Present Of Books God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
| Title | : | God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian |
| Author | : | Kurt Vonnegut Jr. |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 80 pages |
| Published | : | May 22nd 2001 by Washington Square Press (first published 1999) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Humor. Short Stories. Classics. Science Fiction |
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Paperback | Pages: 80 pages Rating: 3.84 | 14447 Users | 729 Reviews
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From Slapstick's "Turkey Farm" to Slaughterhouse-Five's eternity in a Tralfamadorean zoo cage with Montana Wildhack, the question of the afterlife never left Kurt Vonnegut's mind. In God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian, Vonnegut skips back and forth between life and the Afterlife as if the difference between them were rather slight. In thirty odd "interviews," Vonnegut trips down "the blue tunnel to the pearly gates" in the guise of a roving reporter for public radio, conducting interviews: with Salvatore Biagini, a retired construction worker who died of a heart attack while rescuing his schnauzer from a pit bull, with John Brown, still smoldering 140 years after his death by hanging, with William Shakespeare, who rubs Vonnegut the wrong way, and with socialist and labor leader Eugene Victor Debs, one of Vonnegut's personal heroes.What began as a series of ninety-second radio interludes for WNYC, New York City's public radio station, evolved into this provocative collection of musings about who and what we live for, and how much it all matters in the end. From the original portrait by his friend Jules Feiffer that graces the cover, to a final entry from Kilgore Trout, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian remains a joy.
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| Original Title: | God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian |
| ISBN: | 0743422007 (ISBN13: 9780743422000) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Kilgore Trout, Isaac Asimov, Eugene V. Debs, Clarence Darrow, St. Peter, Isaac Newton, John Brown, William Blake, James Earl Ray, Jack Kevorkian, Kurt Vonnegut, Adolf Hitler, William Shakespeare |
Rating Of Books God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
Ratings: 3.84 From 14447 Users | 729 ReviewsArticle Of Books God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
He's up in Heaven now.He's up in Heaven now.
Collection of vignettes, wherein V acts as reporter from beyond the grave, interviewing various dead persons. Point of the collection for real is a fundraiser for public radio, and each piece seems as though it couldve been an on-air sketch.Standard V stuff: witty, lefty, sometimes silly. Faux interviews with John Brown, Clarence Darrow, Eugene Debs, Shakespeare, Hitler, Isaac Newton, James Earl Ray, Mary Shelley, Asimov. Kilgore Trout also gets interviewed.Notes interesting factoids, such as
Vonnegut's eccentric whimsy shines through in this book, which is split into short segments documenting an interview in Heaven with a dead person. The brevity was perfect, capturing a thought just simple enough to be potentially profound.
About twenty 2-to-3 page vignettes in which a fictional version of Vonnegut himself interviews all manner of deceased people, from the famous to the not so famous, in the tunneled entrance to what amounts to a Christian version of Heaven. There are gems of Vonnegutian (is that a word?) wisdom throughout, and lots of bits of high-brow humor (sometimes too high-brow, for my tastes), but there lacks any sort of overarching narrative or message to the book, an omission that wouldve catapulted this
The first thing I must admit is that this is not what I expected. I was expecting either an endorsement of or a condemnation of the controversial doctor. I personally think the good doctor did a valuable service for those who asked him for that service. If my earth journey happens to end in sickness and pain, I hope there is someone as compassionate as Dr. Kevorkian to help me cross the bridge. I doubt that such a person will be allowed by the medical, legal, and religious people who insist that
I love this excellent little book. I've been a fan of Kurt Vonnegut's since I first read Slaughterhouse-Five many years ago. This little book exceeded my expectations. I hope Mr Vonnegut is still writing now, down at the other end of the blue tunnel.
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