"Most of my adult life has been spent in bringing to some kind of order sheets of paper eight and a half inches wide and eleven inches long."
— Kurt Vonnegut
This feisty, creative, sunny, prophetic, and paradoxical American writer was born on November 11, 1922. Over the years, many literary critics have been impressed by his short stories, novels, science fiction tales, essays, cultural criticism, and black comedies. Amazingly, all his books are still in print.
On the other hand, Vonnegut's writings have been banned in some libraries and scorned by patriots and lovers of the status quo, who think this author was trying to poison the minds of the young and turn them against their country and culture. For example, in Breakfast of Champions or Goodbye Blue Monday! the novelist lampooned the United States as a chamber of horrors where:
* human beings -- especially Blacks -- were used as machinery;
* people had arbitrary lusts for Gold, and, God help us, for a glimpse of a little girl's underpants;
* the military wrapped the war dead in large plastic envelopes;
* a fellow named Rockefeller owned more than some countries;
* one of the most expensive things a person could do was to get sick.
Why all the fuss over this Midwest writer? This enlightening documentary brilliantly conveys his eccentric life and prolific writings. For nearly 40 years, director Robert W. Weide immersed himself in Vonnegut's experiences as a soldier, a prisoner of war, a witness to the firebombing of Dresden in February 1945, a PR writer for General Electric, and a variety of other jobs. The documentary's title refers to the situation of the character Billy Pilgrim (based on Vonnegut experiences in World War II) in his novel Slaughterhouse Five.
Weide became good friends with Vonnegut, conducting countless interviews in his homes and while he was traveling. This also gave him access to his family and friends. He tags along for some key moments, including a visit to Shortridge High School in Indianapolis, Indiana, (Mary Ann Brussat's alma mater), where he honed his craft writing for the school newspaper. Vonnegut notes: "It was a swell experience for me because I learned to write journalistic style, which was to be clear and don't bluff and also to say as much as possible as quickly as possible. And my books are essentially that way. I give away the big secrets in the first page and tell people what's going to happen."
At one time, Vonnegut was an Honorary President of the American Humanist Association. He saw humor as a way of holding off how awful life can be; he also said humor can be a relief like an aspirin tablet. Elsewhere Vonnegut wrote: "If Christ hadn't delivered the Sermon on the Mount, with it's message of mercy and pity, I wouldn't want to be a human being. I'd just as soon be a rattlesnake."