sounded like a bicycle horn. He spoke five thousand languages, fifty of them Earthling languages, thirty-one of them dead Earthling languages.
...
He was a machine, like all Tralfamadorians.
He was held together by cotter pins, hose clamps, nuts, bolts, and magnets. Salo's tangerine-colored skin, which was so expressive when he was emotionally disturbed, could be put on or taken off like an Earthling wind-breaker. A magnetic zipper held it shut.

from "Slaughterhouse-Five; or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death" (1969)

Another month went by without incident, and then Billy wrote a letter to the Ilium News Leader, which the paper published. It described the creatures from Tralfamadore.
The letter said that they were two feet high, and green., and shaped like plumber's friends. Their suction cups were on the ground, and their shafts, which were extremely flexible, usually pointed to the sky. At the top of each shaft was a little hand with a green eye in its palm. The creatures were friendly, and they could see in four dimensions. They pitied Earthlings for being able to see only three. They had many wonderful things to teach Earthlings, especially about time. Billy promised to tell what some of those wonderful things were in his next letter.
Billy was working on his second letter when the first letter was published. The second letter started out like this:
'The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.
'When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is "so it goes."'
And so on.

verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора Kurt Vonnegut and his dog
via

verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора Who Am I This Time? (1982)

Director: Jonathan Demme
Writer: Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Neal Miller

Genre: Romance

Cast:
Susan Sarandon
Christopher Walken
Robert Ridgely
Dorothy Patterson
Caitlin Hart
Les Podewell
Aaron Freeman
Jerry Vile
Paula Frances
Mike Bacarella
Ron Parady
Debbi Hopkins
Maria Todd
Edie Vonnegut

Run Time: 53 minutes

Video: XVID 624x480 29.97fps 1722Kbps
Audio: MPEG Audio Layer 3 48000Hz mono 113Kbps

(оригинальный звук)

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verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора Kurt Vonnegut by WritersMugs

verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора << Все действующие лица, места и события в этой книге – подлинные. Некоторые высказывания и мысли по необходимости сочинены автором. Ни одно из имен не изменено ради того, чтобы оградить невиновных, ибо Господь Бог хранит невинных по долгу своей небесной службы. >>

<< Как ни пытайся объяснить покороче, что такое хроносинкластический инфундибулум, обязательно вызовешь возмущение специалистов. >>

<< Говорю вам, мистер Констант, – сказал он благодушно, – неблагодарное это. дело – твердить людям, что мы живем в жестокой, суровой Вселенной. >>

<< Короче говоря, все – от простого здравого смысла до глубочайших научных знаний – говорило не в пользу исследований космоса.
Давно миновало то время, когда одна нация старалась переплюнуть другую, запуская в бездонную пустоту разные тяжелые предметы. >>

<< Открытие хроно-синкластических инфундибулумов как бы сказало всему человечеству «С чего это вы взяли, что вы куда-то доберетесь?» >>

<< Люди, которым ничего не обещали, не получив ничего, чувствовали, что их бессовестно провели. >>

<< Значит, весь этот тарарам-всего лишь научно-теологическое упражнение: живые люди хотят узнать хоть что-нибудь о цели и назначении жизни. >>

<< Порой мне кажется, что создавать думающую и чувствующую материю было большой ошибкой. Она вечно жалуется. Тем не менее я готов признать, что валуны, горы и луны можно упрекнуть в некоторой бесчувственности. >>

<< Все население Марса прибыло с Земли. Они надеялись, что на Марсе им будет легче жить. Никто не может вспомнить, чем плоха была жизнь на Земле. >>

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verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора via

verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора Leonard Mustazza - Forever Pursuing the Genesis
The Sirens of Titan and the "Paradise Within"

47
As in the case of many of Vonnegut's novels..., the movement towards Eden [the discovery of the paradise within on the Edenic Titan for Malachi and Beatrice] of sorts begins with its antithesis, the fallen world... The primary case of its trouble, Vonnegut is careful to point out, has to do with the spiritual alienation of the species, the sense that life is without inherent meaning colliding with the desperate belief that there must be some source of meaning out there somewhere.

48
Rumfoord: he exists now as a wave phenomenon that materializes on earth only at fixed intervels, the miraculous materializations that people so avidly await. More importantly, at the same time that he lost his physical substantialit, he gained certain extraordinary talents, including ability to read minds (22) and to see into future (24). He does not hesitate to use these talents in his self-appointed mission to reorder human priorities and thus save humankind from meaningless.
The Church of God the Uttery Indifferent

49
(as in piano and other novels?) Feelings are unimportant to Rumfoord, and people are expendable. The experiment is all.

51
He also sees it that they handicap themselves with weights and other devices meant to hamper natural human advantages. In effect, Rumfoord has nothing less than to remake the human species, not in his own image, for he will remain superior and (52) unhandicapped, but in an image that he considers good.

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verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора Kurt Vonnegut by Nathan Fox
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verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора Photo by Scott Langley

verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1971)

(фильм по одноименной пьесе Курта Воннегута 1970 года, переписаннной из начального варианта "Penelope" 1960 года)

Director: Mark Robson
Writer: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Genre: Comedy / Drama

Cast:
Rod Steiger as Harold Ryan
Susannah York as Penelope Ryan
George Grizzard as Dr. Norbert Woodley
Don Murray as Herb Shuttle
William Hickey as Looseleaf Harper
Steven Paul as Paul Ryan
Pamelyn Ferdin as Wanda June
Pamela Saunders as Mildred Ryan
Louis Turenne as Major von Koningswald
C.C. Whitney as Mrs. Kestenbaum
Lester Goldsmith as Mr. Kestenbaum

Run Time: 105 minutes

Video: XVID 688x496 25.00fps 1144Kbps
Audio: Dolby AC3 48000Hz stereo 384Kbps

(русский перевод)

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verbava (vonnegut) все записи автора Leonard Mustazza - Forever Pursuing the Genesis
The Machine Within - Player Piano

33
Vonnegut's artistic originality lies, I think, precisely ih his deliberate avoidance of easy categorisation, his refusal to write derivative formula fiction, an nowhere is his originality of vision better displayed than in his first novel, Player Piano.

34
What I would like to suggest here is that, rather than exploring the extent to which the novel is derivative or classifiable, we apply the question of genre to Vonnegut's narrative technique. When we do that, we discover something quite surprising that reveals both Vonnegut's awareness of his literary predecessors and his own unique view of such concepts as political and personal freedom and the human condition generally.
Through roughly the first half of Player Piano, Vonnegut writes--quite deliberately, I am convinced--a standard and ostensibly derivative dystopian novel... Paul Proteus's discontent with his lot and his society is very much like that of Orwell's Winstton Smith or Huxley's Bernard Marx. What is more, Paul's search for an "Edenic alternative"--presented precisely in those mythic terms--is also doomed to failurbecause it is to remote from the concerns of his society. Following that failure, however, Paul's life takes an interesting turn... [Vonnegut] now leads his protagonist down the darker paths of the human psyche: Paul's forsed conscription as a head of a rebel movement; the revelation of Paul's own deep-seated resentments agains his father and his resultant prejudice toward the society his father had helped to create; and, finally, his realisation that the rebels he has joined with are motivated to act not out of social consciousness or altruism, but out of mere vengeance and, vorse, boredom.
Though human beings in the novel are not portrayed as altogether lacking in will--an idea that grows more and more pronounced in Vonnegut's fiction over the years--they are nevertheless seen as the products of dark inner forces, inner machines, as it were, that impel them to act and to believe they do so only by choice.

35
Placed within the familiar generic context, Vonnegut's version of the future as political nightmare would seem the weakest of the well-known dystopian visions, the most ambiguous in terms of what the protagonist wants out of life and what he dislikes about the society in which he holds so high place... Paul is like a person who, after reading a historical fiction, wistfully longs to have lived at an earlier time, a more exciting and tumultuous period, anything other than the boring present. This, so to speak, "literary bias" is further suggested by Vonnegut's allusions to the conventional myths of the golden age and Judgement Day.

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